A Different Perspective Official Podcast
God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we’re travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that’s what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.
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A Certain Hope for Tomorrow // A Life Eternal, Part 5
04/25/2025
A Certain Hope for Tomorrow // A Life Eternal, Part 5
Life without hope for tomorrow is sad and dark and lonely. If God is God, if He really loves us, then surely, He’d want us to have hope for the future. Wouldn’t He? Have you ever been in a place where you’ve lost all hope? Hope as it turns out is a precious, precious commodity. We all need things in our lives to look forward to; to hope in – the deep sense that we have a future; we know where we are going. When there’s no future, it’s tragic; when you lose all hope, well, it feels like life’s over. And that’s the problem with death, we all die at some point. Some die young, others watch their bodies progressively give up the ghost. But if God’s God; if He really loves us the way the Bible says He does, then hope would have to be very high on His list because the last thing He’d want is for us to experience hopelessness. And it turns out that hope is very high on His list. That’s what this whole "resurrection of Jesus Christ" thing is all about. It’s a funny thing, when things are going really bad in our lives, hope evaporates very quickly. And look at the twelve disciples: over and over again Jesus told them that He would be crucified and rise again; He told them over and over and over again. Yet, when it happened, they scattered to the four winds. They deserted Him and they completely lost sight of His promise – the promise of the resurrection. Actually, most of them needed convincing when, in fact, it happened. On that Easter morning, a lot of them went, “Really?” and it’s not surprising, I mean, it’s a pretty hard thing to come to grips with. In a sense we are just the same. Life takes a turn for the worse and the first thing to go out the window is hope. It’s kind of natural. In the Old Testament, in the Book of First Chronicles chapter 29 verse 15, it says: Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. I want to get in you face right now for a bit because we need some good teaching on hope. When we put our trust in Jesus in the good times, what happens is we lay down our lives – we love Him, we adore Him, we worship Him, we follow Him with our lives. I tell you what happens when the storm clouds start rolling in, something strange and new and wonderful happens in our hearts. This light of hope in Jesus Christ shines out and it won’t go out and you know, I didn’t understand that until I read this small verse in the New Testament, in the book of First Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, and Peter writes this: Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ because by His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for us who have been protected by the power of God through faith, for a salvation ready to be revealed in that last time. In this we rejoice even though for now, for a little while, we have had to suffer various trials. Now the people that Peter was writing to here, they were being killed, they were being tarred and feathered, they were being set alight, they were being tortured; they were being thrown to the lions. These people were gong through serious stuff and Peter writes, “It doesn’t matter what you are going through – it doesn’t matter – because you have a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Over and over again, the New Testament talks about Jesus being the first born from among the dead, in other words it points back to His resurrection. The death of Jesus is a historical fact but so is His resurrection. Death couldn’t hold Him down. And when we put our trust in Him, that’s what we put our hope in – it’s a certain hope. Jesus was raised from the dead by God and one day when you and I breathe our last breath and our body give up the ghost, we will stand before Him and we will have that same resurrection – an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, being kept in heaven for us, who right now are being protected by the power of God through faith for what He has got to give us in that time. You know what our problem is? Kind of, sometimes we know that the resurrection is an historical fact; we know that in our heads but we spend so much time hoping in a pay rise or some temporal bauble here on earth or on a new car, we loose sight of the living hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus was raised from the dead; He’s the first born from among the dead; the first of many. And that promise is for you and for me if we believe in Jesus Christ and we don’t loose sight of that living hope we have through the resurrection of Jesus. One day when I cast off this mortal body I will stand for ever and ever in His presence and have eternal life. That is rock solid and you know the basis of that promise? The resurrection of Jesus Christ. Look at your life at the moment – the things that are going well for you and the things that aren’t – the things that you would want to change. And the reality is some of them we can’t change; maybe God will change them and maybe He won’t; I don’t know and you don’t know but in the meantime, He wants us to live a life of certain hope. And you know, what God has for us for all eternity, just doesn’t compare with anything we can have here on earth that we can see and touch today. It doesn’t compare with a certain hope of eternal life in Jesus. The Apostle John gives us a revelation of that in his book, Revelation, where we get a glimpse of this. He writes this: I saw a new heaven and a new earth, because the first had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw a holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. And He will wipe every tear from their eyes; there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old things have passed away. Nothing else comes anywhere close to that and we spend life wandering around in the weeds and down in the murky mire and God says, "Look, look at the resurrection of Jesus Christ." This is God’s call to set our eyes and our hearts and everything we are, all of our hope on this heavenly promise because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Colossians, in the New Testament; the Book of Colossians chapter 3 verse 1, Paul writes this: So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are here on earth because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. If you believe in the resurrection, seek the things that are above, set your mind and your eyes and your heart and your hopes and everything on heavenly things – on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is time today to start living life from a different perspective, from an eternal perspective. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is something that gives us a certain hope – a certain hope in eternal life, in our resurrection – in the future that God is keeping safe, undefiled, perfect for you and me, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Living a Resurrected Life Today // A Life Eternal, Part 4
04/24/2025
Living a Resurrected Life Today // A Life Eternal, Part 4
If Jesus really rose from the dead all that time ago, if it really happened….well, what does it mean to us today? What’s the relevance? What’s the point? This week on the program we are taking a bit of a look at this whole "resurrection" thing, because on the one hand it’s so central to everything that Jesus talked about, and everything that Christians believe. But on the other hand, well, it can be hard to relate to that. I mean, how does it fit into real life today? I’m not sure where you are in terms of believing in Jesus and in particular in His resurrection. But let’s assume for a moment that He did rise again from the dead; that’s certainly where I’m at, it’s kind of at the centre of everything I believe. Well, if He did rise from the dead, what does that mean to you and me, here and now, what relevance is there in all of that? Can the resurrection of Jesus Christ have an impact on your life and my life, here, now, today? Good questions! I mean why have a resurrection at all? Why did God plan it that way and why did He make it central to believing in Jesus? Yesterday we saw how the Apostle Paul said it was absolutely essential. Without faith in that there’s no point. In Romans chapter 10 verse 9, he says: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you’ll be saved. And in First Corinthians 15:17 he says: If Christ hasn’t been raised, then you faith is futile. OK, well, that’s the theology, if you like, let’s take that at face value. But why is it so important? Why does God put it right at the centre of believing in Jesus – eternal life! I’m a pesky bloke; I keep asking these questions because people never really explained this stuff to me, in terms that I could really understand and grasp. And that made a difference in my life. All these Christians were talking about this whole "resurrection" thing like it was really important and I thought "that’s great, but why?" Believing in Jesus for me is a process, it’s a whole life long thing. At some point I took a step of faith to believe in Him. I didn’t understand everything, but what I discovered was there were lots of different parts of my life that just didn’t fit with Him – selfishness, anger, being judgmental, all stuff that actually stunted my life. It’s crazy how we want to hold onto that rubbish for dear life. But you know we do and it turns out all along, it’s robbing us of life. I used to spend most of my time being angry with people because they didn’t measure up to my standards – I’m a perfectionist – and they didn’t see the world my way, and so I’d be angry with them all the time. And you know it robbed me of life; instead of peace and joy I always had anger and resentment in my heart. It’s not rocket science but so many people do this stuff. It’s one thing to believe with our head or our hearts in Jesus but it’s quite another to believe with our lives. And to do that requires change and that’s where the resurrection comes in. The Apostle Paul writes this in Romans chapter 8, he says: If the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you. Let’s unpack that for a minute. There was the death and the crucifixion of Jesus where He paid for our sins. He paid for the fact that we turned our back on God and we went our own way, and we missed the whole point of creation which was to have a relationship with God. And before you jump down my throat and say, "sin" is an old fashioned word. That the Greek word that the Bible uses for sin, literally means, "to miss the point”, and we looked at that last week. God is a loving God but He’s a just God and we have all fallen short of His standard and His plan – we’ve all missed the point. And when we believe that Jesus died for us, the slate is wiped clean; we are forgiven completely by God, we’re forgiven; we’ve a fresh start. And that’s fantastic! But you and I know that getting rid of that rubbish that God calls ‘sin’ is a life long process. Come on, we are naturally selfish, we naturally hang on to the things – I wanted to be self-righteous – I still have someone pull in a car in front of me and I’ll be angry with them and I want to blow my horn and I want to…you know, that’s me. Someone does wrong and somehow we want anger and revenge and we want to pay them back, and Jesus said, “Well, you want to believe in me, believe in me with your life. Show me, go and love your enemy, in fact, go and pray for your enemy.” I don’t know about you but that way of living just didn’t come naturally to me. It’s a process of changing but changing those things is hard. It’s very, very hard, and in fact, in some areas, it’s downright impossible. We just want to hang on and hang on and hang on and let the poison get in our system and ruin our lives. Paul bemoans that very thing in Romans chapter 7, he says: I can will to do what is right, I just can’t do it. Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death? Then he says, “Jesus Christ". The resurrection is about bringing Jesus back to life. See what Paul wrote about in Romans chapter 8, we read about it before: If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead with give life to your mortal bodies also through His Spirit that dwells in you. The resurrection of Jesus is something that’s a deep mystery but it lives on in us through the presence of the Spirit of God. If we place our faith in Jesus; we say I believe He is the Son of God; I believe He died for my sin and I believe He rose again, and then God does something amazing; something supernatural; something powerful. God puts His Spirit inside us and that same Spirit does the same thing in us – He brings life. He starts to deal with that rubbish inside us. He starts to convict us and to heal us and to fill us and to change us in ways that we can never do ourselves. The resurrection is learning to live again. When we believe in Jesus in His death, we put the old person inside us down with Jesus on the cross but when we believe in His resurrection we have new life – resurrection life. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your body also through His Spirit; bringing life back into our bodies, colour into our cheeks, colour into our world. How many people need that change in their lives today? How many people are looking for that change in all sorts of strange places, people who are broken inside, people who have been abused, people who are suffering from low self-esteem, people who are dealing with anger, and people whose marriages are falling apart? Come on, we need the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be real in us and there is a power that comes only from God to change us. Not some theory, this is an actuality. The same Holy Spirit who breaths life back into Jesus dead body is the Spirit who will come in us and bring victory over the sin of our humanness and breathe life back into our bodies and victory over our sins. Come on, this is great stuff; this is a great plan; it’s God’s plan. It’s here for you and me now!
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Did It Really Happen? // A Life Eternal, Part 3
04/23/2025
Did It Really Happen? // A Life Eternal, Part 3
There’s not a serious historian alive today who doesn’t acknowledge the life and death of Jesus Christ. But the resurrection…..well that’s another thing entirely. Did it really happen? Over this week on the program, we are looking at and exploring the whole question of Jesus’ resurrection. It can seem fanciful and even irrelevant, something that may or may not have happened a couple of thousand years ago and let’s face it – Jesus was crucified and then they said He’s alive. I mean, it’s pretty hard to believe, you know. What’s the proof, what’s the evidence? I mean, if we look at it like a sane, rational person, can you really come to the conclusion that this Jesus, died and rose again? And if so, what does that mean for you and me, here and now? Today on the program, we are going to step back in time, into Jerusalem, into those days and weeks that followed the death and alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ and just take a look at some of what happened. The rest is up to each one of us, you and me; we have to make up our own minds. Ok, well, let’s start with the facts. I mean the whole Jesus crucifixion thing is no mystery. I mean, Jesus became very popular, He made sense, people flocked to hear Him speak and the religious leaders of the day, they seriously got their noses out of joint and they plotted to kill Him; they whipped up the crowd and we looked at that earlier on in the week and last week. Pontius Pilot had Him crucified, He was dead – there’s no doubt about that. I mean, no historian seriously disputes the facts to this point and probably, none of us would have any difficulty with the story thus far. It’s horrible how they crucified Him but that’s what happened. Now, then comes the whole story, though, of this resurrection of Jesus. They crucify Him, they put His body in a tomb, they put a stone and some Roman soldiers there guarding it, and what we celebrate now as being Easter Sunday, was about an empty tomb. Now, we have a resurrection mystery – not a murder mystery – but a resurrection mystery. What happened to the body? All right, let’s think that through. What are the options? Option one is that the Roman authorities or religious leaders took the body and hid it. But why would they do that? You see, it wasn‘t in their interest. Jesus had been predicting His own resurrection and if the Romans or the Pharisees or Sadducees – those religious leaders of the day – had they taken His body and stolen it and hidden it, that simply would have opened up the possibility for a rumour of Jesus resurrection. So there’s no way that the Romans or the religious leaders, who had Him killed, would have taken the body and hidden it. Number two – Jesus’ followers stole the body! It’s a possibility; they could have done that to create that rumour. I mean, He was dead, if He didn’t rise again, the disciples take the body, they hide it, they go round and tell everyone, "Jesus has risen." There are just a few things that work against that theory. The first one is security. Have a listen to what it says, “The next day,” we are in Matthew 27, towards the end, beginning at verse 62: The next day, the one after the preparation day, the Chief Priests and the Pharisees went to Pontius Pilot - they said, “Sir, we remember that while Jesus was still alive, He said, “After three days I will rise again,” so why don’t you give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples might come a steal the body and tell the people that He has been raised from the dead. You see, the religious leaders figured out this potential as well, so Pilot said, “Take a guard, go and make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard, right? So here you have the religious leaders figuring out the possibility of deception by Jesus’ disciples – I’m being just totally objective, investigating the mystery – and they go to Pilot and say, "we had better stop any possibility". So, Pilot goes and has a huge stone rolled in front of the tomb, a seal put on it so that if it is broken, they know what’s happened and he puts some guards on the tomb. Well, it’s a little bit hard for the disciples who weren’t armed to fight armed Roman soldiers and steal the body. And secondly, you’ve got to look at the state of mind of these disciples, they were in disarray; they were in a daze. Now you read any of the accounts in the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – just the last couple of chapters of each – they didn’t believe this stuff about the resurrection. These disciples had just seen Jesus killed, they were afraid, they were fleeing for their own lives. It didn’t enter their heads that Jesus might have been resurrected. In fact, when some of them came back and said that it had happened, others said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, it just doesn’t happen.’ In any case, you had that security. And all of these disciples went on to die the death of a martyr, because they went out and proclaimed that Jesus had risen. One by one, over the next thirty or forty years, each one, as far as we know, died the death of a martyr. Now would they have done that for something they knew to be a lie? Not likely. So I don’t see the potential for the disciples to have stolen the body as really being a possibility. The other key possibility, whether you like it or not, was He actually rose again. Now He appeared to over five hundred people at once – you can read that in the letter that Paul writes; the First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 15 verse 6. Now that’s a huge percentage; that’s like two or three percent of the population of Jerusalem; that’s the equivalent these days of filling a huge stadium in a city. And Paul wrote this at a time when many of the people who were alleged to have seen Jesus, when He rose again, could testify as to the truth or otherwise of such a claim. Account after historical account – I don’t know, as I look at this stuff, I just skimmed over it – I guess today, it’s not that hard to believe the evidence. What’s hard to believe is that God would actually do something like this, to bring Jesus back to life. The truth is I’m not sure that I can convince anybody; we can’t have a coroner’s inquest to look at the evidence for the resurrection today. The people who were there, they are not around any more but what I can do is encourage you to do this: read the accounts for yourself. We are just talking about a half an hour – the last few chapters of the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament. I mean, ask the questions, look at the evidence, make up your own mind and in your heart, once and for all, if you look at the evidence and you say, "You know something, if this God is God and He is as powerful as He is, He can do this. And when I read these accounts, you know, everything points to it." If that’s you; if that’s the conclusion that you come to, can I ask you to pray something like this: "God, if this is true, do something in me and show me? Do something in my heart and put a certain faith in me that will never, ever again waver." You see, for me it’s very rational; I’m your IT consultant type of person and I look at things fairly logically and I have to tell you, with everything I am, I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. There doesn’t seem to be any other logical possibility and God keeps telling me, through His Word; through the Bible, that’s exactly what happened. Paul writes in Romans chapter 10 verse 9: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. It’s that important, so take the time, read it, turn it over in your head, draw your own conclusions, believe in your heart – Jesus is alive!
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They Should Have Known // A Life Eternal, Part 2
04/22/2025
They Should Have Known // A Life Eternal, Part 2
It turns out that coming to grips with the resurrection of Jesus wasn’t easy for the disciples. And to tell you the truth, it can be difficult to come to grips with it here and now as well. They say that there are two absolute certainties in life – death and taxes. Well, let’s leave taxes for another day – that leaves death. One day, you and I will breathe our last breath on this planet, that’s pretty much certain, despite all the hopes and dreams and plans that we have for next week and next year and the next decade, most of us simply don’t know when that moment will come, when we breathe that final breath. And then what? What comes after that? Well, there are basically two schools of thought. One is that at that point it’s all over – nothing – a big emptiness. The other school of thought has many different flavours, but many people – in fact most people on this planet – believe in some sort of afterlife, whatever that may look like to them. If there’s an eternal life, what is it, what does it look like, and is it worth having? There’s some good questions there to ask and here we are in the week after Easter so we are going to unpack and explore a little bit, particularly looking at the resurrection of Jesus; this new life; this eternal life. Jesus over and over again said: Believe in me and you will have eternal life. Now, some people say, "Well that’s nice but really, these days, all roads do lead to Rome. I mean you believe in a good God and you’ll make it; you’ll have eternal life. Kind of doesn’t quite matter which flavour of God you happen to believe in." But not according to Jesus. He didn’t leave that option open; He didn’t intend to. Here’s this carpenter from Nazareth, an ordinary man and somewhere in His early thirties He begins a three and a half year public ministry. He heals people; He does amazing things; crowds follow Him; He upsets the religious leaders and there’s a murder plot and ultimately He is crucified and He rose again. And lots of people saw Him after He rose again and we’ll have a look at that on the program tomorrow. But in the competitive world we live in, there’s a notion that’s deep ingrained into who we are, that if you and I are going to attain this eternal life that Jesus promised, we’re going to have to work for it. I mean, it makes sense after all, at school, it’s competitive, you get the grades, you go and do certain classes based on your grades, you compete for a limited number of good jobs and you compete for promotion. Nothing comes easy; you have to work for things. You have to get out there and achieve and take them and make it happen; they’re not just going to come to us on a silver platter, all of those good things. And then God turns around and says, “Well, I’m a God of grace and this eternal life thing is free, because Jesus bought it for you on the cross.” Now I study this stuff every day. I do what I’m doing right now, right, and I have to tell you, the concept of God’s grace still doesn’t come naturally to me. The notion that Jesus paid for everything is sometimes hard to embrace with my life. How about you? I mean, what are the things in your past; things that we have been taught about life; things that have hurt you; things that have been about conditional love; things that hold you back from wrapping your heart around God’s grace; God’s free gift of eternal life; life with God for ever and ever and ever. What’s that look like? Well, Jesus was praying – and you can read it in John 17 in the Bible. He was saying eternal life is being with Him; eternal life is knowing Him; eternal life is seeing His glory for ever and ever and you know, all that seems to be too good to be true sometimes. And if that’s true today, it was true back then. I’m going to read you a small passage that comes from John’s Gospel, chapter 6 verse 28: The people ask Him, “What do we have to do? What are the works that God requires?” And Jesus said, “The work of God is this - that you believe in me; in the one whom God has sent.” So they asked Him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe in you, what’ll you do?” I mean our forefathers ate the manna in the desert, as it is written. God gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, “I’ll tell you the truth, it’s not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven but it’s my Father, who gives you the true bread from heaven because the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “from now on, give us this bread,” and Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me never be thirsty. But as I have told you, you’ve seen me and you still don’t believe." All that the Father God gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive them away, for I’ve come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has give me, but raise them up on the last day, for my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and I’ll raise them up on the last day. What will we have to do? What do we have to do Jesus? What does God want us to do? And Jesus said "just believe in me!" And they said, "Oh, ok, prove it, show us, do the ‘manna’ thing. You know, remember how God did the manna from heaven and there was bread on the ground for the Israelites when they were wandering through their forty years exodus. Go on, do the manna thing.” You know what manna is? Its stuff that came down from heaven and the Israelites looked at it and went, "manna, manna". "Manna" means, what the heck is it? Isn’t it amazing? Whenever God provides something for us, and it’s free and it’s grace and it’s life and it’s blessing, we want Him to explain it. We just can’t enjoy what He is doing, we have to go, "manna" – what is it? That desert and that bread coming down in the desert to feed them is a picture of our lives. They want this bread and engaging them He says, “Don’t you get it? It’s me, I am the bread of life and this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that He has given me but raise them up on the last day, for my Father‘s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up on that last day.” God is so passionate about you and me, He looks at us and He says, “You are to die for” and He does exactly that through Jesus. It’s a powerful thing; it’s not just death, its resurrection and we can muck around half our lives – all our lives – and miss the point. "Oh, I don’t know." Well, either it’s true or it’s not! If Jesus rose for the dead; if that’s true, let’s live our lives passionately, wrapped around that reality. There are people wandering around this world with broken lives and low self-esteem and a list of a thousand maladies, all the time the answer is staring them in the face. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Never hunger, never thirst, He’s alive and His passion is for you and for me to have eternal life, here and now and for all eternity. Wake up! What’s the matter with us? Look at Jesus with the eyes of your soul and take time to rest and delight in Him and believe in Him and to feast on the bread. Come on, what’s the matter with us?
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A Crazy Morning // A Life Eternal, Part 1
04/21/2025
A Crazy Morning // A Life Eternal, Part 1
So what was it like that first Easter morning? He’s alive. Is He? I don’t know. The others say they’ve seen Him. Hmm. What do you think? Let me paint you a picture. Just the other day, someone that you loved passed away. You really admired and trusted this person. I mean, you'd seen him in operation and now they're gone! It's a shock! It shouldn't have happened! They're so young and so full of promise ... had a future. And now, that person is gone. Take some time to come to grasp to that – the shock and the sadness, and the deep sense of loss and even anger. We go through so many stages in that grieving process. You wake up with a dull ache in your head. What is that about? And then, you remember your loss. The phone rings. It's a friend, they are ranting and raving ... the person who is dead ... what are they saying? He is alive again? Wait! Hang on a minute ... what sort of crackpot, what is going on? Is this a sick joke? But your friend is adamant, he is alive! I mean it's an incredible claim ... it's incredulous ... it's mad ... it's sick - there are a lot of words to describe it. You saw him die with your own eyes – arrested, crucified, buried, definitely, very definitely dead! In one sense, you know, it's almost easier to believe if you read it in the Bible. It happened 2000 years ago, it was Jesus. It's long enough ago to make it safe ... you know what I mean, when you could almost sort of half believe it and half see it as a fable and go, "well yeah, okay, I believe it! It happened back then. Sure, God can do anything. I mean God did that sort of things back then. Well, it's 2000 years ago." Question: If you believe that Jesus rose from the dead again, just transpose that into today, here and now. That phone call comes, "Jesus is alive". Come on, tomorrow morning, you get that phone call in the morning, is it possible? Let’s put ourselves back in the shoes of these disciples, right there in that place, in Jerusalem, with the Jesus that they knew. Do you get it? It’s a lot harder to believe when it’s close. It was a bit like that for Mary Magdalene. She went down to the tomb on that morning we call Easter Sunday, to embalm the body of Jesus. They had herbs and spices and they were going to embalm Him. Sunset Friday and all day Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath. That means they weren’t allowed to work and they couldn’t embalm Him, so they went down on the Sunday morning: But Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white seated where Jesus body had been – one at the head and the other at the foot – and they said to her, “Woman, what’s the matter, why are you crying?” “They’ve taken Jesus away; my Lord, they’ve taken Him away”, she said, “and I don’t know where they’ve put Him. At this she turned around and she saw Jesus standing there but she didn’t realise it was Him. “Woman,” He said, “why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?” Thinking it was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Jesus away, tell me where you have put Him and I’ll go and get Him?” And Jesus said to her, “Mary,” and she turned toward Him and cried, in Aramaic “Rabboni” - which means ‘teacher’. Jesus said, “Do not hold onto me for I have not yet returned to my Father. Go, instead, to my brothers and tell them, “Jesus is returning to His Father and your Father and to my God and your God.” And Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, “I’ve seen the Lord; I’ve seen Jesus,” and she told them that He had said these things to her. She wasn’t the only one having problems; I think you and I would have had problems with it all. And after that Jesus appeared to His disciples, all of them that is, except Thomas; he wasn’t there that day. Now Thomas was one of the twelve, he wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We’ve seen Him; we’ve seen the Lord,” but he said to them, “Look, I’m sorry, unless I see the nail marks in His hands and I put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into His side where they pierced Him, I sorry, I just won’t believe it. A week later, Jesus’ disciples were in that house again and Thomas was with them this time, and even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Shalom, peace be with you.” And then He said to Thomas, “Tom, come here. Put your finger in here, see my hands? Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” And Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and my God.” And then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you’ve believed, but blessed are those who haven’t seen me and yet have believed.” I don’t know, I think I’m with Thomas. I can imagine the phone call and someone saying to me, “Jesus is alive,” and I saw Him go to the electric chair the other night and I think, “this is just too much". It’s hard to believe when you’re close to it. Can I ask you, what do you believe? Maybe it’s an uncomfortable question? It’s easy to consign this whole "resurrection of Jesus" thing to the past, but, kind of like a fable to which we give some moderate level of logical, in-cognitive assent – kind of a vague half-belief, insurance policy thing. The apostle Paul takes it pretty seriously. In Romans chapter 10 verse 9, he says: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved. And First Corinthians 15:17: If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is futile. For Paul, the resurrection wasn‘t some optional extra; it wasn’t some distant myth, it wasn’t something that we could kind of half believe. Historians agree that Jesus was a real historical figure. I mean there’s no serious historian who doubts that. They agree He was killed, the question is, was He raised again from the dead? Paul said: Believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved, and if you don’t, you’re wasting your time. We are going to have a bit of a look throughout the week on the program, as to why we should believe that, but today I just want to ask you really simply – what do you believe? The resurrection can seem, really, I don’t know, incongruous amidst the day to day realities of life; the things that we all face. I mean, I still do some IT consulting work, it’s my professional background. I travel into the city and work up on the thirty eighth floor, looking down over this great city and deal with managers and lawyers and important people and we talk about this and talk about that. You stick the resurrection of Jesus Christ right into the middle of that day-to-day reality and you ask me, "Berni, in the middle of all this, do you actually believe this stuff? Do you believe that this Jesus was raised from the dead? I mean, come on Berni, it’s incongruous, it’s an outrageous notion, it just doesn’t fit. Do you still believe this stuff?" And my answer to you is, "Absolutely!" With every fiber of my being; in my heart, I believe that Jesus Christ was crucified, that He died and that He rose again so that we might have eternal life. I believe with my heart – that’s me – what about you?
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A Dead Loss // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 5
04/18/2025
A Dead Loss // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 5
People talk about “the real meaning of Easter”. OK. So for some people, Easter’s more than chocolates, eggs, bunnies and a long weekend. But – well, how do you react to the real meaning of Easter? This week we've been looking at Easter which is not surprising since it’s Good Friday today. Jesus, in his last week, spent a good amount of his time encouraging his disciples, here was a man under an enormous pressure, heading to a gruesome death and yet His main concern was on encouraging those twelve men, one of whom would betray Him. But of course on what we now celebrate as Good Friday, well, that first Good Friday was far from good at least for Jesus. Beaten, brutalised, nailed to a cross through His hands and feet, He suffered incredibly and died. I don't quite know who came up with the name Good Friday but it doesn't seem to fit, are you with me? So let me ask you here and now, a couple of thousand years on, how do you react? What does Good Friday mean to you? Well, we celebrate Easter today, a long weekend, fluffy bunnies, Easter eggs, sweet chocolate, more chocolate and yet more chocolate. And all that stuff is great but it couldn't be further from the grim, brutal reality of that first Good Friday, could it? Today you see so much bluster and self serving behaviour. I love to watch the news every night on the TV and you see politicians and business people talking up this and putting spin on that. I was talking to a young man, a mature Christian and in his Church, he said there are couples who are burning out through work and mortgages and demands of being involved in Church. Marriages, he said, are falling apart. So much, when you look at it, so much is about external appearances, conforming to whatever it is in our society that people say equals success. Yet on the inside, people somehow aren't satisfied, they're not fulfilled, and they’re not happy and peaceful and looking forward to tomorrow. An Easter bunny, chocolate egg Easter is a bit like that, you may have heard me talk before about the thing that symbolises all that in my life. Some years ago, before I became a Christian, I bought this really up market, expensive car. It was burgundy, it was a beautiful car, it had light tan leather inside, that smell of leather, it was really classy. And it had four wheel steering so you could turn it around on a pin head and it was so empty and so hollow, it was just a lump of metal and leather and so what? I tried so hard to live this outside thing and yet I was dying on the inside and two occasions each year, Easter and Christmas, things that we celebrate on the outside, the chocolate at Easter and the presents at Christmas, the holidays, they're supposed to be fun and enjoyment and rest. And for a lot of people in the middle of those things, there's this kind of deep, distant awareness of this stuff these Christians are talking about, of Jesus. Let’s get right to the point, Jesus/Easter. This was the Passover celebration back then; it was a festival to remember the wonderful things that God did in saving Israel when they were in slavery in Egypt centuries before this first Easter. Would have been just as easy back then to get carried away with the social and cultural aspects of the Passover celebration as it is for us today at Easter don't you think? I mean, everyone came to Jerusalem and they had feasts and they roasted lambs and they had unleavened bread. It was a big festival going on and it would be so easy to get lost in all the cultural trappings of that festival Just as it is today to get lost in what we call Easter. But in the middle of all that is Jesus Christ, superstar, this Jesus who was just so well loved and liked, who did so many amazing things and healing and the way He spoke, He made sense and people followed him and then all of a sudden the mob turns on Him. At Easter they bay for His blood, He's beaten and spat on and crucified. We looked at that from a medical perspective yesterday on the program. Supposedly He's the Son of God and Christians tell us this was all to pay for our sin and the Bible says: He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. What the heck does that mean today? It comes right down to this, according to God He made us, He loves us and He gave us free will and the point of all that was for us to know Him and have this fantastic relationship with Him, here and now and for all eternity and it doesn't matter which way you cut it, each one of us in our own way has rejected him. I know I have, more often than I can possibly recount and in doing that we miss the whole point. That's exactly what the Greek word for sin, which is what the Bible uses, means, to miss the mark or to miss the point. Truly I tell you, I used to think of sin as some kind of old fuddy-duddy concept, something that priests and ministers talked about in the 1950's but it's not relevant today. It's old fashioned, it's religious moralising, get rid of it, get over it but when you come back to Easter, God’s Easter, the central point, the central problem of all creation is that we rejected God, we turned our backs on him and on that cross He calls us home. The consequences of our rejection of Him, our sin, are paid for by His own Son, Jesus who died and suffered for us so that we could have a new life, a life of giving and sacrifice and a fresh new life, a wholesome real life with joy and with peace, all because out of His great love He reached out to us through Jesus. Fifteen years ago that message hit home for me, I'm going to spend eternity coming to grips with what Jesus did for me but in my heart I know that I know that I know that I know that God is my God, that He loves me just as He loves you and that changes our whole lives, it opens the door to a real, dynamic, exciting, beautiful, wondrous relationship with God. So how does that impact you? What's the reaction in your heart, in your life, in your here and now, in your future? If you would like to accept Jesus Christ today as your Lord and your Saviour, why don't you just stop and pause and pray this prayer with me. Father, we've heard the story of Easter, we've heard the story of Jesus and we can scarcely believe or understand or comprehend that You would send Your Son to pay the price of our sin, the price of our rejection of You but as we look at that story God, we just believe it in our hearts and we want to say thank You, we want to praise you and worship you and say thank You that you sent Jesus to save us from a life of missing the point that You came to save us from Your judgement. Father, I am so sorry for all of the things I've done wrong, I just can't begin to list them all but You know because You felt each one in Your heart. I'm going to turn away from that now Lord, I can't be perfect except in You and I know that Jesus died so that You would forgive all my sin, past, present and future and I give my life to You today as Jesus gave His life for me back then. Father, give me this new life, show me Your love, show me Your future, show me Your grace. Father, I pray these things with all that I am in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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On the Cross // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 4
04/17/2025
On the Cross // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 4
You see people wearing gold crosses on chains all the time. Even earrings. But on that first Easter – what really happened on that cross. I mean, what did Jesus actually go through? It's almost Easter and this week on the program we've been taking a bit of a look at the goings on in the week leading up to the first Easter. There's been nothing about chocolate or eggs or bunnies. Nothing’s wrong with any of those things, they just don't fit into any of the events that first Easter. Today I thought it would be interesting just to have a look at the real physical suffering of Jesus. Churches and theologians alike make much out of the spiritual suffering of what went on, on that cross at Calvary. But Jesus wasn't and isn't just the Son of God, He was also the son of man, in fact, that's how most he often referred to himself. What did Jesus the man, go through at Easter and why is that so important? Stick with me over the next few minutes as we unpack that just a little bit. I remember going to the dentist when I was young. His name was Dr Champion, Harry Champion and his surgery was up on the first floor of this building, I'll never forget it. You walked in this door and it was fairly dark and there was these steps – the steps seemed like they went up forever into the sky to me – and they had this dark pink swirly lino with black capping on the stairs, and I remember looking up at those stairs with complete dread every time I went there. I remember, back in those days, I don't know how it is where you live but there was no fluoride in our water here so we used to have fillings all the time and place had that unmistakable smell of a dental surgery. I don't know what chemicals they used there but you know what a dental surgery smells like and I'd get this sick feeling in my stomach days before going. It all came to a head every time when I stood at the bottom of those stairs, that long interminable walk up, maybe you can relate to that, it was all about pain, it was all about physical pain. Back then they didn't use any anesthetic for fillings, they just drilled. You know that little gadget that blows the air to get rid of saliva and bits of tooth and that cold air would just blow on the open, raw nerve of the tooth. All the water that comes out of the drill, that cold water just onto the nerve of the tooth, makes you feel queasy, I tell you, every time I think about it I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and I feel queasy. I had a filling replaced recently and these days they even put a swab of anesthetic in your mouth before they give you the injection so that the needle doesn't even hurt its great stuff. But I have to tell you I still hang on to that chair for dear life. That fear and trepidation of physical pain of those childhood visits to the dentist haven't left me; maybe you can pay for my deliverance. You get the point though, physical pain and emotional pain are closely linked, and it’s a big deal. Imagine for a minute that it's not a flight of stairs up to Dr Champion’s dental surgery but an exorable journey to the brutal crucifixion on a cross, how did Jesus feel? I read recently an article by a physician, written some time ago, Dr Truman Davies and he was analyzing the crucifixion from a medical perspective. He talks first about Gethsemane. In Luke, chapter 2, verse 44, you read about Jesus' sweat turning to blood. He says it's very rare but it does occur and it's well documented in the medical literature: under great emotional stress tiny capillaries in the sweat glands can break, mixing blood with sweat, that would have produced a marked weakness and quite probably shock. Now, next after the arrest He had the trial of the Sanhedrin in front of the High Priest. And a soldier struck Jesus across the face for remaining silent when questioned. Palace guards blindfolded Him and mocked Him, they taunted Him and they struck Him across the face. Have you ever been struck across the face hard? Maybe you haven't been struck across the face but you know when you go into the kitchen and one of the higher cupboard doors has been left open and you whack your head on the corner of the kitchen door, it really hurts doesn't it? Imagine being beaten across the head and the face multiple times, just one knock hurts but multiple times must have been brutal and then early the next morning, battered and bruised and dehydrated and worn out from a sleepless night. Jesus is taken across to Jerusalem to the Praetorian of the Fortress of Antonia, the seat of government where Pontius Pilate was, and Pilate tries to duck shove the case to Herod Antipas the Tetrarch of Judea. But he sends it back to Pilate and there's a crowd outside baying for his blood, it was Barabbas or Jesus, when they said, "We want Barabbas." And of Jesus they shouted, "Crucify him, crucify him." Now, crucifixion was common in those days so Jesus knew what crucifixion was all about, he didn't know first hand at that point but he knew how brutal and painful and ugly that death would be. And Jesus was condemned by Pilate to a scourging and a crucifixion. Now we often skim over that scourging bit but let’s just have a look at that. When a prisoner was scourged, he was stripped of all his clothing; his hands were tied to a post above his head. A Roman legionnaire would step forward with a flagellum, a whip consisting of several heavy leather thongs with small beads of lead attached near the ends of each and he brought it down with full force again and again and again across Jesus' shoulders and back and legs. And first they only cut through the skin but as this continues they cut deeper and deep into the subcutaneous tissue, first producing an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin and finally spurting arterial blood from the vessels and the muscles. The skin of his back was hanging in long ribbons, the entire area unrecognisable as a mass of torn and bleeding tissue, many prisoners died in the scourging. Then he was mocked and beaten, they shoved a crown of thorns that pressed into his head. Imagine that? And there was more beating and driving the thorns deeper and deeper into his tissue and skull and then he had to pick up an incredibly heavy cross over his shoulder and bloodied, remember his back, drag it through the streets up the hill, about a 650 meter journey and he collapsed and a man who was watching, called Simon was conscripted into carrying the cross. Then they threw the cross on the ground and they threw him on top of the cross and they drove nails through his wrists into the wood, blow after blow and nails were driven through the arch of each foot and now he was crucified and then the cross was erected and his full body weight hung on the nails. It must have been excruciating and the way people died was through chest cramps and the muscles were unable to act to breathe, they were able to draw air in but they couldn't exhale and ultimately they suffocated and died. No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends. And Jesus said: They aren't taking my life from me but I lay it down. Father, I've just heard the story of Jesus' crucifixion and Lord, it just touches me deep inside. Father I know that what You did there was You paid for my sin, for all my failings and Lord, I just want to say thank You. I just want to say thank You and I'm sorry for the things that I've done wrong and right now I just want to give my life to You. I want to take You and accept you as my Lord and my King and my Saviour. Jesus, thank You, I turn away from all the things I've done wrong in the past and I give my life to You. Jesus, You're my Lord, You're my Saviour, I want to live my life, the rest of my life here on this earth for You and then to spend the rest of eternity with You. So Father, thank You for your forgiveness, thank You for the future I have. I pray in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
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Betrayal and Rejection // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 3
04/16/2025
Betrayal and Rejection // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 3
When you see the way someone reacts in difficult circumstances, under pressure, when they’re betrayed and rejected – then you discover what they’re really like. So how did Jesus react? One of the hardest things in life is when we're betrayed and rejected. Basically, we all want relationships of trust, and basically, we all want to be liked, okay some more than others but it's a pretty natural thing, isn't it? What we'd really like is for our life to cruise along with great relationships, people we can depend on, people who like us. But it's not always like that, so often there's betrayal, so often there's rejection and that hurts. My hunch is that if I did a word association with a hundred people and asked them to give me the first word that pops into their mind that relates to Easter, for most it would be chocolate or Easter bunny or something like that. Rejection and betrayal, I think they'd be right down at the bottom of the list. It's amazing you know, Easter has become a really sweet, chocolaty, fluffy, kiddy type of thing. Easter bunnies, chocolate eggs, more chocolate, yet more chocolate. There's nothing wrong with any of that except it's replaced the reality of Easter with something that isn't real, something sweet and sugary that's not the reality. Easter's about Jesus, the Son of God, this Jesus who did amazing things, the miracles and people He healed and He spoke and made sense. Somehow when Jesus spoke, you can read about it in Matthew or Mark or Luke or John, the four Gospels, the records of his life, when He spoke somehow he just resonated with people, the truth is like that, it's like a tuning fork, it just hits the right pitch in your heart. I really encourage you, if you've never done that before, grab one of those books in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and just read it through from beginning to end; it's only a few hours to read one of those. I remember when I first read the book of Mark, it's the shortest of the four Gospel accounts, and it just blew me away. Things jump out at you, at least they did for me. The stark difference between the rule based organised religion of the day and this earthy, real, compassionate, passionate Jesus and whenever someone comes along and threatens the status quo, this rule based religion, this power thing that was going on at the time and that's what Jesus did, He was a religious and political subversive, whenever someone does that then feathers are going to get ruffled. Powerful people don't like their power bases being threatened or eroded. You see it today in politics and business and yep, even in religion, there's nothing new under the sun and that's exactly what happened to Jesus. I'm just going to have a read of a story because often we don't do this, let me just read this story, the historical account of this in John, chapter 18: When Jesus had finished praying he left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove and he and his disciples went into it. Now, Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met his disciples there, so Judas came to the grove and guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. Jesus knowing all that was going to happen to him went out and asked them, "Who is it that you want?" "Jesus of Nazareth," they replied and he said, "That's me," and Judas the traitor was standing there with them. When Jesus said, "That's me," they drew back and fell to the ground and again he asked them, "Who is it you want?" And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth." "I told you that's me," Jesus said, "If you're looking for me then let these men go." This happened so the words he had spoken would be fulfilled, "I have not lost one of those you gave to me." Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it off and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. The servants name was Malchus. Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and Jewish officials arrested Jesus, they bound him and brought him first to Annas, who was the father in law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year, and Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people. Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priests courtyard but Peter had to wait outside the door. The other disciple who had known the high priest came back, spoke to the girl on duty there and brought Peter in. "Aren't you one of his disciples?" The girl at the door asked and Peter said, "No, not me." It was cold and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made for themselves and Peter was standing there too, warming himself. Meanwhile the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching, "I've spoken openly to the world,” Jesus said, "I always taught in the synagogues or at the temples where all the Jews came together. I said nothing in secret, why do you ask me questions?” Ask those who heard me, surely they know what I said." When Jesus said this one of the officials nearby, struck him in the face, "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" He demanded. "If I've said something wrong." Jesus said, "Testify to what is wrong but if I spoke the truth why do you strike me?" Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest. And on it went, Jesus was tried several times in these kangaroo courts, ultimately He was tried by the people, Pontius Pilate and Barabbas was set free, the guilty one and Jesus, Jesus was the one that was crucified. He was beaten, reviled, spat upon, dragged his cross up onto that hill called Golgotha which means, "Skull" and nailed to it. You know what really hits me about this? Jesus was betrayed by so many people, not just Judas, Judas is the number one betrayer but by Peter who denied Him. All of the disciples deserted Him, the crowds, the people who had been so amazed by His teachings and had seen his miracles, they were the ones who ultimately bayed for His blood, they said, "Let Barabbas go and crucify Jesus". And the religious leaders, the people who should have recognised the Son of God, they were the very ones that plotted to kill him. Jesus knows betrayal and rejection better than anyone and that's how He chose to pay for our sin, mine and yours, to be rejected and betrayed. I use that word deliberately, our rejection of God, He chose to allow this to happen to Him so that you and I would be set free, so that our debt would be paid, so that we would be forgiven. It's not some pantomime, it's not a stained glass window, it's not an Easter egg or an Easter bunny, it's a brutal reality to deal with the greatest problem of humanity; your rejection and my rejection of God. If you've never accepted him as the Lord of your life, why don't you pray this prayer with me now? Father, I've heard about this Jesus, this Jesus who was betrayed and reviled and beaten and yet still went to the cross for me to pay for my sin. Father, thank you so much for that, I just confess the things that I've done wrong, I'm sorry for them Father and I give them to you, I turn away from them. I can only do that in your strength and I pray for you to help me but I want to follow Jesus with all my life, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my spirit. I want to live the rest of my life here and have a fantastic relationship God with you through Jesus. Thank you that I can believe in Jesus, the one who suffered and paid my price. Thank you that I have forgiveness and Father, I just pray that you would show me your face, that you would show me how to live my life. I ask that in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
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Hang In There // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 2
04/15/2025
Hang In There // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 2
That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus. Imagine the stress and the pressure. So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days. Let me paint a scenario for a moment. You're dying and you know it and the time is drawing near, you only have a few days, perhaps just a few final hours with the people who mean the most to you. You know something; you know that when you're gone they're going to go through some really tough times, trials, fears, persecution. In those final days and hours what would you talk to them about? I mean, you have a short time left, that’s all, you have a sense of what's about to befall them, you have the opportunity to speak to them, what would you say? It's a good question and that's exactly what we're going to look at today, in those final hours, what did Jesus say to those who were closest to him, his disciples? So, what would you say? What would I say? I guess we'd start with the most important things, whatever we could do for them to ensure their survival. Whatever we could say to them that they would recall in the days and the weeks and the months ahead, during those trials, that would support them and comfort them but given that the time was short you'd stick to the really important stuff wouldn't you? You wouldn't waffle around with a whole bunch of other stuff, you'd keep it simple, lay it out straight, equip them for what they were about to face. Jesus was an amazing miracle worker, people had seen his miracles, they'd heard him speak, and this guy Jesus made sense. He wasn't like the religious leaders of the day, those guys were busy making up ridiculous rules to oppress the people and to line their pockets and to enhance their positions of power. No, not Jesus, he was so different, He spoke with authority, somehow what He said rang true and made sense and people knew this guy wasn't in it for himself, he was different, He was in it for them. He stood up for them, He reached out to them, He spent most of his time with them, they just knew. Now, those same religious leaders, who were so threatened by him, were plotting to kill him. Within just a few days He'd be hanging lifeless, bloodied, beaten, and dead on a cross. What does He say to his disciples? Well lets tune in and have a look, if you have a Bible you can have a read of it, it's in chapter 15 of John’s Gospel. Jesus says: I am the true vine and my Father's the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. "You're already clean because of the words that I've spoken to you. Remain in me and I'll remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it has to remain in the vine and you can't bear fruit unless you remain in me." Jesus said, "I am the vine, you're the branches." If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing, if you don't remain in me you're a branch that's going to be thrown away, you'll wither, we pick those branches up and we throw them into the fire and they get burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. This is to my Father's glory that you can bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples. Just as Dad loved me so I love you. Remain in my love. If you obey my commandments you'll remain in my love just as I've obeyed my Fathers commandments and I remain in his love. I've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My commandment is this; love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I'm not calling you servants anymore because a servant doesn't know his masters business; instead I call you friend because everything that I learn from my Father I've made known to you. You didn't choose me but I chose you and I appointed you. Go and bear fruit - fruit that will last and the Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. This is my command, love one another. Now if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first, if you belong to the world it would love you as it's own but as it is you don't belong to the world but I've chosen you out of the world. That's why the world will hate you. Remember the words I spoke to you, no servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me they're going to persecute you too. If they obeyed my teaching they would obey yours too, they will treat you in this way because of my name for they do not know the one who sent me, my Father. If I hadn't come and spoken to them they wouldn't be guilty of sin, now however they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did they would be guilty of sin but now they've seen my miracles and yet they have hated me and my Father but this is to fulfill the law where it's written ' they hated me without reason' and when the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, comes who I will send to you from the Father, this spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me and you also must tell people about me for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you so that you don't go astray. They'll put you out of the synagogue; in fact the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God, they will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I've told you this so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. What a beautiful discussion between Jesus and his disciples. Isn't it incredible, the things that He says in those final hours, He talks about bearing fruit, "I'm the vine, you're the branches – hang in there, hang with Me. Pruning is going to happen, whoever God loves He is going to prune but the whole point is if you hang in there with Me, hang in you'll bear fruit. And just as they're going to persecute Me, they're going to persecute you. They won't be pleased about you telling them about Me and it's not about winning here on earth but it's about your relationship with Me." I meet so many … so many people who believe in Jesus Christ from a distance but who never draw close to them, people who want an insurance policy but never accept him as the Lord, the King of their lives. You know why? Well its right there in what Jesus said to his disciples, because when we accept him as Lord, when we obey him, when we live our life for him there’s a price to pay. Branches who hang close in Jesus and they are part of Him are going to get pruned. That means change, that means laying down the "me, me, me, me" thing. No matter that this pruning is like cutting cancers out of our souls, no matter that after the pruning we're so much healthier and better off and bearing fruit, we don't want to be pruned and we want everyone to like us. What if they know that I'm a committed Christ follower? What will people think? No, much better to keep Jesus at a distance, a kind of eternal life insurance policy that I keep in a filing cabinet. The real Easter has nothing to do with chocolate, look again; there is a price to pay. Father, I've just heard Jesus speaking now and he said to abide in him, to hang in there with him. Lord I want that, I want Jesus in my life, this Jesus who in the last days before he was crucified, loved his disciples so much, I want that Jesus. Father, forgive me for all the things I've done wrong, I just turn away from them now and I want to make Jesus truly, truly the Lord of my life. My coach, my king, my leader, my first love. Father I pray that in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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Going Away - You Know Where // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 1
04/14/2025
Going Away - You Know Where // Easter Without Chocolate, Part 1
That week leading up to the very first Easter was a torrid time for Jesus. Imagine the stress and the pressure. So it’s interesting to see how He spent those few days. Easter means different things to different people. Chocolate, of course there's chocolate, eggs, bunny's, a long weekend, a chance for a bit of a breather and that’s great. We have a funny way though of reinventing holidays, there's something so amazing about Easter, Gods Easter and since we're right now in the week leading up to Easter I thought why don't we have a look at that week leading up to that very first Easter, what was going on? What was it like? What was Jesus doing? How were his disciples feeling? So whatever Easter means to you, wherever you might be in your spiritual walk, why don't you join me each day this week as we take a look at Easter from a different perspective. I love a good movie, I really like movies with some mystery or intrigue, it really gets my interest and mind going, where there are complex things, I love it. Now Easter, when we get to Easter the last thing we really think of is what was actually going on, what was the plot, what was the mystery, what was unfolding at Easter time? Well, what was actually going on? Here is this Jesus, He's in his thirties, he's grown up, He was a carpenter in Nazareth and about three and a half years before what we now celebrate as Easter, He began his public ministry. He came down, He was baptised in the Jordan River by John and then He went around on what can best be described as a preaching and healing tour for three and a half years. He went right up to the north, up to Galilee and He went down to the south to Judah where the city of Jerusalem is and by any standard He was astounding, He had rock star status. If you've ever been to Brazil and you see how they treat their football team, if you've ever been to India and see how they treat their cricketers, if you've ever been to South Africa and see how they flock around Nelson Mandela or the Queen in England, you know what I'm talking about. Jesus was huge in his day, He drew massive crowds, nothing like this had been seen before, thousands upon thousands of people and remember back in the first century cities weren't populations of multiples of millions, Jerusalem was somewhere between 15 and 20 thousand people so when 4 thousand people or 5 thousand people go to one of his outdoor preaching things, that was huge, that was like the quarter of the population went. Easter week was Passover festival; the crowds came to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Centuries before when Israel had been captives in Egypt as slaves and God heard their cries, he sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, "Let my people go!" And Pharaoh of course wouldn't so God sent these plagues upon Egypt and the last plague, as we saw last week, is when God killed the first born of every family and in fact their animals in Egypt. But God said to his people, who were slaves in Egypt, what you do on the night of the Passover is you take a lamb and you kill it and you paint it's blood on the top of your doorpost and then when the angel of death comes across to kill the first born it will pass over your house because you are God’s chosen people. And then Pharaoh finally sets Israel free because of that plague and they spend forty years in exodus in the desert before they make it to the Promised Land, the land of Israel that we know today. And so Israel was celebrating, in fact they still celebrate today, the Jews still celebrate the Passover when we celebrate Easter. Jesus had been threatening the religious establishment, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, these sects of leaders, the scribes that had a cushy relationship with the occupying Roman forces. Israel was occupied by the Roman empire as was the rest of the known world at this point and religion kind of became something to oppress the people, nothing new under the sun is there? When you take God’s love and you twist it into a bunch of man made rules that manipulate people it becomes a really horrible thing and Jesus comes along and Jesus is like a breath of fresh air, He cares about the people, He stands up for them, He's not into religious rules or establishment, He just loves people and you know, there’s something inside us, when we meet someone who's authentic and real and genuine and honest and a great leader, there’s a switch that flicks inside of us and we just know that we know, that we know that he's good. I remember when I worked in the consulting world and after I sold my business we put various other managers in charge of the business because I was leaving the business to come and do what I'm doing now and I saw people who were put in management positions who tried to manage through rules and fear and domination and people just didn't respond to them but when you put someone there who is genuine and real and honest and decent, people would work their backsides off for someone like that. So the contrast between the organised religion, the manipulation and the oppression of people that occurred under the religious leaders was such a stark comparison to this genuine breath of fresh air they called Jesus. Jesus came to set the captives free so by the time of this Passover there was a murder plot on. How do we do away with this Jesus? Jesus knew it, the religious leaders were threatened by all that Jesus was doing. Jesus knew it, the disciples knew it, there was tension in the air, there was fear in the hearts of the disciples, were they going to arrest the disciples too? What happened when Jesus went? This Jesus, this miracle worker, the only person that ever made sense and now it looked like he was going to be murdered. How did Jesus handle the pressure, the plotting, the knowing, the brutal crucifixion was coming? You really find out what someone's like when the going gets tough, when they're under pressure, that's when the real person comes through. Well, how did he handle it? Have a look; he says to his disciples, you can read it in John’s gospel, chapter 14: Don't let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust in me. In my Fathers house there are many rooms, if it wasn't so I wouldn't have told you. I'm going there to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I'll come back and I'll take you to be with me where I am. You know where I'm going and Thomas says, "Lord, I haven't got any idea where you're going. How do we get there?" And Jesus said, "Come on Thomas, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No-one comes to the Father but through me, if you really knew me you would have known my Father as well. From now on you do know him because you have seen him. If you love me obey what I command and I will ask the Father and he will give you another counsellor just like me, to be with you forever, the spirit of truth." And Jesus said, "If anyone loves me they'll obey my teachings and my Dad will love them and we'll come and make a home with them. He who doesn't love me won't obey my teaching, these words you hear are not my own but they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken with you while I am still here but the counsellor, the Holy Spirit who my Father will send in my name will teach you all things. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I don't give as the world gives, don't let your hearts be troubled, don't be afraid." Isn't this amazing, what strikes me about this is right at a time when He's walking inexorably to a brutal crucifixion, His thoughts are not for himself, He's not lashing out at people and worrying about himself, He's looking to the future, He's looking after his disciples. He knows what’s coming and He gives them comfort and peace amidst the turmoil. By any standard, that's remarkable don't you think? Jesus is not some "rule based" religion however much people try and turn him into that, he's the Son of God, He has sacrificed himself. All this and not a chocolate Easter egg in sight.
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So What Does This Mean For Me? // You Are To Die For, Part 5
04/11/2025
So What Does This Mean For Me? // You Are To Die For, Part 5
So many people have spent so many years living with so much guilt that…well, we kind of get used to it. Easter? Forgiveness? Healing? Not for me! Don’t bet on it! One of the things that we all deal with is guilt, it comes in many different shapes and sizes but, it's guilt nevertheless. Sometimes it's called low self esteem other times it's a nagging sense that something is missing and for some people there's a deep regret about the past and if there’s one thing that we can't change in life, it's the past. Guilt and the need for forgiveness is the place where psychology and theology often meet and believe it or not, that’s what Easter's about – dealing with guilt. So many people have spent so many years living with so much guilt that we kind of get used to it. "Easter – forgiveness, healing, freedom – not for me." Well, don't bet on it. When God deals with our guilt, life becomes fresh and new and wondrous. When we're not carrying that baggage of guilt around inside us anymore when we've carried it around for so long, well it can be hard, really hard to believe that God needs to set us free. This week on the program as we're heading into Easter we've been unpacking what God was thinking when He planned Easter. He created creation, he created you and me, He gave the whole "shoot and match" over to you and me, to use and to enjoy and He always knew that when He did that we'd rebel … and we have. We know that Adam and Eve did that and they fell out of relationship with God because the price of sin is separation from God – that's what the Bible calls death. And we can get all intellectual about it, we can dismiss that as a fable but God is God and one day there will be a day of reckoning and the only thing that will be acceptable to God in us, is complete perfection because God is a perfect God and Easter is the time that we remember that we aren't. I'm not, you're not. And the perfection of Jesus was nailed to the cross to pay for our sin, our failures, you and me. He, who knew no sin became sin for us so that we could off-load all our sin and that He would pay for that on the cross through His death so that we can stand before God, blameless. He died our death. He paid our punishment. Okay, that’s the head stuff, that's the knowledge. But we don't put our faith in Jesus just with our heads, we believe with our hearts but for so many people, for so long, they've felt this inadequacy of never measuring up, never being good enough, guilt. They cannot begin to imagine that Easter could ever be for them. You might say, "Berni, who are you talking to here? Are you talking about someone who believes in Jesus or someone who doesn't?" And the answer is to both, absolutely, to both because I know people that will tell you they believe in Jesus but they haven't dealt with this guilt thing. Easter is such a huge thing to wrap our hearts around. It's such a huge leap of faith because we are so programmed to say, "If you do wrong you have to pay the price". But Easter says, "If you do wrong Jesus paid the price." And when we put our faith in what he did for us on the Cross we're set free from that guilt because God has forgiven us. You and I, when we look in the mirror what do we see? All the blemishes and the wrinkles and the warts and everything, when we see ourselves in photos we think, "yuck", when we hear a recording of our voice we think, "yuck", when we see ourselves on video we want to be sick, God couldn't possibly ever accept me could he? This Easter thing couldn't ever possibly be for me could it? Did Jesus really die for me? This week we haven't been spending a whole bunch of time on Easter on the program, we've been looking at a Psalm from the Old Testament, Psalm 139. And today I'm going to read the whole thing because Psalm 139 is God speaking to us. Look very carefully at every word in every line, it's God’s words. He's speaking them directly into your heart and I pray that you'll hear three things from these words, that you'll hear how well He knows you, how He walks with you day by day even in the dark places and how lovingly and wondrously He created you. Have a look at this Psalm: O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you know my thoughts from far off. You discern my going out and my lying down; you're familiar with all of my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue you know it completely God. You hem me in – behind me, before me, you've laid your hands upon me. God, such knowledge is just too wonderful for me, too lofty to attain. Where can I flee from your spirit? If I go up into the heavens you're there, if I make my bed in the depths of hell you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the farthest side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,’ God even the darkness will not be dark to you because the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Because you created my inner most being. You God, knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God, your works are so wonderful, I know that full well. My frame wasn't hidden from you when I was being made in that secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. God, your eyes saw my unformed body, all the days set apart for me were written in your book before even one of them came into being. How precious to me are your thoughts O God. How vast is the sum of them. Were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand on the beach and when I wake, I am still with you. It's just such a beautiful Psalm, God loves us so much. I don't know how to say it any other way but when God looks at you He looks at someone who He has handcrafted, perfectly and wondrously and beautifully and God’s heart beats for you. Next week on the program, we'll talk more about Easter itself but what this Psalm is about, it's like a doorway that opens up God’s heart to us. He wants us to be blown away by the incredible message of His love that's so huge and so faithful and so complete. That was what was in His heart when He dreamt up Easter. He wants us to see his Son hanging on that Cross, dying and suffering, to pay the price for our sin. That's what Easters about and it's for you and for me. I truly believe that God is reaching out to each one of us today, to you and to me and saying this, "Yes. Yes Easter is for you. I came to set you free, I came to die for you, my Son suffered for you because I love you so much, so passionately, so completely, so eternally. You my child are to die for.”
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An Awesome Thought // You Are To Die For, Part 4
04/10/2025
An Awesome Thought // You Are To Die For, Part 4
It’s easy to take the whole Easter thing and say, “Yeah I get it” – so we put it in a nice, convenient little box on the shelf marked “Easter”. But Easter isn’t like that – it never was. Can you believe it, Easter is rolling around yet again, and it’s so easy for us to take the whole Easter thing and say yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. So we put it in a nice convenient little box on the shelf marked “Easter” and we just walk by it and we ignore it. But you know Easter isn’t like that, Easter was never meant to be like that, just skate through and we have a long weekend and we forget about it, yet Easter is the most decisive thing that God’s ever done. Jesus His Son, sent to die for us on a cross and rise again, that’s what it's all about, you and I in God’s sight are “to die for” He wants us so much, He wants an eternal relationship so much that He would allow His Son to die on a cross for us. How sad is it if we just skate on through and we don’t give it a second thought? Easter is the time when God sent His Son to die for us, to solve a problem and we’re going to look at that problem, it has a name, it’s called “sin”. A lot of people don’t like that term, a lot of people think it’s old fashioned, God doesn’t and we’re going to look at that problem next week. But the thing that just, I don’t know, oozes out of Easter for me is how much God loves us and we’ve been seeing that through a Psalm this week on the program, Psalm 139, that we’ve been taking a look at. It’s a psalm that speaks so much about, well, about God’s heat, God’s motivation behind Easter, He’s incredible love. Just have a listen: Father God I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful, I know that full well, my frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was made in that secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to pass. How precious to me are your thoughts oh God, how vast is the sum of them, were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake I’m still with you. The person writing this psalm, we don’t fully know who it was, is just so awestruck, so blown away by how much God loves him, how much God loves you and me. We can praise Him because we are wondrously made, because He was there, He saw our unformed substance in our mother’s womb. I’ll never be able to understand how He feels about me and how He feels about you. God’s love is so huge, it’s so vast, it’s so incomprehensible, one day you and I will stand before God, one day we’ll see Him for who He is, one day we’ll look on His face. And the Bible says that we will know everything but I just can’t imagine that because He loves us so much and you know when He created you and me individually, wondrously, perfectly, handcrafted … us … yeah, you and me, intricately woven together in our mother’s wombs, that was the most amazing act of grace. Because He knew we’d reject Him, He always knew that and He always knew that to bring us back to Him, to save us from ourselves and what we deserve He would have to send His Son Jesus to die on that cross for you and me. You and I, our rebellion, our sin was never a surprise to Him, He always knew, and yet still he created us, still He planned every day of our lives even before any of those days existed at all. No wonder the Psalmist writes: How weighty are your thoughts to me Oh God, how vast is the sum of them, I try and count them but they’re more than the sand on the beach. I come to the end and I’m still with you because behind Easter is the most amazing act of grace. Not just that Jesus came to suffer and die to pay for our failure but that God always knew that He would have to do that and He created us anyway. Can I encourage you never, ever, to put Easter in some convenient measured little box, never, ever to consign Easter to some head knowledge thing but like the psalmist be blown away by God’s love, be gob smacked, be in awe and wonder at the fact that He created us anyway and He was there when we were being formed. He handcrafted our DNA, every breath you take, every step, every hilltop, every valley, every twist and turn, every thing that we have to suffer and bear, live it in the awe and wonder at who God is and how much He loves us. Life takes on a completely new vibrancy and colour, it doesn’t matter how much we have to suffer and how much we weep and how many tears we cry, we know that God had a plan for you and me, not just who we are but for the lives that we’re going to live, that He’s given us. And for you to walk in the wonder and the awe of the completely unattainable knowledge of His for you in Jesus Christ we’ll look at more at how that love plays itself out through the Easter story over the next couple of weeks. But you know unless we’re completely lost in the wonder of His plan and His love Easter becomes just another long weekend. You and I we are “to die for” in God’s sight. That is what Easter is all about. God’s word is so awesome and I pray that you’re blessed as you hear God’s word and challenged by the sheer magnitude of God’s love. I often think that when it comes to the things of God, you know the head is to the heart what our mouth is to our stomach. when we eat we put food in our mouths right, and we chew for a while … but if you want to satisfy our hunger we have to swallow it. Then it goes deep inside somewhere hidden and all those inner parts that God created, they suck the goodness out of the food. And that’s what feeds us, that’s what gives us strength, that’s where the food becomes a part of us. And you know it’s the same with God’s word, sure we take it in through our heads, but if we just leave it there well that’s like chewing food but never swallowing it. As we spend time in God’s word here in Psalm 139 over this coming week, line by line, just pondering and praying and asking God, “Lord what are you saying to me?” That’s when it drops into our hearts, that’s when God takes His word and nourishes us and sustains us and grows us, that’s how we get fed. Please, please do not leave it there, do something for me, this week grab a Bible open it up at Psalm 139, spend some time in there with God, just quietly on your own. And the Holy Spirit will feed your soul deep, deep inside, in a way that’ll surprise you and startle you. He’ll bring His word to life in you and you know something? When we know in our hearts the unknowable love of God in Jesus Christ, it changes us. It changes our lives and that’s His plan, that’s what He wants for us heading into Easter. God paid an enormous price for us to know His love, that is what Easter is all about.
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Precious in His Sight // You Are To Die For, Part 3
04/09/2025
Precious in His Sight // You Are To Die For, Part 3
We live in a time of mass production. Commodities are just churned out. People are ….just a commodity. But not in God’s eyes…..that’s what makes Easter so, well….special. I sometime think about the times when Jesus was training to be a carpenter in his Dad’s carpenter shop. The wooden things that he made, we don’t really know but probably chairs and tables and doors and door frames, even coffins I guess. It’s ironic that ultimately he was nailed to two bits of wood. I can’t imagine he ever turned out any shoddy work, I can’t imagine he ever made a table that wasn’t straight or level or a chair that wasn’t solid or a door that didn’t fit into the door jam. Well, what if he applied the same level of perfection to you and me? What if when we were created he was there? And what does that do to our view of Easter? Yesterday and again today, we are looking at Psalm 139 because it’s about God’s motivations behind Easter. Psalm 139 is to me like a door into God’s heart, to see what was going on inside when He dreamt up this whole Easter thing. We had a look at the first part yesterday and we saw that God knows us so intimately and He’s on the journey of life with us, not way off at a distance, not disinterested but right in the middle of it with us. Everywhere we go, even when it’s dark and stormy and painful His light shines in the middle of all of that. That’s huge, to know that God is walking every step of the way with us, there’s nowhere we can go and be alone or apart from God, if we go to heaven he’s there, if we go to hell he’s there if we fly to the farthest ends to the earth he’s still there. But how is it that God knows us so well? I mean sometimes we don’t even know ourselves that well, do we? We can’t explain why we do what we do or why we reacted to something the way we did, I mean you and I are pretty complex creatures; there is so many layers to our personality and who we are. Some things are so deep inside us that we can’t ever really understand them ourselves or even talk about them. How does God know? Well, the Psalmist in Psalm 139 goes on to explain that to us, and we’re going to read that right now. We’re reading from Psalm 139 beginning at verse 13: For you God, you created my innermost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb, God I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are so wonderful I know that full well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was made in that secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed substance. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. This is one of the most precious passages in the Bible to me, as we look back on our lives what we see is a mixture of wonderful and desperate, beautiful and ugly, we’ve done some brilliant things and we done some really, really stupid things, there are great highs and there are dark valleys. But when you and I were conceived God was there, our innermost parts, who we are, our DNA blueprint, the way that we’d look and sound and all our gifts and abilities and strengths and weaknesses, all that complexity He created our innermost being. He knit us together in our mother’s womb; you and I are handcrafted by God, one of a kind, distinctive, completely, utterly amazingly, beautifully, wondrously made. Separate and different from every other person who ever lived, and every person who ever will live, intricately woven, each strand of DNA laid down according to His plan. And not only that God wasn’t in control just of who we are but of everything that would ever happen to us. Look at this again: All the days ordained for me, all the days set apart for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. That’s why I so despair when I meet people who waste away there lives worrying and complaining about their lot. Yeah some people have better lives that others, some people seem to get all the breaks and the benefits and the blessings and other people seem to get handed difficult and painful lives, just like Jesus, just like the Apostle Paul. I was just talking, having a cup of coffee just recently with a couple and we were talking about just this, how come God does something mighty and powerful in this persons life and this other person God takes years to do what He’s going to do? I don’t know! But it’s about God’s plan, about God’s glory. There’s a wonderful poem call The Weaver, you may have heard me read it once before, have a listen, it’s beautiful: My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me.I cannot choose the colours as He weaveth steadily, Sometimes He chooses dark threads and I in foolish pride Forget He sees the upper and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why The dark threads were as needful in the weaver’s skilful hand As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He hath planned. You and I are exactly what He made us to be, you and I are living the life that He planned for us. But you know sometimes we don’t open ourselves to His plan. Sometimes we shut God out and we wonder why life is going badly. Easter’s coming, Easter is rolling around the corner and Easter is the time when we look at that Cross and we know that Jesus Christ came to die for you and me, maybe you’ve never ever accepted Jesus and put your faith in Him and what He did for you on the Cross. If you haven’t now is the time to do it, let’s just pray, you might want to pray this prayer with me. Father,I thank you for what Jesus did for me on the cross, I believe that He is the Son of God, I believe He died for me, I believe He rose again. Father, I want to live my life in that knowledge, I give you everything I am, I give you everything I have, I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done wrong and I’ve put those at the feet of the cross right now. Father, forgive me through Jesus Christ, I want to be called a Christian, I want to follow Jesus and live my life for Him. Lord I don’t know what that means, I don’t know how that will play itself out, I don’t know what your plans are but Lord I want to live my life for the glory of Jesus Christ and today I lay my life down for Him so that in Him I cant take it up again, a new life, a fresh life. Thank you Father that I am forgiven because I believe in Jesus, thank you Father that I have an eternal life through Jesus Christ. Amen. You and I are what He made us to be, when we put our faith in Him we live the most incredible joy and when we see the beauty of God’s plan hand crafted by Him to live the life that He laid out before time began we get some sense of what was going on in His heart when He came up with this plan of Easter.
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Handcrafted by the Master // You Are To Die For, Part 2
04/08/2025
Handcrafted by the Master // You Are To Die For, Part 2
If God’s as busy as perhaps you and I are, well then maybe Easter is just another long weekend – time for a rest. But if God knows us personally, then Easter takes on a whole new meaning. It's so easy to think of Easter as just another long weekend, you know a chance for a bit of a breather from work, I mean it's a busy world we live in, rushing around as we mostly do. God must be busy too, he's got so much on his mind, there's global warming, there's terrorism, there’s famine and starvation, there’s poverty, there are wars, God’s one busy guy. So what does Easter have to do with you and me? If everyone is so busy, God included, maybe it's just another retail event, maybe God is too busy for us, well for Easter to be personal but what if it is personal? What if God knows us intimately, better than even we know ourselves? Then Easter becomes something entirely different. But does He, does He know us that well and is He that interested in you and me? They're very good questions. As we think about this Easter over the coming few weeks it's a good time for us to think about what God was up to. I mean Christmas seems just a few weeks away, it's the time we celebrate Jesus becoming a man and the whole 'baby in a manger' thing, but Easter for Jesus, wasn't just a few months after Christmas, Easter was about 33 years later. It was at a time called the Passover celebration and the Passover is a time when Israel celebrated their release from slavery in Egypt centuries before. Israel were slaves in Egypt and God sent a number of plagues on the Egyptians and the last plague was the death of the first born in every family. The Israelites were told to take a lamb and to kill it and to take the blood and paint it on the top of the door and then the angel of death that was bringing this plague would pass over their homes which is what happened. And so this time, Easter, was a time when Israel was celebrating the Passover celebration, the time that we now remember that Jesus not only came to earth as a man, He not only walked through all the trials and all the temptations that you and I do, He not only healed the sick and cast out demons, He not only preached with power but He laid down his life for you and me on that cross. Now, we'll look at the how and why of that over the next few weeks but for me, Easter begins long, long before that. You look at God and say, "God, what were you doing at Easter? Why do you go to that extreme? What's that all about? Why do you send your Son, who never made a mistake, who never sinned, why do you send your Son and then let him be beaten and crucified on a cross?" There’s a bit of SMS shorthand called, "To Die For", you know when the kids use their mobile phones and they send text messages to one another, they often use the term "to die for", the number 2, the letters DI and the number 4; to die for. It's shorthand for something that you just have to have, maybe it's a new mobile phone and that new mobile phone is "to die for", or maybe a girl sends a text message about a boy she's just seen and he is "to die for". That's what Easter's about, God was prepared to send his Son “to die for” you and me. We, in God's sight are "to die for", in his eyes, in his heart, he would die to get us back. Let's unpack this idea for a little bit and go and have a look at what was going on inside the Father’s great and mighty heart, what was He thinking about when it came to you and me when he hatched this Easter plan? If you've got a Bible, grab it, we're going to have look at Psalm 139. Easter's a hard thing to get our hearts and minds around but this Psalm is a place to start, it talks about what drove God towards this amazing plan that we now call Easter, have a listen: Lord God, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit down, you know when I rise up; you know my thoughts from far off. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word’s are on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind me and before me; you've laid your hands upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven you're there, if I make my bed in hell, you're there, if I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the farthest side of the sea, even there your right hand will guide me, you'll hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,’ God, even darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine like day for the darkness is like a light to you. A beautiful passage and it tells us three things. Firstly, God knows us intimately, "Lord you've searched me you know me. You know when I get up or sit down, you know my thoughts from far away, You know everything about me." God’s on the journey with us; "You hem me in; in front of me, behind me. You've laid your hand upon me, such knowledge is just too wonderful for me," and God is there even in the dark places. "Even when the darkness hides us and the light around us becomes night, the darkness won't be dark to him; the night will shine like the day" because God is in that dark place with us. You see the reason that this Psalm, for me, lays the foundations for Easter is that it tells me about a God who knows me intimately, not some far off, distant God, not some unmoved mover who pulls strings and has like a marionette playing; no! A God with a close and intimate knowledge. It's hard for us to fathom, I mean billions of people have lived on this earth down through the ages yet he knows each one of us so intimately, so perfectly. I have a friend who has a large family, he has 11 children, you know he has no less love for his 11 that I have for my 3 and that’s how God is. God knows each one of his children intimately and it's such an awesome thing to think about, the fact that God knows you and me intimately, every hair on our heads, every thought, every hope, every dream, every disappointment and hurt, every step of every day, every breath that we take. I wonder whether you mightn't just grab a pen right now and just jot down the areas of your life where you feel alone, maybe it's in a relationship or in work or maybe its issues with your finances. You know those parts of your life right now, where it feels like there’s a darkness, a heaviness, a loneliness and then contemplate these beautiful words from Psalm 139: If I say surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me, God even the darkness won't be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for the darkness is as light to you. That's one of the things behind Easter, he knows us so well, we're so much his children he wants to shine light into our darkness and as we head towards Easter, I'd encourage you to search him out, not just in those parts of your life that might be going well, but in those dark patches. Psalm 139 is so beautiful because it talks about God’s great love for us, His incredible love that he lavishes on us through Jesus Christ. If God didn't know us personally, if he was such a busy God that he couldn't take the time to know us, Easter wouldn't mean that much but he does, he knows every hair, every wrinkle, every blemish, every mistake – everything about us and that’s why he sent his Son at Easter, that's why he sent Jesus, to pay for our mistakes at Easter because he loves us so much.
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The Easter Puzzle // You Are To Die For, Part 1
04/07/2025
The Easter Puzzle // You Are To Die For, Part 1
I wonder – if you or I had been God – whether we would have done the whole Easter thing. You know, Jesus dying on a cross. Pretty tough road….I really wonder….. As we take some time today to look at Easter, I wonder whether I could ask you a question. If you were God would you have done Easter? Now I'm not being flippant, not at all, it's a serious question. Would you have created a universe and an earth and people like you and me? Would you have set things up deliberately so that these people, who you created in your image, would rebel against you? And would you then have sent your son, Jesus to be spat on, to be beaten, to be nailed to a cross to die, to pay for that rebellion to bring these people home to you? When you think of it that way, at least for me, the whole Easter thing is just a bit of a puzzle don't you think? I mean, who in their right mind would do that? And if God was in His right mind, why, why did He do Easter? I thought that this week since Easter is just around the corner we might have a bit of a poke around to see what was going on in God's head and in God's heart when He was planning this Easter thing. I mean, if we're going to make up our minds whether or not to accept or reject the whole Easter thing, to accept Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us, or to reject that, why shouldn't we know what God was thinking. And if we do accept it, we want to know what was going on in His heart, specifically to do with you and me so that we can wrap our hearts around this great reality that we call Easter. Now people sometimes get upset with me for leaving questions hanging on the program but I don’t know I like hanging questions, Jesus did it a lot. He often told parables and stories that people didn't really understand. You know they went to listen to Jesus speak and He told the parable of the sower or the parable of the lost coin and often they didn't understand it. Even the disciples didn't understand it and I kind of imagine these people going home afterwards and talking about it over the dinner table for days, for weeks saying 'What do you think Jesus meant by that? What do you think God meant by what Jesus said?' I kind of like that so if you'd rather have some answers, well join us on the program tomorrow but today I've just got a bunch of questions about Easter, looking at Easter from a different perspective and thinking, "Well, what are the questions that we should be asking of Easter?" It starts, for me, with the story of Gods creation. You know He made the heavens and the earth and the ocean and the dry lands and the sea creatures and the birds and the animals and He made you and me and you can read about that in Genesis, chapter 1 and 2, read all about it. Interestingly, the writer of Genesis, Moses, listed creation in the exactly the same sequence as scientists today think it happened, that's quite fascinating isn't it? Okay, so God creates the whole universe, he creates you and me but then listen to the relationship that He sets up between us and His creation. You read about it in the beginning of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26. This is what it says: "Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our 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. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Go and be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has a breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. “God saw all that He had made and it was very good and there was evening and there was morning on the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array and by the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on that seventh day He rested from all His work. God blessed that seventh day and made it holy because on it He rested from all His work of creating what He had done. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created." Hmm, so God creates everything and you just look around creation, it is just utterly awesome but God then gives it to us, all of it. Now if God is God, He knew how that was going to turn out and in chapter 3 of the book of Genesis we see that Adam and Eve were in the garden and they got it all, everything that He created in that garden was theirs except for one tree with one sort of apple and the devil comes along in the form of a serpent and tempts them. Have you ever wondered who created that serpent, who created the devil? Well, if God is God; God must have. We probably all know the story, Adam and Eve ate from that one tree that God said, ‘Don't eat from.’ And God kicked them out of the garden. Adam and Eve had everything yet they rebelled against God. Now, if God is God, God always knew that they would. God didn't sit there and go, ‘Oh my goodness, they've rebelled against Me.’ God always knew, He always knew that He, Himself was perfect and holy and that the only way to deal with their rebellion and our rebellion is death, that's it, the wages of sin, the wages of our rebelling against God is death, eternal separation from God. I can't put it any other way. ‘Um, I'm okay, I'm not that bad.’ Get this! Adam and Eve ate one crummy apple, that was rebellion and they were separated from God, God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden for doing that and God always knew that the only way that we could get back into a relationship with Him was if someone paid the price and that is what Easter is all about. "He who knew, knows Him, became sin for us. We know love by this that Jesus laid down His life for us." The whole of creation, the whole of you and me, everything was set up in such a way so that there was only one solution, there would only ever be one solution, for Jesus, the son of God, to pay the price. Would you have done it that way? I don't know, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have. Why did God do it that way? Look around, He's gone to a lot of trouble, this huge, incomprehensible universe, He's given the whole thing to you and me, lock, stock and barrel knowing full well that we'd rebel and then He did the Easter thing, this brutal painful death of Jesus. It was so incredibly unfair, we'll look at that next week, not even Pontius Pilate could come to the conclusion that it was fair. What does that say about God? What does that say about us? What does that say about what He thinks about you and me? We can skim over this Easter thing, we can just go along and buy some chocolate eggs and have a long weekend and never give it two thoughts but either God is God and He sent His son Jesus to die on the cross or He didn't and if He did, my goodness it's a puzzle isn't it? It's a riddle; it's this amazing question, God, why did you do this? God, why did you do Easter? Can I encourage you over these coming days and weeks? Don't just go and buy chocolate and have a long weekend - think about it. ©
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A New Life is Possible // Dying to Live, Part 5
04/04/2025
A New Life is Possible // Dying to Live, Part 5
We’ve all heard so called Christians talking about being “born again”. Sounds, I don’t know, kind of strange. How can you be born again. Is it religious mumbo jumbo, or is it real? There are so many paradoxes in life, so many things that promise to deliver what we’re looking for, but they don’t. Somehow they just don’t, and no matter how hard we try, something’s still missing. People are dying to have a great life but somehow often, they’re just not prepared to pay the price. Jesus had an interesting spin on that; you have to die to live. So often we have "me" at the centre of the universe, and it doesn’t work, have you noticed? I want "Me" in the driver’s seat, maybe it’s ok but it’s not the best that it could be. What does it mean you have to die to live? What does it mean being Born Again? Are they just religious buzz phrases or real life experiences? I’m joined today by a young man, well, he’s young to me anyway, by the name of Gary Brown, he’s tall, dark and handsome just like me. And you couldn’t pick a name that’s more every day than Gary Brown could you? Berni: G’day Gary! Gary: G’day Berni! Berni: I did a search on Google by the way, I love doing this when I talk to someone, I did a search on Gary Brown on the Internet and there were 30,300,000 hits, so Gary is Mr Average. I mean, he does average very well, don’t you mate? Gary: Yep, very … very. Berni: How are ya, Gary? Gary: Yep, very well Berni thank you. Berni: Now listen we’ve been talking this week on "A Different Perspective", about this whole issue of dying to live and changing our lives. I know over the last few years there have been some big changes in your life and I just wanted to ask you about those things, but tell us a bit about your early life … you traveled around the world a lot with Mum and Dad, how’d that work? Gary: Yeah Dad worked for Coca-Cola … Berni: That’s the "real thing" … Gary: Yeah absolutely, the other force taking over the world. We’d left England when I was about 24 months old and we went to Hong Kong and then South Korea, and then Singapore, Indonesia, and then we came to Australia when I was about 14. Berni: So you’ve been around and was it a happy childhood, or was it hard moving around? Gary: No, I thought it was great; it was all I knew so that was normal to me, moving countries every 3 or 4 years. Berni: And your teen years, now when did this whole God thing happen for you? Are your parents Christian, or how did all that happen? Gary: Yeah, I was very blessed to grow up in a Christian household, but it was when we were in South Korea at a camp and I can remember it very clearly, and we were sitting, and I was looking at the fire. Throughout the camp (it was organised by the church), I felt very close to God at that time at the campfire, and one of the leaders had seen just a change in my behaviour, I just became very quiet and very peaceful and she goes, "you know what are you feeling?" And I say, "I just feel I would like to give my life to God and to ask Christ in", and she led me through the prayer and yeah, that happened at about age 10. Berni: 10 Gary: 10, age 10. Berni: You’re an early starter, and what do you remember of that experience? I mean, 10’s pretty young, 10’s…you’re not an adult, what impact did that have over the coming years as a young adult, a young teenager. Gary: Yeah, it was a good decision but as I got older I suddenly realised there’s a bit difference between knowing about God, even believe in God, and then actually acting on it. When I got older in my late teens, I think I knew God but I didn’t have a relationship with him, and so there was a time in my life where I just walked away. I thought, "I’m gonna try this on my own, I’m gonna do what I wanna do, I wanna get the things I wanna get, I just want to do life the way that I wanna do it." It went down hill very, very fast. Berni: Very unusual for a teenager really, to think that way. Gary: Yeah, that’s right. Mr Average did the Mr Average thing. Berni: What’s down hill? What does that mean? Gary: Down hill for me was ah, gosh, completely undisciplined, I did what I wanted to do, I saw what I wanted to do, I used to go out drinking so I’d spend all my money on that, I would watch whatever I watched, so I dunno … that would include pornography when it was around, we never went around to get it but if it was around wasn’t disciplined in not looking at it. Not being disciplined with some of the friends that I may have hung around with, swearing and just doing what I wanted to do and not really caring about anyone else. Berni: And that was a satisfying experience I guess? Gary: Ah, absolutely not! Berni: Why, what makes you say that? I mean, we think of freedom as being well, I wanna do whatever I wanna do. Why wasn’t it a satisfying experience for you? Gary: My friendships weren’t very good, cause it was all about me, and when you hang around with people who’s all about them, you don’t wanna be around them because they’re always taking from you, so I found that my friendships died pretty quickly. In relationships with girls for instance, because it was all about me, they were very self-centered and empty and I ended up hurting some people, which is completely not my nature. So even though I did it, I hated doing it, yet I kept on doing it. I guess the Bible says … Paul goes, :I do the things I don’t wanna do and I don’t do the things I want to do." So there was this complete clash in my life every time. So every time I wanted to do what I wanted to do, just for me, it just wasn’t me; it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Berni: So how does that change? What happens in Gary Brown’s life? Gary: I got to a point where I was very unhappy, my friendships weren’t good and I went to my brother-in-law, who at that time was an Anglican Pastor, and he said read the Gospel of John, read about Jesus and I read that and I thought that is the person I wanna be, I wanna see people healed, I wanna see people on the fringe and bring them into a relationship, I wanna give again, like give, not just be about me. I got to a point and I can remember when, in the end of John, and Jesus is praying about other people and when he prayed about other people it broke my heart because he was praying for me, so he’s about to go to the cross and he still prayed for me, and I thought, that is who I am, and I wanna get back to that. Berni: So you make a decision, you decide that you wanna follow Jesus, what does life look like after that? I mean is it one of these sorts of fairy stories, you know my life was terrible, I believed in Jesus, now my life is wonderful? You know … Gary: Yes and No. Yes, that I am so much more at peace with who I am, but no in the fact that, daily I’ve got all these desires that are still there, you know part of our nature is it IS all about me. So constantly I’ve gotta take those and go No! It’s not all about me, deal with it and look around me, look around to other people, and when I do that, there’s even more peace that comes through and it just … my life isn’t so bad. Berni: Now you went on to work for an organisation called, "Youth Alive", tell us about it because that’s a real giving kind of job. Gary: Yeah, Youth Alive was fantastic! It was organising large scale youth events for kids in high school and youth ministries around New South Wales, and we did these events with motor cross, and skateboards, and live music, and then we’d get a guest speaker, and you would see the last event was over ten and a half thousand people, praising God, in an open arena, in the rain! Then the guest speaker comes out, gives a life changing message about, "Jesus loves you", and all these kids out there who just have never heard anyone say, "I love you", they don’t know that they were created, that don’t know that they were lovingly put together by God, and when they hear that message, and you can see the truth hits them and they break. You see some of these teenagers crying in the middle of all their friends, and then they say, "Do you wanna know Jesus?" and you watch literally over a 1000 of them raise their hand – and that was life changing! That just made coming back to Jesus all the more. Berni: And it seems to be a switch around from it all being about me, which is kind of the buy-line of life these days and it’s all about you, to it being for other people. Gary: Yeah, I found when I think about me, my world shrinks very quickly and my problems get really big. When I think about other people, my eyes come off myself and my life is actually very good, I’m in a great family, I’m married to a beautiful wife, we live, we’re very blessed with a house and I look around me and I go, "WOW, my life is blessed, I’m Ok!" And I just suddenly look around me and see all these other people about what I can do for them and it’s just such a more peaceful existence. Berni: So just in a nutshell because we’re almost out of time, what does "Born Again" mean to you in real life? Gary: It’s getting to know my creator, the person who made me, finding out why he made me, how he made me, so I’m at peace with myself. When I’m at peace with myself I feel free, I can look around, I can use the giftings that I know, and go out and just help people get back into a relationship with their God, so they can have the same peace. And to me I was born again from a selfish existence, to one where I’m at peace and I can help others. Berni: Would you go back? Gary: Never … never!
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Being Born Again // Dying to Live, Part 4
04/03/2025
Being Born Again // Dying to Live, Part 4
We’ve all made mistakes in life. I have. You have. Imagine, imagine if we could have another crack. You know, a new life with the slate wiped clean. This week so far, we’ve been looking at the paradoxes in life. In particular, how on the one hand everything tells us we should put ourselves first, that we’re the centre of the universe, but on the other hand, the bleak reality of that kind of approach, well it just doesn’t work. People are just dying to have a great life but so often they focus on the short-term cost and the changes they need to make to have that life. In a sense, well we have to die to live. We have to bite the bullet in the short term to get the value and the quality in the medium and longer terms. But what if you and I could have new start? What if the slate could be wiped clean? What if you could have a new life? What if "Born Again" weren’t just some religious nut kind of cliché? What if "Born Again" were new reality in your life? Yesterday if you joined me, I mentioned that I recently celebrated my 60th birthday. So 60 years ago, Berni was born yesterday, which means today 47 years ago, I was one day old. I literally had my whole life ahead of me. What if … what if we have a new start, knowing everything we know now? Wouldn’t that be cool? Of course, hope as we may, we just can’t turn the clock back. But what we can do, is we can admit that some things in our lives aren’t working, something’s missing, something’s not right and we can decide to do something about it. I like the fact that Jesus is an edgy, profound kind of guy. He cuts through all the froth and bubble and goes straight to the point. He was trying to explain to his disciples, why He had to go to the cross and die. Now for his Disciples who have been wandering around at the Jesus bible school for the last three-and-a-half years with him, and they’ve been watching him zap lepers and heal them, and they’ve been watching him cast demons out of people, and they’ve been watching Him give sight to the blind. For Jesus to say to them, ‘Well guys, umm time’s come, I’m going to be crucified next Friday’, that’s not a very palatable outcome to the Disciples, it’s scary, it’s confusing. How do you explain that to the Disciples? Well this is how Jesus explained it, he said: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their lives will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life. Whenever Jesus says, "I tell you the truth", it’s like He’s grabbing us by the shoulders and saying, "Wake up, this is really important, listen to me, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it just remains a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their life will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life." It’s a great picture, most of these people knew what kernels of wheat looked like, even if we only ever see them once they’ve been crunched up in the supermarket inside a loaf of bread, right. These people knew what seeds looked like, what wheat looked like, they probably touched it and walked through the fields and were close to it. If you live in a rural community maybe it’s the same for you, it’s not for me. And He was saying, "Look a seed can’t grow into a new plant until it dies", and that’s true. If you’ve ever tried to take an apple seed, when you were a little kid, eat the apple, take the seed, plant it in the ground, wait for something to come out … nothing comes out because first, that seed has to dry up and shrivel up and in a sense die before it can become an apple tree. What’s that mean for you and me in our lives? Yesterday if you were with us, and if you weren’t you can listen to that program again online at anytime, just have a listen. But what we were talking about was the fact that many people have this template dropped on their head that says, "Me, me, me, me. I am in the centre of the universe and everything else has to revolve around me and has to come my way and has to flow into me." This dying that Jesus talks about is inverting that, this dying says "I’m no longer at the centre of the universe, no, no, God – Jesus is at the centre of my universe." That’s a big transition, that is a big step, that means abdicating the flow, that means subjecting ourselves to God, to Jesus. And then Jesus says, "Take up your cross, go on, pick up your cross, come follow me." Maybe again, a cross is just a little gold thing that hangs around people’s necks. When he was saying it, crosses were things that people got nailed to, and died gruesome deaths. He was saying, "be prepared to die." In fact, Jesus even said, "Take up your cross daily, die daily, die every day, put yourself last and Me first, follow me." It is so easy to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, it’s so easy to believe that God has done this but when we believe in Jesus it changes what we do, it changes who we are, it changes our behaviour, it sets us free from some of this stuff in our life that we know isn’t working. But we hang on to it because, I don’t know, we just hang onto it because it’s all we know. Take up your cross and follow me is not an intellectual choice, it is a life choice, it is a decision to lay down our lives day after day, after day and follow Jesus, in partnership with Jesus and say. "Jesus you know something, you are now in the driver’s seat of my life." I’m going where you’re taking me and I know there’s a cost, I know there are changes, I know there are lifestyle choices that I have to make in getting my life together but you are going to be the Lord of my life. The Apostle Paul writes in a letter to the Roman Church 2000 years ago, he says: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart, you’ll be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, not in an intellectual sense, not in a distance sense, in a real life sense, "Jesus is the Lord of my life". You look at all the paradoxes and contradictions in life; family and work, and relationships, and a sense of destiny, our spirituality. Things should be working but often they’re not. Even for people who’ve said I believe in Jesus in my head, but haven’t believed with their lives. Often it’s not, something’s not together, something’s broken … something’s missing. Is it time to say, "Jesus is my Lord"? Not a half-decision, not a part-decision, an all of me decision. Me, my life, my world view, my wealth, my behaviour, my feelings, my hopes, my dreams, every corner, every crevice, every part of me, I lay it all down at the foot of the cross and I’m going to die once and for all to this world and rise again a new person, a new life, a new start in Jesus Christ. Forgiven, made new, all the old things have passed away, everything is new, I wanna be "Born Again". And once we take that step, and my challenge for you today is, have you? Will you take that step? No matter who we are, where we are on our spiritual journey, there’s a cost, lay down everything, follow Jesus.
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My Birthday // Dying to Live, Part 3
04/02/2025
My Birthday // Dying to Live, Part 3
A few weeks ago, I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays. So what. We all have a birthday. Easy though to get self-absorbed about things – to imagine somehow that we’re at the centre of the universe. Easier it turns out, than many of us think. As I said, a few weeks ago, I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays ... 66 years since I breathed my first breath. So I was thinking … whoa, stop, don’t turn it off! I’m not going to talk about myself for the next ten minutes; I was just trying to make a point. You know those people in life who only ever talk about themselves? Their life, what’s going on in their world, they never stop. They never even think to ask you, “How are you going, what’s going on in your world, how are you feeling?” No, no, they're so utterly self absorbed it wouldn’t even enter their mind. Sure it’s my birthday today, that’s nice, happy birthday Berni, but sometime in the next three hundred and sixty five days you’re gong to have a birthday too. And it’s the same with everyone else that you and I know. Contrary to popular belief the universe does not revolve around you or me. Let me introduce you to a young polish astronomer called Nick. He came up with a radical theory, in fact so radical that he was branded a heretic by the church. Nick’s last name is Copernicus. Now young Nick, between about 1517 and 1530 wrote a treatise called, “On the Revolution of Celestial Spheres”. Up until then people basically believed that the earth was in the centre of the universe and that all the other heavenly bodies, all the stars and the sun and the moon, everything else revolved around the earth. And Copernicus thought about this and he looked at how the other planets were moving and he deduced that the sun was at the centre of our solar system, and that the earth was just one of the planets revolving around the sun. Now, a full century later in the ecclesiastical trial of Galileo, (that means that the church tried him for heresy) here’s another great scientist who believed in the Capernaum theory. They officially suppressed Copernicus’s idea that the earth wasn’t in the centre of the universe, that in fact the sun was in the centre of our solar system. So the church was geocentric, the earth is in the centre, and the scientists were heliocentric, the sun is in the centre and they were called heretics. Now, today any 7 year old kid knows that the earth revolves around the sun. It rotates on its axis, the axis is tilted at 23 ½ degrees, that’s why we have the seasons. But in the 16th and 17th Centuries that kind of thinking was heretical. "Berni, why the history lesson?" Because in a sense it’s exactly the same today. The more affluent a society becomes the more entrenched becomes the theory that I or you are in the centre of the universe. You challenge that; you say I don’t think it's working that well. You dare to suggest that there’s a God who sent His Son to die for you and me, and the world will call you a heretic. But we know that this self-centric thing doesn’t work any better than the earth-centric view of the universe explains the movement of all these bodies in the sky. Just doesn’t work! And people end up living a lie that is self absorbing. We talked about those people at the beginning of the program. You know the sort of people who only ever talk about themselves. We know it doesn’t work because they’re boring. You can’t stand hanging around those people for more than ten minutes. There’s a sea called the Dead Sea, and the reason that it’s called the Dead Sea is because it has the Jordan River flowing into it, but it doesn’t have any outflows, so all this water is flowing in, nothing flowing out. It’s seven times saltier than the ocean, its twenty seven per cent solid substances in the water. It supports no life whatsoever, none! Because for there to be life there needs to be an inflow and there needs to be an outflow. But unfortunately the Dead Sea only has an inflow, and the same is true of people. If you put yourself at the centre and expect everything to flow in there’s no life at all. That’s why! We’re not designed to be like the Dead Sea, it’s a paradox. The world’s saying put yourself at the centre let everything flow in, it doesn’t work! People are dying to live an exciting, people are dying to have a life that’s just worth living. We all want a great life, but in a sense we have to die to live, in a sense we have to accept that there’s got to be an out flow, that life has to be about things flowing out rather than things just flowing in. Jesus said, “Come to me, come to me and drink, come to me and drink this living water.” He wasn’t talking about the Dead Sea! And then he said: Out of your belly will run rivers of living water. Rivers! Not a trickle, not a stream, not one river, RIVERS of living water. Let me ask you something, is your life one of those lives where you try and pour stuff in, but you never give anything out and if it is how satisfying is that? How much, let me be really direct here, how much does your life represent the circumference of the Dead Sea? Where we expect everything to flow in, we’re not prepared to give anything out, we wonder, we wonder why life isn’t worth living. We wonder why this doesn’t support abundant life. Who or what is at the centre of your universe? Are you at the centre of your universe? Am I at the centre of my universe? Because if that’s the model that we have dumped on our head it’s how we live our life, it’s going to be like the Dead Sea. It’s not going to support abundant life, in fact it won’t support any life, it will be devoid of any satisfaction – that’s the paradox. You try and stuffing stuff in but it never satisfies. Are we at the centre of our universe or is God at the centre of our universe? There are people who will say, “Berni, you’re a loony, you know, talking about God in this day and age, come on!” God is no less real than the sun that the earth rotates around, and it doesn’t matter how much they tried to suppress Copernicus' theory, it doesn’t matter how much they said he was a heretic, it doesn’t matter how much they gave Galileo a hard time for believing it – it was still true. The sun is at the centre of our solar system and we are one of the planets that revolve around us. God has a Son … God has a Son called Jesus and it doesn’t matter how much people say, “Oh yeah that’s all old fashioned, I’m not going to listen to that, you’re a fundamentalist.” Doesn’t matter how much they say that, it doesn’t change the truth, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And when we look at this model of putting ourselves in the centre, when we look at the Dead Sea approach, does it work? Does it work, is it any better than someone who says that the earth is at the centre of the universe, just look around, does it work? Look around at the wars that are being fought, look around at the intolerance, look around at the greed and the selfishness, look around at the government systems that promote the notion of the only thing that matters in government is improving financial wellbeing. Does it work? Do we feel any better off? Who’s at the centre of your universe? Is it you or is it God? Is it you? Is it Jesus? Who do you want to have at the centre of your universe? What sort of life do you want to have? A Dead Sea life or the life that Jesus gives? The life that has rivers of living water flowing from God into you and from you out to other people? What sort of a life do you want? Tomorrow on "A Different Perspective" we’ll take a look at how to make the transition.
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My Way or the Highway // Dying to Live, Part 2
04/01/2025
My Way or the Highway // Dying to Live, Part 2
We all know people with that “my way or the highway” attitude. Delightful aren’t they? But truth be known, this a bit of that streak in each of us. Question is, what to do about it? Now we all know people in life who are the sort of people who dominate, they rule the roost, it has to be done their way, “It’s my way or the highway.” You know the sort; if you close your eyes you can just picture their angry faces. It’s all kind of wrapped up in an inherent selfishness, an underlying belief that, well, I’m at the centre of the universe, life is all about my needs, gratifying my senses. Those kinds of people, to tell you the truth, are right proper pains in the neck, but you know, if the real truth be known, there’s a bit of that in each of us, to a greater of lesser extent. We all want our own way, we all want it done my way. In fact, let's face it, there’s a “my way or the highway” streak in each one of us. The question is what to do about it? Our lives are all full of paradoxes, when you look at family or work or finances or leisure or what’s going on in our spirits or our behaviour. There are so many areas of paradox, so many areas where it should be satisfying, but it’s not, it should work but it’s not. We have so much yet something’s missing, and those contradictions, those paradoxes are like a tension inside. We can ignore them, we can hope that they’re going to go away but the reality is they don’t. Today and over the next few days, we’re going to confront and unpack some of those paradoxes, not in a preachy kind of way but together look at it from a different perspective. The "my way or the highway" attitude is one of those areas, and there are two manifestations of that. One of them is arrogance, the blatant self-centeredness, you know at home at work. To tell you the truth I see it in churches, we have a basic model in our heads that says, there’s the universe and I’m at the centre of the universe and everything is supposed to come my way and happen my way and gratify me. Theologians call that original sin. This is what they are talking about. I was on the bus the other day and I saw a little toddler, a two year old, right, and this two year old was rebelling against Dad because the two year old did not want to sit on this seat she wanted to sit on that seat. It is in our DNA. The other way that it pops up though is a little bit more subtle, it’s in ugly duckling syndrome. It's being the perpetual victim. I was having lunch with a man and he was talking about his wife, and he said look you know, her parents never supported her, they never went to any of her sporting events, or her concerts when she was at school. She was even in hospital recently and they didn’t come and visit her, isn’t it surprising that that woman has low self esteem? Not at all. And so people can end up with the sort of, "I’m an ongoing victim" attitude, "I’m going to be a victim, whether you like it or not." So whether it’s the road rage model or the perpetual victim model you don’t have to be Einstein to figure it out do you? Society says you can have it all, you can be it all as long as you buy this car or spend your money on this, and the two ways that that works out is the "me, me, me", thing or the "I’ll never make it, I’ll never be good enough." The paradox is that it doesn’t work, it should work but it doesn’t work. And we go on kidding ourselves, we have this template of who we are dropped on to our skulls right? And we ignore the consequences. I was recently buying a colour laser printer for home. I do a lot of work from home, send a lot of mail out and so I needed a colour printer. There were two brands, brand A and brand B. Brand A was the cheaper one it was only $1,600 up front. Brand B was over $3,000 up front, almost twice as much, which one do you buy? Well, brand A of course right, it's cheaper. Problem is it’s not just about the up front cost, with laser printers there are consumables. There’s the cartridges that go inside them and that costs a lot of money. You do a comparison between brand A and brand B and over three years printing 7,000 pages a month, which is roughly what I do, the difference in consumable costs is $18,000. $18,000 over the life of the printer. Which one do you buy? By the way the more expensive one which has the cheaper consumable cost also has better print quality, so which one do you buy? Do you buy the one that’s cheaper up front or do you worry about the cost and the quality over the life of the printer? It’s a bit of a no brainer isn’t it? Brand B is obviously the one that you want to buy. The immediate cost is not the only thing that’s important, it’s the impact over the total life, yet, we normally focus on the immediate, we normally focus on the up front. The immediate reaction would be: buy the cheaper one, instead of looking at the life, quality, and outcomes. And then we look at Jesus kind of suspiciously and we turn away from that stuff “follow me” because we go, “Well what’s it going to cost me, you know, what’s it going to cost?” I was talking to a friend who has an employee, this friend of mine is a Christian and the employee is not. And the employee said to him, “I could never become a Christian because I would have to change my lifestyle.” But what’s the cost of that lifestyle? What’s the cost over the life of the item of that lifestyle? And of course our lives are not like laser printers we use them for three years, we change them over and we get another one. Our lives are a one-off event on this planet. What’s the total cost? I know people who say, “I’m a Christian”, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God; they believe that Jesus died for them but it’s never dropped into their hearts. It’s never changed their behaviour, it’s never made a difference to how they live their lives because they’re still caring the old template around in their head, they’re still carrying the road rage Ronnie or the perpetual victim mentality round in their lives. Is that you? Are you struggling with this? Let me ask you, what’s it costing you? What’s it costing you in relationships? What’s it cost you in joy? What’s it costing you in the richness of your life, to be living like this? And is it time to take a stock, like I did with the printer and say “Am I focusing too much on the short term cost of change, am I just focusing on “I think it would be too hard to change, I don’t think I really want to change much?” Come on! You can pay $1,600 for brand A and pay next to $18,000 over the life, or you can pay $3,000 up front, get a payback within a few weeks and get better quality printing. Which one are you going to buy? Jesus said, “Come and follow me, come on, come and follow me, take up your cross.” Well that’s a picture of … there’s going to be a cost, there are going to be some things we are going to have to change. You know from $1,600 for brand A to $3,000 to brand B the difference is $1,400, right that’s the difference, that’s the difference in the up front cost and when we look at a life just mumbling along doing what we always do, compared to the other brand which is a life with Jesus, which is better quality, and a better outcome is there a choice really? Are we kidding ourselves that we just want to live the way we want to live? Or is it time to say, “I want the other brand, I know it’s going to cost me more up front, but I want the other brand.” It’s your decision, it’s your choice, I can’t make that decision for you. You have to count the cost. You need to look at your life and say “What’s it costing me, is it time, has the time come truly for me to put Jesus in the driving seat of my life?” Your choice.
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Paradox // Dying to Live, Part 1
03/31/2025
Paradox // Dying to Live, Part 1
Life is full of contradictions. Things that are supposed to work but don’t. And mostly, because they’re too hard to confront, or we’re too busy to bother, we ignore them…while all along they’re tearing us apart inside. Our day to day lives are cluttered, jam packed full of paradoxes, contradictions. Boy meets girl, would be somewhere at the top of the list. That chemistry, that excitement, that joy, it’s hard wired. They get married and a few years later all of a sudden it gets hard, so hard in fact, that between forty and fifty percent of those marriages end up in divorce. Paradox: silence can be deafening. Paradox: doing nothing, after a while, becomes exhausting. Paradox: shopping isn't satisfying. Paradox: …. The list just goes on, one after the other. But you see most times we don’t think about them, most times we're too busy. Life is just too complex to sort through those contradictions so we ignore them. We let the media tell us what to think and what to believe and somewhere below the surface, deep inside our spirit somewhere those paradoxes, those deep contradictions are tearing us apart. PARADOX. I wonder whether it isn't time to take stock, you know, have a paradox stock take. Let’s just stop and think for a minute: How satisfying is my life? How happy am I? If I died tonight, lying on my death bed, would I think, "Yep, it’s been a great life; I wouldn't have changed a thing." I suspect a very high proportion of people would have some very unsettling answers to those questions. Let’s look through our lives. Family: how rich are those relationships? Our work and our vocation: how happy am I with what I do? How happy am I with the relationships at work? My leisure time: Nights, do I just watch some re-run of something on the tube? Weekends, what do I do with my weekends? Holidays, are they satisfying or are they empty? I mean, do they live up to the brochures or do I get there and think, "Oh, I’m still not happy." Deep down in my spirit is everything right or is there something missing? In my behaviour, am I happy with that? I was having lunch with a man not long ago, who was just justifying to me why he left his wife and two children for a woman fifteen years younger than him. Do you think he is happy? Then, there is just me, who I am. I look in the mirror, how happy am I with who I am? How happy are you with who you are? Okay, there are some external negative factors that happen from time to time, things that are not our fault, things we can't avoid, things we can't do anything about. We all have those, yet somehow we've got good things happening in our lives but we're not happy, they're not working, something's broken, we’re full over flying but something’s missing. Even with those external negatives that happen, sometimes we have a sense of calling or destiny on our lives and they shouldn't be there. My hunch is this is ringing a few bells out there. These paradoxes are going on and there are tensions inside that are pulling us apart. Something is missing, something is broken, something isn't right. This is a paradox and most people just meander along through life and ignore it, because we're too busy, because it’s too hard to confront. And what we don't notice is that we think we are walking along a nice level piece of land but actually is going gradually, gradually downhill. Most people would give anything, anything, to have a great life – "I would just die to have a life like that." Stop. Have a look, have a think, what are the paradoxes going on in your life? What are the things that should be working that aren't working? What are the things that should be blessing you, that aren't blessing you? How many people are in marriages who aren't being blessed by that relationship? ‘I would give anything, I would just die to have that sort of a life’, I can hear you say. That’s a paradox, but let’s unpack that sentiment for a minute. Would you, would you die? Would you die, to live? Think of a smoker. Now, here's the question. Smoking is killing a person. Most people, who smoke, will die of emphysema or cancer. The smoker is addicted, it’s costing him life, but will he pay the price now, to get the reward later? Depends on how much he wants to live. Will he die to that to get true life? When I say, "I would just die to have a great life", would I? Would you? Are you and I prepared to take stock of those paradoxes and say, "That one and that one, I actually have to make some changes here. I actually have to do some stuff here", because, here's the crunch in the paradox stock take, there are things tearing people apart. Smoking tears people apart. They know it’s bad, they know it’s killing them, they still do it. Do you think you can have a fun life like that? It's not just smoking, it’s all the other things in our life that tear us apart inside, the things that we know well they’re just not quite right. Are we prepared to pay the cost? When we say I would just die to have a great life, would we? There was a wealthy young man, he wasn’t satisfied, there was something missing, and for him, eternal life was the trigger and he walked up to Jesus, two thousand years ago, and he said, “What do I have to do, what do I have to do to get eternal life?” Now, this guy is rich … this guy is rich in a subsistence economy where most people were struggling to get enough wheat to eat. This guy is rich and something is missing, and he says to Jesus "What must I do?" And Jesus knew exactly what was going on. So Jesus helps him to unpack the problem, he cuts right to the heart. Jesus says, "Look keep the commandments, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don’t lie." And the young man says, "I've done all of that”, and listen to the words he says, he says – "but something is still missing”. What a paradox. "Well, if you want to get your life together,” says Jesus, "Go sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come and follow me." Bang, finger right on the issue. Is Jesus saying we all need to be poor? No. You look at a whole bunch of people throughout the Bible and God blesses them and they become wealthy. Solomon, David, look there is a list as long as your arm. That’s not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is putting his finger on the one thing that is stopping this young man from having a great life because his wealth is binding him up, his sense of value is bound up in his wealth. And Jesus says, "Look, go get rid of that and I will give you wealth like you can't believe, I'll give you a spiritual wealth, I will give you a life, an eternal life you cannot imagine." Jesus peels back the layers of the onion. What did the young man do? Well, when the young man heard it, he went away sad because he had great wealth. There is a price to following Jesus Christ, not some fairy floss, luvvy duvvy, happy ending kind of story. There is a price and that price is laying things down, that price is taking the things that we know are ruining our lives and laying them down and changing. And it turns out; the price is laying down the very thing that is ruining our lives just like the smoker. You know I used to hear this word "repent" and think, "Oh what rubbish", but Jesus puts his finger on the things that are ruining our lives and calls us to an abundant life. I would die to have a life like that. Would you, would you really? Are you really prepared to pay the price? The rest of this week we will be looking at that question from a different perspective.
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The Gift of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 5
03/28/2025
The Gift of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 5
Some people have discovered their gig in life – they know what their particular talent is, and they’re living it. But most – most haven’t. Do they have a gift? Does God have a plan to use that gift? One of the most rewarding things in my life is watching my three children grow from childhood into adulthood. They're all young adults now, thirty two, thirty and twenty one years old, our baby. The two older ones are the boys and the youngest is our daughter. Why is it so rewarding? Well in part you see the huge investment that you put into them finally bearing some fruit. There's that but even more so it's seeing them become who they're meant to be, it's seeing their natural gifts and abilities shine forth as they make their way into the world. Each of our three are so incredibly different, totally and yet each time I've seen them become young adults and then begin to mature I can't tell you the delight that I get from seeing them just growing into their natural giftings. I'm joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who's sharing with us this week "The Top Five Truths that God Wants Us to Believe" and number five today, we're talking about the fact that God’s made each one of us unique with a destiny and with a purpose. And Brett I wonder if I get such a thrill out of seeing my three kids grow up can you imagine how God feels when He looks at you and me? Brett: Yeah amazing. You know we are literally the apple of His eye. I think you've just described it beautifully, the heart of a father is to see their children grow up not only in stature, physically, you know to mature into a grown man or woman but also to mature in character and calling. There was a great poet that said there's two really important days in your life, the day that you are born and the day you discover why. And so as believers we're not left to our own devices, when you come into a relationship with God there's a package deal and one of those things is God has a purpose, He's uniquely gifted you and uniquely endowed you with some great gifts and abilities with which to live a very fruitful and fulfilling life. Berni: That's a really liberating thing because a lot of people don't see that they've got any gift at all. I know people, there's one woman who's serves this ministry, she actually types the transcripts of almost every radio program I've produced, she has a whole bunch of issues in her life and she never thought she could actually make a difference in anyone's. Well I've got to tell you, tens of thousands of people read the transcripts that she types. Brett: That's amazing and that's what it's all about. She's found what God wants her to do and it is one of the great privileges of walking with God to know that He has a purpose and He has, not only a purpose but Jesus talked about it in John 15 where He said: You did not choose me, I chose you that you may go and bear fruit and that fruit should remain. Berni: A bit different from our traditional view of the world. I mean our view is so often "what's in it for me?"but this is a different perspective, this is about using our gifts and talents for other people, I mean with Christians we talk about servanthood I guess. Brett: Yeah, so let me read a Scripture, I think it will speak to that very well, this is in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10 and 11 and it says: As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another (That word minister means to serve) as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So there are some powerful things there. So each one has received a gift and maybe multiple gifts, minister that to one another, in other words you and I don't serve people just in any capacity, it is actually God's specific intent that you and I will serve one another, you know people in our community, people in Church, our families, with a specific gifting. Berni: I'm so glad you know, if someone called me into children’s ministry, if I had to look after the kids on Sunday at Church I'd go nuts. I'm really glad I get to use what God made me to be and not have to be someone else, these wonderful people who look after the kids, God bless them, I love the kids but I'd die if I had to do that. Brett: Yeah and this is … Berni the fascinating thing about this is, this ties back to what we were talking about before because when you know that you are right with God irrespective of your performance you won't be manipulated to serve in an area that you're not called to. Now that is a really important thing because right now every person listening to me right now you've got unique talents, unique gifts and the great thing about that is that one day we will stand before God, people who are in relationship with God and receive a reward for the work that's come from those gifts and so when it says we need to minister those gifts to one another, I love that because it says that the gifts are not there for you and I although they do bring, like you were talking about, they bring great fulfilment when you use them but that's not the primary reason, the primary reason is that you may serve others with those gifts. Berni: A fruit tree doesn't eat its own fruit. Brett: That's right. Berni: A grapevine doesn't eat its own grapes; other people come to eat the grapes. Brett: That's right, it's the only reason a vine exists, it's good for no other reason but to bear fruit. What you find in this Scripture is such a powerful thing, let me just bring up another word Berni which is really important here, it says the word steward, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. This is incredible, right now, if you're listening to this right now in your life as a believer, as a Christian, you have received an expression of the grace of God. God has taken a piece of Himself, if you like an expression of who He is and He has put it in your life. Now the amazing thing about that is He says you need to be a good steward over that. What is a steward? A steward is someone who manages the property of another. Amazing huh? So God has given us a piece of His manifold grace and He wants us to steward that for Him. It's not ours, we don't own it, it's His and He wants us to look after it and make it grow. Berni: Cool. Brett: That's the amazing thing about that is that, there's a couple of really key points there. Number one, our motivation with which we serve is others. It's not about me trying to create a life for myself, it's about I genuinely love and value other people and I want to take of what God has given me and serve them with it. This whole idea of stewards has an amazing end to it because ultimately if you're a steward the person who gave you the goods will come back and ask you what you did with them and so as a steward God will one day ask, say Berni, what did you do with what I gave you? And so that's powerful because that gives us hope to know that hey I'm in this world, I'm in this life to steward what God has given me for the benefit of others. Berni: And in that parable of the talents where each of the three slaves was given a certain amount of money to invest according to their ability, the guy who copped a real tongue lashing, didn't he, was the guy who didn't do anything with what God gave him to steward. I mean he copped it really badly from Jesus. Brett: Yeah he did, in fact he said: You wicked and unfaithful servant. As people who are entering into a relationship with God or who are in a relationship with God we don't want to hear that. Berni: I want to tell you something quickly about Brett. Brett's fairly quiet, sort of a quietly spoken guy, the moment I first had coffee with him, the moment you talk to him and say, "what's your gig in life?" He starts to talk about teaching and sharing Gods word. He lights up like a light, it's like someone flicked a switch and this light lights up on the other side of the table and that's the thing isn't it? When we're doing what God's made us to do you have a ball, it's hard some days but it's so fulfilling. Brett: Yeah absolutely, what did Mark Twain the great poet say? He said: Make your vocation your vacation. So other words make what you do in life your holiday, you'll never work another day in your life which I'm sure you feel that way, I feel that way. Berni: We're out of time, Brett it's been great to catch up with you and we might do this another time. Brett: Sounds great, thanks for having me Berni.
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The Love of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 4
03/27/2025
The Love of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 4
You and I know that we have to work hard in order to be rewarded in this world. And to a point … to a point that’s true. But what happens when we take that truth just a bit too far is that truth, becomes a lie. I’m joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who this week is talking to us about "The Top 5 Truths that God Wants Us to Believe". You'll recall over the past few weeks we've been looking at the lies the devil tries to feed us so it's a pretty good time for us to be talking about truth. And you know what, ultimately even though we may not realise it the truth matters because the truth works. I know that God wants the most amazing life for you and for me, not always a life of luxury and success but a life that counts, that counts for something, that counts for Him, and a life that satisfies us. And the more I read about Jesus and what He did and what He said the more I come to the conclusion that by any measure the world may care to offer up His truth is totally counter intuitive. Take for example the idea that if you work hard in this world you're going to earn the rewards. Now to a point, to a point that's true but we can take that too far can't we? What's your perspective Brett? Brett: Yeah I think absolutely that's definitely true and you know Paul the Apostle said if you don't work you shall not eat, so we need to be working and we need to be productive that's certainly true. Berni: But we can take it too far can't we? Brett: We can, and in our relationship with God Berni when a person comes into a great relationship with God the Bible teaches that we're actually adopted into His family. So once we did not have a heavenly Father, now we do. I know when my daughter, my two year old daughter Sophia was born I started to feel emotions that I'd never felt before and my wife's heart and my heart was to literally bless that girl in every way possible. Berni: You want to bless their socks off don't you? Brett: You do, you do and where do you stop, that's the question, where do you stop? And you know as a father, do you know Berni my desire to bless her and to provide for her, her behaviour is irrelevant, you know her behaviour most days is great, some days it's not so good but I didn't provide or not provide for her based on her performance. My provision and my love and my supply to her is based solely on my love for her. Berni: Okay so let's take that analogy then of you being a dad to God our Father, what's Gods Word say about His provision to meeting our needs? Brett: In Matthew 6, verse 25 to 34, I encourage you to go and read that afterwards, Jesus talks about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and listen to what He says. He says: The birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor do they gather into barns and the lilies of the field neither toil nor spin. Now Berni there you have three principles of life that will really get you ahead. Sowing and reaping, it's about sowing for tomorrow, about receiving a harvest, gathering into barns is about living below your means and saving for the future and toiling or spinning is exactly what we were talking about at the start of the program. Hey you need to work hard and you know Jesus says that God doesn't provide for the birds of the air or the lilies of the field based on any of those principles. Berni: He just provides. Brett: He just provides because He is a loving Father and He's not saying don't do those things, He is saying the basis of His provision is the fact His unending love is why He wants to provide and bless you. Berni: Okay but isn't it easy for us to get a view of that that comes from a position of relative affluence, we live in a world where billions of people are starving, billions of people don't have access to clean drinking water, billions of people don't have a roof over their head, what about them? What has Jesus got to say to them about Gods provision? Brett: Very clearly that it is largely irrelevant where you live in the world, the point is that God loves you and God will provide, God will find a way and you know Berni we talked about the just shall live by faith is in every area of our life. Faith is the cornerstone; faith in Christ is the cornerstone of how we live. That pertains to our salvation, pertains to healing, it pertains to provision and finances and being able to get your daily food and your daily provision. Even the Lord's Prayer says: Give us this day our daily bread. So our Father in heaven gives me what I need today. When the children of Israel went through the wilderness day by day He provided for them. So there might be some people listening to us who are really in the wilderness, I want to tell you dear friend that Jesus will provide. In fact in this context of Scripture Berni which is incredible, the word "worry" is used five times, it's the biggest concentration of that word worry in the whole Bible. Amazing, why is that? Because we can worry about where the next meal's coming from or how we're going to pay this or how we're going to pay that. So Jesus says, hey guys don't worry, I'm your Father, I see your needs and I will provide for you. Berni: Does hard work and diligence have a place here? I mean before you answer that Ecclesiastes chapter 10, verse 18 says: Through sloth the roof sinks and through indolence the house leaks. So there is a sense, if you and I are spiritual couch potatoes and we just sit there and wait for the world to come to us, the world's not going to come to us right? Brett: Correct, absolutely, yeah. So diligence definitely plays a role and we've been talking about faith a lot, the Bible talks about faith without works is dead, so there is definitely that faith in Christ has corresponding actions to it and we need to be active. You know there's a great Scripture, I believe it's in Corinthians that says: Always be abounding in the work of the Lord. So yeah, diligence, hard work, they're all very sound Biblical principles, definitely. Berni: So how do we bring these two together? On the one hand yes, we do have to do stuff, sometimes we're capable of doing that, sometimes we slip over on the train and we're in hospital and we can't go and earn any money which is just incidentally if you're listening that's exactly what happened to Brett a few weeks ago and he's only just recovering the poor bloke, it's good that he's here. So sometimes we're capable of being diligent and we're capable of providing and so on and so forth but other times like the mother who is in the Somalia refugee camp who is listening today and watching her child dying of starvation, sometimes we can't provide for ourselves, some people simply can't. How do you bring these two together. See it's a hard thing isn't it? Brett: It is, it is a very hard thing and they're challenges that I've never had to face in my life. I would say that, to people like that who are listening, is that, just like I love my daughter and you love your children is that God loves you with an everlasting love and provision for you might mean something very different than provision does for me. But this is one thing I want you to know is that Jesus died to bring you into His family, that He may provide for you and that He may bless you and that again may mean something very different depending on the culture and the country that you live in. But I want you to know don't put faith, don't trust in your circumstances and there may be no reason to put trust in your circumstances, put all your trust in Christ. Berni: You see the reason we get afraid is because we do trust in our circumstances because our circumstances appear to be bigger than God, the adversity appears to be bigger than God and so we end up trusting that and that's why we worry and that's why we get afraid. Brett: Yeah absolutely and even with people who are wealthy and have a lot of money, you know Jesus said to the rich young man how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because they've got no reason to trust in God, they've got all this money that can provide for a lot of their needs but the Christian life is fundamentally about trusting and believing in Christ. Berni: And my experience of God is that when I've been at my lowest depths God has always been in that place with me. Brett: Yeah. Berni: Not once has He not been there. Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni.
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Confidence with God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 3
03/26/2025
Confidence with God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 3
Most people can’t imagine being confident in standing before God. Let alone being bold in His Presence. But … well, that’s exactly what God wants us to be. Confident and Bold … but how? One of the hardest things for me to unlearn is the idea of being afraid of God but instead be confident before Him. Why? Well you know we've all done stuff, you've done stuff and I've done stuff. It's a bit like with our fathers when we were kids. When we'd done stuff we knew there were going to be consequences and so we wanted to run and hide and then when we do come to that point of putting our trust in Jesus and wanting to follow Him, well you know, the fear thing is still there for most of us. I'm joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who's sharing with us this week the top five truths that God wants us to believe. Mate welcome again to the program. Brett: Hey great to be here, thanks Berni. Berni: So confidence before God, boldness before God, doesn't the Bible tell us that we should fear God too? What's going on here? What's this all about? Brett: Well, all the Bible says is true so we need to reconcile those truths but in the context of our relationship with God and in the context of what we've been talking about, being the righteousness of God and having faith in the perfect life of Christ, the atmosphere and our approach to God is an approach of boldness and confidence because we trust in the one who is right with God. Berni: But isn't it in a sense natural for us to be afraid of God, timid with God, shy even with God because we have all done stuff wrong. And if you believe the whole righteousness of God thing which is where we're having a right standing with God that means there can be a wrong standing with God, and a wrong standing with a God who promises that we will spend eternity without Him in a place called hell if we don't do the right stuff is a pretty scary thing? Brett: Yeah it is. Berni: And it's meant to be. Brett: Yeah exactly. It is meant to be and I think if you go all the way back to Genesis you see when Adam first sinned, he made a decision to go off in his own direction. We see two incredible responses from Adam, it says in the new King James Version that he hid himself and he made for himself an apron. So he actually retreated, ran away from the presence of God and then he tried in his own strength to make himself acceptable to God. Berni: Have you ever thought about how nuts it is to try and hide from God? Has that ever crossed your mind? Brett: Where do you go? Berni: Yeah. Brett: Exactly, even like Psalms talks about where can I go from your presence? And in fact where do we want to go because He is so loving, He is so kind, we actually want to be with Him 24x7 and the basis of being with Him 24x7 is the fact that, not in my own strength. You know Berni, you were talking about stuff before, you've done stuff, our listeners have done stuff, hey I've done stuff too and that stuff separated me from God but when Jesus was on the cross all our stuff, the punishment for our stuff, for our mistakes, our wrongs fell on Christ. You know something here's an amazing thing to think about is that the punishment for our sin was extinguished on the body of Christ. When He hung on that cross all the wrath of God was extinguished on the body of Christ. There's a great psalm, I think it's Psalm 30 that says: His anger is but for a moment but his favour is for life. That moment was the moment when Christ hung on the cross. God’s anger fell on Christ and His favour may fall on us. Berni: That is powerful stuff. That rocks my socks off. Brett: That's amazing hey? That's our God. That's the Gospel that we have. It's incredible when that actually seeps into your heart, when you recognise that you start to think, "Well how do I approach God? If God's my Father" … You know, both you and I are fathers there's nothing that could ever separate you from your kids, I mean the love that you have for your children it's indescribable is it not? But you know Jesus in Matthew 7 says if you've been evil, so even though you're not perfect you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. So His Fatherhood, His example of a father way outstrips even the greatest human father. Berni: It strikes me when you talk about confidence before God it's a question of who or what we have our confidence in. Brett: That's exactly right and if, my goodness, if my confidence is in Brett Barclay, my goodness, Brett Barclay some days he's up and some days he's down and that's the truth, that's the human condition but if we trust in the One who is always perfect and we realise what took place on the cross we understand that our approach to God is full of confidence and boldness. Can I read you a couple of Scriptures on this, Hebrews, I love, these are life Scriptures for me, fantastic, Hebrews 10 verse 19 says: Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus. So the Holiest is where God lived, it was His dwelling place; and so you and I can enter the immediate presence of God with boldness. Berni: And when you recognise who that was written to which was the Hebrew nation, the Jewish nation and only once a year on Yom Kippur could one person, the High Priest enter into the Holy of Holy's and now, read that Scripture to us again. Brett: It says: Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus. Berni: Yeah, that is radical, that would have blown their minds. Brett: Absolutely and I tell you what, if you read through the Books of the Old Testament one word you will not see with how the High Priest approached God is boldness. Berni: No. Brett: Because the price for sin had not been paid. Berni: Interestingly the day the High Priest went in to the Holy of Holy's what did they attach to his ankle? Brett: Well my understanding is that it was a rope. Berni: And a bell. Brett: Yes that's right. Berni: And the bell was there to make the noise to make sure that they knew he was still alive and the rope was there to pull him out if he died. Brett: Exactly. Berni: So that was the fear of God in the Holy of Holy's and it is such an incredible breakthrough to imagine that by the blood of Christ we've been brought near to God and we can stand before God completely confident in what Jesus has done for us. Totally. Brett: One hundred percent. Let me read another Scripture, it's fantastic, Ephesians 3:12 says: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Jesus Christ. Now let me just make a quick comment on these two Scriptures, one says we have boldness by the blood of Jesus, the other one says we have boldness and confidence through faith in Him. You notice that there's none of you and I in there? All our confidence and all our boldness is in the One who is perfect, the One who came to earth to make the way back to God so that's why I can be confident and practically Berni how this works is, you know what? On my worst day and on my best day it's my approach to God is the same because it's not about my, we talked about performance based religion, it's not about my performance, it's about Christs performance. That's what makes be bold and that is what makes me confident. Berni: You know when I need that boldness most, when I know I've failed God. When I know I have fallen flat on my face and I'm the guy that gets behind the radio mike every day and every week to do this and I have fallen flat on my face before God, if I did not have that boldness I would not keep short accounts with God. If I did not have that boldness I would not go to God and say, "God I am sorry, forgive me." Brett: Yeah that's exactly right and Hebrews 4 talks about that. Let us come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need. The time of need is not when you're doing well it's when you've done wrong, it's when you've done badly. Berni: That is awesome stuff. So let me encourage anybody who's listening today whose kind of nervous standing before God, who's afraid. If you believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, if that's what you believe you may stand before God completely clean, completely pure, completely in right standing with Him and bold and confident in what Jesus did for you. Brett, thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni.
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Performance Based Religion // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 2
03/25/2025
Performance Based Religion // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 2
The world’s system is a performance-based system. Perform, and you get rewarded. Perform and you win. Perform and you succeed. Most religions are like that too. What about Jesus? Is He into performance-based religion too? It's great to be with you again today and I'm joined by my very special guest on the program this week, Brett Barclay and Brett I believe that today we're going to talk about performance based religion, is that right? Brett: We are, yeah. Berni: Okay, so let me ask you this: Is Christianity a performance-based religion? A very simple answer: one word, yes or no? Brett: Yes, it is. Berni: Ooh there's a few people who are going to want to burn you at the stake mate. (Both laugh) Now Jesus said a lot of things about following Him that are more than just moderately inconvenient. Taking up your cross, denying yourself, dying to self, was He right? Is it difficult to follow Jesus? Brett: I would say it is not only difficult or hard or challenging, it is actually impossible and until a Christian comes to the place where they realise that it is impossible to serve God in their own strength I would say that they cannot bring forth anything that's of eternal value. Berni: So if it's hard to follow Jesus, what's the point? I mean why bother? Here we have it, a performance based religion according to you but I'm glad you're in a nice safe radio studio. Performance based religion – you do this and you'll get rewarded – just like all the others. Is that what you're saying? Brett: No, I'm not actually saying that. I think it's very important in the Christian life to lay good foundations. Imagine if you were building a building and you didn't take the time to lay the right foundations, that would inevitably lead to a damaged or a weak building. One of the foundations of the Christian life is the righteousness of God. Let me just read a Scripture to you, fantastic Scripture, it's in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, it says: For he made him (That's God made Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So we can see there that God made Jesus to take our penalty of sin in order that we might take His righteousness. Now what that means is that you and I Berni and every believing Christian that are born again of the Spirit of God actually stands before God as the very righteousness of God. It's like this. In Philippians 4 it talks about that the peace of God shall guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus when we pray, and we pray with thanksgiving. Now what does that mean? It means this, that the very peace of God, the self-same peace that God enjoys, we enjoy. If I was to take off my watch and give you my watch and that would be Brett's watch and I give it to Berni, you would have my watch, it wouldn't be an inferior watch to my watch, it's actually my watch and I've given it to you. You and I have the very same righteousness that Christ has. His performance, His perfect life is now on my record. That's what I'm talking about when we talk about a solid foundation. It's His performance that is my foundation. Berni: See in every other religion known to man – mankind, let me be politically correct – it's about the person’s performance, it's your performance and my performance. Brett: Yeah. Berni: Those religions teach that somehow you work your way into someone’s favour by doing good. Brett: Yes. Berni: And what you're saying is completely 180 degrees the opposite way round. You're saying the way we work our way into God’s favour is through what Jesus did. Brett: That's exactly right, perfectly summed up, yes. Berni: And it's interesting because a lot of people listening to us today chatting have never accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour. Over half of the people, I know statistically, who are listening to us speak right at the moment around the world haven't accepted Jesus. So when you talk about the righteousness of God becoming ours, the peace of God becoming ours, when you start to put it in those terms, that I get to have the same peace that God has. That's a pretty attractive commodity. Brett: I would say very attractive indeed, absolutely because I know even within Australia here, I've spoken to a medical Doctor recently and that many illnesses and sicknesses are anxiety and depressive related illnesses. So peace … you know Jesus said: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you. And so the peace, of true peace of mind and heart is a very rare commodity. I would in fact say that it is extinct outside a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus. Berni: But let me bring you back to what you said at the outset. The problem with following Jesus, you talk about peace but then you say the problem with following Jesus is that it's hard, in fact it's so hard we can't do it in our own strength. Do you see how someone who's tuning into you and me having this little chat goes, 'hang on a minute, this guy’s loopy. On the one hand he's saying I can have the same peace that God has, on the other hand he's saying following Jesus is so hard I can't possibly do it. Brett: Yeah, yeah and I did say that so what we're talking about here is understanding that following Jesus is essential. You know the word disciple, if you look at the word disciple it originally means learner and then it came to mean follower and so we become a disciple of Christ which is a follower of Christ so I walk in His footsteps. However the key point and the key phrase here is in my own strength. Let me read another Scripture to you if I may. This is a great Scripture; this is probably one of the premiere Scriptures from Paul the Apostle on what it means to be a Christian. Let me read this to you, Galatians chapter 2, verse 20 says: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. Berni: Okay so it's no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me so does that mean I lose my identity? Does that mean I lose my uniqueness? Does that mean that a Christian is just like an, I don't know, an unquestioning zombie that follows after Jesus? Brett: Not at all, you maintain your wonderful personality; you maintain your uniqueness that you received from God, your gifts, your talents even your thinking. When you become a Christian your thinking doesn't change automatically, that needs to be refreshed and renewed by the Word of God but what it does mean is that the centre of your being. Imagine if you were a car and the engine of your life, the thing that actually drives it forward and makes it possible, that engine, your life has been radically transformed. We talked about a sin nature a while ago, what I'm talking about now is a righteous nature. So what Paul's saying here in Galatians 2:20 is that Christ actually comes in and lives on the inside of you. Berni: Okay great theory, what has that meant in your life specifically for Brett Barclay? Brett: Yeah a lot, a great deal. Here's some basic things. It means that I no longer have a desire for sin; I have a desire for God so that my life is about wanting to serve God, walk with Him, enjoy the beautiful nature of His fellowship of relationship with Him. It's also meant a great deal to me in terms of purpose. I was a young man who had a lot of illness growing up and really had a very cut off vision for my future so I couldn't see a future for myself but when Christ came into my life He gave me a purpose and a reason for living and you know that's why I'm here today. I wouldn't dream of doing this stuff, be on a radio program talking about Christ, I mean I was the guy who used to walk to the other side of the road when Christians used to hand out tracks. Berni: Hey mate, my kind of guy, absolutely. Hey listen tomorrow we're going to chat about something interesting, we're talking about confidence before God, that's a really interesting thing. Brett: Amen and I am so excited to talk to you about confidence before God because that's the result of being the righteousness of God. Berni: Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni.
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Just Like Jesus // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 1
03/24/2025
Just Like Jesus // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 1
Can you imagine what it would be like if you and I could have the same relationship, the same standing, the same intimacy with God as Jesus does. Can you just imagine? Well … turns out, that’s precisely why Jesus came. It's Monday again and I'm joined today and this week on the program by a very special guest Brett Barclay. His day job? Well he helps companies and organisations to learn and grow and perform. Some interesting clients there on his client list but at the heart of who Brett is lies the theologian, the theology lecturer. If that all sounds just a bit daunting, he’s a man who's passionate about seeing people discover how awesome it is to live the truth of who God is and what He's done for us and what that means for a new life here on earth and for all eternity. Sounds a bit like a man after my own heart, in fact I had coffee with Brett recently and we were talking about this and what I could see was the passion he has for seeing the rest of us live an extraordinary life. So I've invited him to the program to talk about the top five truths that God wants us to believe. Berni: Brett, hi and welcome to the program. Brett: Thanks for inviting me Berni, it's great to be here. Berni: Mate let me ask you something, as a businessman, as I guess a minister, it's just an ordinary guy, what makes you tick? What flicks your switch? Brett: I would say one word, Christ. Everything that I do in business and ministry is really about me fulfilling what God has called me to do with my life. I guess I'm a teacher at heart, that's a primary gift, a primary motivation I guess that I have both in my business and also in ministry. I consider it an awesome privilege to be serving Christ and to be, I guess, living in the privileges and the liberty of this Gospel that we have and to be able to share that with others, to be able to help companies grow. I help leaders and executives develop and help Bible college students and Christians like you and me grow and develop in whatever areas are important to them. For business people it's usually about performance on the job. Obviously for Christians it's about understanding who Christ is and who they are in Him. Berni: All right so tell me in the list of the top five truths that God wants us to believe what's the number one on the list do you think? Brett: I would say that number one for me is that the Christian stands before God as righteous as Christ is, that's a big truth. Berni: Okay, just let me pull you up on this, this thing ‘righteous’. Christians bandy righteousness around all the time, it's a word that we use but I guess you wouldn't use it so much in your business consulting would you? It's a bit like the word ‘sin’, sin has become a four letter word in society so unpack this thing righteous. Brett: "Righteous" is basically a characteristic of God, to be righteous means we're in right standing with God, you know the clear teaching of the Bible is that the just or Christian shall live by faith, a righteous person lives by faith, we don't get to be righteous through our own effort ... Berni: Just as well. Brett: Yeah, exactly but we get to be righteous by believing in the one who is righteous, Christ. Berni: And I guess the flip side of righteousness is sin, explain that to me, what's your take on that? Brett: I think the easiest definition of sin in my mind is to miss the mark. You know Romans 3 says: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So you know sometimes as Christians we can pick out different sins and say, 'oh that's bad, that's awful' but in fact everyone that's come through the lineage of Adam, everyone who's been born into humanity has been born with a sin nature and out of that sin nature comes a lifestyle of sin. Berni: So tell me why is righteousness relevant to us here and now? Again it's not a concept that you run across a whole bunch when you're walking down the street or in the supermarket and so for a lot of people it feels distant, it feels almost irrelevant. Tell me to the average Joe Blow, to me walking down the street why is righteousness a thing? Brett: Righteousness is a thing because originally we were created by God to be perfect, to be without sin, righteous, totally without guilt, without blame in our life but sin brought us away from that so we basically walked away from God, wanted our own agenda and our own plans. So in effect we were in wrong standing with God. So what God has always desired is for us to be in right standing. So we talk about righteousness in terms of being in right standing with God and so that's a great place to be. Berni: You reckon? Brett: Yeah, undoubtedly so. One of the great privileges of Christian life is to stand before God righteous, to know that that's not a righteousness I've earned, it's a righteousness by gift and that brings us into a tremendous life of liberty and freedom and privileges as well which is what we're going to be talking about. Berni: You know, I'm not so much my parents son because I was a perfect son all the time, I'm my parents son because they love me and I'm my parents son and I guess that's the analogy isn't it for righteousness? That when we put our trust in this Jesus that we don't get to be righteous because we happen to be so fantastic at living our lives, we get to be righteous because we're Dad's kids. Brett: That's exactly right, we're born into the family and that means we have the characteristics of our father. Berni: But okay, someone comes along and says, "yeah, yeah, hang on Brett, I hear what you're saying but I'm not really such a bad person. I mean how can a supposedly loving God possibly condemn me to hell for the few things I've done wrong in my life." I mean that would be a pretty common question wouldn't it? It's fair enough to. What would your answer be? Brett: Great question! The Bible clearly says that sin separates us from God, Isaiah talks about that. It would be like Berni this room we're in right now started to burst into flames and the only way out of this room was the back door and there was a person calling us from the back door saying, "hey Berni, hey Brett, this room is falling down, you will perish in this room and here's the back door, it's the only way out, come, come to the back door". And you see what happens is sin is basically leading to a life of destruction, it's a life that's separated from God, separated from the goodness and the provision and the mercy of God which makes life all that it is. And so when you and I sin, we are separated from that but in this burning house we're in there's a way out and that way is Christ. Jesus said that: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. He is the way of escape, He is the way of freedom and when we come to Him we escape out of hell, we escape out of the flames of what that means to be separate from God. Berni: So how do we grab hold of that in our life? How can I get what Jesus did for me in a way that makes a difference in my life here and now? Brett: Yeah, great question. So the Bible clearly says: Who so ever shall believe shall not perish but have everlasting life. So it's not who so ever shall perform, who so ever shall get all their behaviour right, who so ever shall not swear or shall not murder or shall not cheat on their taxes, none of those things are entry points into the Christian life. You know the Prophet Habakkuk said: The just shall live by faith. The way we get into the Christian life and the way we continue in the Christian life is by believing in the one who was perfect. He lived a perfect life not for Him but for you and I. Berni: So ... by faith in Jesus. Brett: That's right. Berni: Explain that to me, why in Jesus? Brett: Because Jesus was the God man, He was fully God, fully man, He came to earth, He actually came to die. You know Jesus said I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. So our sins would be like going into debt to the tune of billions of dollars, we owed a great debt to God and so Jesus came to pay that debt and we trust in His righteousness and that's credited to our account. Berni: Alright! We're going to pick there again tomorrow. Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thank you very much.
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The Refuge of the Lord // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 10
03/21/2025
The Refuge of the Lord // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 10
When you’re travelling through the dark days in life – it’s one thing for someone to say to us “Don’t worry God will come through in the end.” But it’s another thing entirely, when we discover the refuge of the Lord. I want you to imagine that you're out one night walking along a dark and lonely street and all of a sudden you see some drunk and unruly men coming towards you, they're swearing and they look to be wielding knives. You take a quick look around and there's not another soul in this street and just then you see a house to your left, you look in the window and you see a family sitting down to dinner. What do you do? I know what I'd be doing, I'd duck in, I'd knock on their front door as quickly as I could and I'd ask them if I could just step inside until those men disappear, wouldn't you? Now there's a name for that, it's called, "seeking refuge". It's not a sign of weakness, it doesn't mean that somehow we're a loser, it just means that in that dark and dangerous place we just need somewhere that's safe; we need a refuge. The problem is that in this world, when we're going through difficult times in dark places, so often it doesn't seem to be a refuge to be found. Refuge is a word that appears over and over and over again right through the Bible. In fact just in the Psalms it's used 48 times and of those, 46 times "refuge" is talking about God himself. Have a listen to just a few, Psalm 36, verse 7: How priceless God is your unfailing love. Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 62, verses 7 and 8: My salvation and my honour depend on God. He is my mighty rock and my refuge. Trust in Him all times O people, pour out your hearts to Him for God is our refuge. And in Psalm 119, verse 114: You are my refuge and my shield O God; I have put my hope in your word. Now I'd like to spend a bit of time looking at this, this "refuge" thing today because when we're going through tough times in dark and dangerous places, a refuge is exactly what we need. Over these last two weeks on the program we've been working our way through a series in, just around Psalm 34 called, "Dark Night, Bright Light". This psalm is written by King David with the wisdom of hindsight. Having been through lots and lots of dark and dangerous places, here in this Psalm David praises God because what he discovered is at the end of them all God showed up and delivered him; God came through. No matter how grim or how dark or how dangerous it appeared. That's great stuff and if you have some time, can I really encourage you to get aside and have a really good read of this short psalm, Psalm 34. But it's one thing for David to pen Psalm 34 and tell us his experience and say, "you know what I discovered? I discovered God delivered me every time." That's cool David, that's really great but it's so easy for us to respond to that and say, "well that's fine for you Davo; brilliant. Glad that God came through for you but right now I'm in a dark place and I'm petrified and the fact that God showed up for you doesn't help me much." That's a pretty natural human response. When we send out an S.O.S. to God it may well be that God will come through some time but what about the mean time? Well, have a listen to the end of this psalm of David’s, Psalm 34. We're just going to read the last few verses, verses 19 to 22 because in the very last verse God answers that question for us. Let’s have a read: The afflictions of a righteous man are many but the Lord delivers us from them all. He protects all his bones, not one of them will broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems His servants; no-one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him. There it is, that word "refuge". It means to flee to Him for protection; literally to resort to Him. Now we understand that in a physical sense, that little story that I started off with at the beginning of the program. Well it makes sense that in a dark and dangerous place we would want to flee to some sort of refuge. But when something in our lives is scary, when you've been diagnosed with cancer or your finances have fallen in a heap or your marriage seems to be falling apart or one of your kids is on drugs, what does it mean to take refuge in God then? That's a good question because this is where the rubber hits the road. Well, here's what happens when we take refuge; we feel safe, the fear is gone. That's the point, along the journey through a dark place in life we want to know that we are safe. The story at the beginning of the program of you or I walking down a dark and dangerous street and seeing these drunken youths coming towards us with a knife, the idea of being able to knock on the door of a family and go inside means that you are taken away from the danger and that you experience the peace of safety. That's what refuge means. The way that God best explains this through any part of the Bible is through a passage that I come back to again and again and again and again. The apostle Paul wrote it about 1,000 years after King David wrote Psalm 34, he's locked in a Roman dungeon on death row and he writes these words in Philippians chapter 4, beginning at verse 6: Don't be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Don't be anxious about anything, take it to God and put your trust in Him and pour your heart out to Him and say, "thank you God that you're here; thank you God that I'm going through what I'm going through but here's my need and I'm afraid and I need you to help, "and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." You see, that's refuge language, that's protection language. We experience fear in our hearts and in our minds, do we not? And you see, this is the other meaning of the word "refuge"; to put your trust in someone or something. Out there in a dark place, I put my trust in you God. I just go to you and I pour it out and you know what happens, God does something, He fills us with His peace. Have another listen: And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. God’s peace. Now it doesn't make sense, that's why it surpasses all understanding, it defies human reckoning and logic and the only way I can describe it because I've been in that dark place time and time and time again, is it's like a light. Darkness is scary and God comes and shines His light, His bright light, this refuge where He protects our hearts and our minds from the fear and the light shines inside, the light that says, "you just know that He's there", and the darkness isn't scary anymore. God is in the refuge business; God is in the light business. When it's dark, when it's scary we can come to Him and pour our hearts out and He will put His protection around our hearts and our minds and give us refuge. We just end up knowing that He will deliver us. Dark Night, Bright Light.
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The Afflictions of the Righteous // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 9
03/20/2025
The Afflictions of the Righteous // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 9
It’s tough when bad things happen to good people – especially when we see good things happening to bad people – God what is going on here? Why are you letting this happen to me? There are times in life when bad things happen to good people and perhaps you're someone who believes in Jesus and you've been living your life the best way you know how and just day after day walking with Him and all of a sudden – whamo! Something happens! The sky turns dark and all of a sudden you're in one of those dark, black times that we can go through in life. A time of loss or pain or sickness or whatever it is and you kind of look around and think, "What is going on here God? I mean I know I'm not perfect but everyday I just get up and I just do my best and I walk with You; now this!" My hunch is that there are a few people who relate to what I just talked about and so I want to deal with that today because when bad things happen to good people it's such a shock and it seems so unfair especially when we take a look around and we see that there's a whole bunch of good things happening to some really bad people out there that we know. What is going on God? King David, as I've said over these last couple of weeks, is a man who went through a lot of dark times. You read about his life and sure he made some mistakes but right from the beginning God had him picked as a man after His own heart and yet he lived through so many dark and difficult times, scary times, on the run for his life. Battles with enemies that it looked like he was going to lose and God showed up just at the last minute. You take a look at his life and if you weigh his life, kind of on our human scale of justice you'd probably come to the conclusion that, well David wasn't perfect but he was definitely one of the good guys. He tried with all his might to honour God even though some days he blew it big time. And I'm sure if David looked at his life he'd come up with the same conclusion and yet this man went through so many difficult things, so many dark and lonely times. Times when people criticised him, times when he was in fear of his life, times when he felt that God had deserted him. So God, what's going on? Why is that? I mean this guy was a good guy, how come bad things happen to good people? Now I'm not sure I can answer all those questions, God is God and He decides those things but as we walk through Psalm 34, which is what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks, it’s a Psalm where David looks back on those dark times with the benefit of hindsight. Let me share with you David's own wisdom, this is what he writes is Psalm 34, verses 15 to 19. It says that: Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them from them all. Well David doesn't even bother with the "why" question does he? When we're hit with those dark times the first question we utter is, "Why me God; why me?" Right, and the second one is, "How long is this going to go on for God; how long?" Well David doesn't carry on with any of that. He looks back, he accepts the sovereignty of God and after all he's been through in his life, he draws this obvious conclusion. Verse 19 of Psalm 34: Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. In other words; stuff happens, it just does. Jesus kind of put it this way, He said: Your Father in heaven causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good and He sends his rains on the righteous and the unrighteous. In other words; good stuff and bad stuff happens to good people and bad people. There you go, it's just the way it is and it seems to be a rule that the more a man or a woman turns their lives to following hard after God, to walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the more afflictions they suffer. It's such an incredible contradiction; on the one hand God wants to bless us, He does. All the way through His word, the Bible tells us, He wants to bless us. On the other, when we set our hearts like flint to follow after Him it seems like all hell breaks loose, the world just doesn't want us to do that. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Many! One of the promises of God and you don't hear many people shouting hallelujah to that promise do you? But the Lord delivers us from them all, His eyes are on His people, His ears are attentive to their cry. We cry out; He hears us and He delivers us from our troubles. You know what I've learnt, He doesn't always deliver me the way I expect Him to, the way I want Him to, when I want Him to. Sometimes we want Him to do one thing and He does almost exactly the opposite. Sometimes, you know, we cry out to Him and we even go to Him in faith and we say, "Lord, I believe you’re here and I believe you’re going to deliver me from this." And things go from bad to worse. Sometimes we want Him to do A and He gives us B. "What are you doing God?" And sometimes it seems like His solution and His answer means that we lose and someone else wins but in the wondrous fabric of His mighty plan for our lives, He's so much more interested in our character and who we are and our relationship with Him than He is about our perceptions of comfort and need. He's so much more concerned about His glory shining out into this world than He is about some of the things that, at the time, we think are important but in the bigger scheme of things they're really not. The apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 5, he says: Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and it's a hope that never disappoints us because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through His Holy Spirit. And the longer we walk with God, the more afflictions we have to suffer, the more we discover the truth of King David’s words in Psalm 34. The Lord hears our cry, He delivers us from our troubles, He is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him from them all. That is an awesome thing. Now I don't know what afflictions maybe you're walking through right now and can I just encourage you; put away the "why" question, put away the "how long" question and just listen to the word of God again. The Lord is close to the broken hearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. I've only been walking with God now for just on 13 years but I look back and I see the things I've had to walk through, I see the afflictions. Even when those afflictions, can I tell you, have come from my own mistakes and I'm living out those consequences and just somehow, in His own good time, God works it so that I learn and that I heal and that He delivers me from this stuff and even if I have to lose my life serving Him I have all eternity to rejoice in Him. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.
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When the Rubber Hits the Road // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 8
03/19/2025
When the Rubber Hits the Road // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 8
As we travel through those dark days in life – it’s easy just to let go and compromise who we are and what we do – we sin to save our skin. But I believe that God wants to challenge us about that very thing today. Last week and again this week on the program we've been stepping our way through a series that I've called "Dark Night, Bright Light" because we all travel through dark patches in our lives. I certainly have and I know that you have too and maybe you're even in the middle of one right now and so we've been spending some time with King David in Psalm 34 where he shares some of the wisdom that he's discovered in the middle of his many, many dark days. Yesterday we saw that it really makes a difference what we do in those dark places, it's so easy to give in and just let things slide and use our difficulties as an excuse for letting the darkness smear the way that we think and speak and behave. Well today I'd just like to stick with that idea for a bit longer because David goes on to talk about that and he throws the gauntlet down to you and me with a challenge. A challenge about how you and I behave, how we live our lives when those storm clouds come rolling in over the horizon and it's a challenge that I'd like to share with you, for you to think about in your life. Psalm 34, as I've said a few times over these last couple of weeks, is King David writing down the wisdom he learned from God in his dark times and as we've spent this time in that psalm over the last couple of weeks I hope that you've been blessed as I am as we work our way through the wondrous word of God. Imagine, the God who created the whole universe speaking to you and me through His word, through something that was written, well about 3,000 years ago. We're going to move on with the next few verses of this Psalm today because they contain a specific challenge, a challenge to you and to me. Have a listen, Psalm 34 beginning at verse 11: Come my children listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. See sometimes we wonder, well how do we live out this fear of the Lord? Do I just kind of sit in the corner and tremble? No, it's not that at all. David, remember this David who is speaking to us from his own difficult dark experience is throwing down a challenge. He's teaching us how to live out the fear of the Lord. Quite simply, if I were to paraphrase what he was saying it’s this. He says, "Do you want to live a good life, I mean do you want to live a great life? Well, here’s how to get it – by living out the fear of the Lord through what you say and what you do." Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Now you and I are different, we're all different; we're all prone to different forms of the same thing that God calls sin. For some people it’s grumbling, others it’s gambling or lying or stealing or carrying around hatred in our hearts and speaking it out behind peoples backs. Gossiping or sexual sin or, you name it the list goes on. Over eating, getting drunk, closing ourselves off from people that we love, over and over the list goes on and my hunch is that each one of us knows which one or two are our particular sins, the ones that we're prone to and here's the challenge. If we're in a dark and fearful place, a place where there’s a temptation to stop doing good and to do evil instead, the challenge that David is throwing down here is turn away from that, do good. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. You know that’s what it means in practical terms to fear the Lord, that’s how we live out the fear of our Lord, with our lives by living it out His way. See, we delude ourselves, we somehow imagine that in that dark place God can't see what’s going. Well wake up; listen to what the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Church, to Galatia in Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7, he says: Look, don't kid yourselves, God can't be mocked; you're going to reap what you sow. If you reap to please your sinful nature, from that nature you're going to reap destruction but if you reap to please the spirit then from the Holy Spirit you will reap eternal life. Don't become weary of doing good because just at the right time you're going to reap a harvest if you don't give up. Just so, as you have the opportunity, do good to everyone especially those who belong to Gods family. Now this was written about 1,000 years after David and he's saying the same thing in a different way, he's saying look, in those dark places it's so easy to grow weary of doing good, it's so easy to deceive ourselves, to think that we can somehow pull one over God. Don't be deceived, God can't be mocked, a man reaps what he sows and if we don't grow tired of doing good; isn't it so easy to grow weary of doing good when life’s tough. You know, when everything’s against you and your emotions are down, when the whole world seems to come after you with a pick axe, you know. The temptation is to behave badly but Paul’s saying what King David said 1,000 years before; don't grow weary of doing good. Just keep doing good, just keep standing there for God, just keep living your life for Him. Don't use the difficult circumstances and the dark places as an excuse and just at the right time, just in Gods time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up. You see it's very much in that dark place where the devil wants to tear us apart, that's the place where we need to be vigilant, to bow down our lives, to fear the Lord with our lives and just go on faithfully doing the right thing day after day after day. And His light will shine in that place, it has to, that's who He is. God honours those who honour Him and in those dark places when we, step by step, just follow after His ways what we discover is His light shines in that place and that is such a precious and awesome and mighty thing, it changes us like nothing else on this earth. That's why David starts his Psalm off with such gusto and praise because he knows this stuff works through his own experience: I will bless the Lord all the time; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; that all those who are afflicted will hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; lets exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. If we look to Him our faces will be radiant; never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Come on taste, see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children listen to me; let me teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
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Let's Take a Closer Look // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 7
03/18/2025
Let's Take a Closer Look // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 7
When you’re travelling through dark days in life – it’s pretty normal to be afraid. But something that King David discovered in his many dark days, is that a right fear – the fear of the Lord, has some real pluses. When we're travelling through one of those dark patches in life, you know those difficult times we all go through, we're liable to experience fear and that fear can be debilitating. But on the other hand, there's a good side to fear, it's an inbuilt protection mechanism. Last week on the program we spent some time with King David in one of the many psalms that he wrote, Psalm 34 and we're continuing on with that this week because this man David is telling us what he learned about God during all those dark and dangerous and fearful times he had throughout his life. And without giving it all away, David discovers that the fear of God has some real benefits. Sounds kind of weird doesn't it? Christians talk about the "fear of the Lord" all the time but what does it really mean in those dark and fearful times and how can it possibly help me? They're good questions so stick with me over the next few minutes as we discover what David learned the hard way. We're going to be taking a bit of a closer look at this, this part of Psalm 34 because that's how we learn what God’s teaching us through David’s wisdom. I'm going to pick it up, just 3 verses, beginning at verse 9. It says: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. I love this because it's a place where God gives us solutions to our problems. You see it's not good enough for Him to just wrap us over the knuckles with a ruler when we've done the wrong thing. We need to know how not to repeat the mistake and that’s what this piece of wisdom is all about. Let’s just look at verse 9 again, David writes: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. See, this fear of the Lord has two parts. The most obvious meaning is to be afraid but it also means to reverence and honour God. I want to talk about those today because they're important. You know it's really easy to imagine that somehow God is just our buddy, like any other friend and to be sure, He is our friend. But God is also an awesome God and ultimately He will see justice done. There will be a day of judgement, there will be a day when we have to make an account before Him for all that we've done and all that we've said. Jesus made that really clear in Matthew chapter 10: 28 we can read what He said. He said this: Do not be afraid of people who can kill you your body but can't kill your soul. Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Let's never lose sight of that, there are consequences to rebelling against God. And if we just wantonly go on stealing or lying or grumbling or hating or undermining or whatever it is and think to ourselves, "Well that’s okay, God’s my buddy." Then let me make this clear; we are completely missing the point. Yes Jesus died for your sins and mine, absolutely and when I get something wrong I go to God and I admit it and I say, "Lord, I just got this wrong. I'm sorry, I don't want to go there again, please forgive me." And He does because of what Jesus did for me on the cross, He paid that price. But this attitude is one that comes, to tell you truthfully, out of the fear of the Lord. A casual attitude towards God, that thinks we can keep on sinning, is not on. He won't honour that, why? Well because if you believe in Jesus, His plan for you is to be holy, in other words clean and pure and set apart exclusively for His use. Listen again to verse 9 of Psalm 34: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. See, we are not our own; you put your faith in Jesus you are bought at a price and God has this awesome plan to use you just as He pleases and the devil knows that. That's why when times are tough, when we're travelling through a dark place the devil wants to smear us with his darkness. Here's the deception; things are difficult right now therefore I have to bend the rules to set things right. Money's tight, well I have to lie on my tax return, I have to steal to provide for myself. The boss is giving me a hard time, well I have to go stab him in the back to get things right. A husband or wife isn't everything they should be, I have to start looking somewhere else to find someone who is everything they should be. The devil will play that rubbish over and over and over again until we swallow it hook, line and sinker. Gods answer is exactly the opposite: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. God’s way is to say, "Don't go out there and reject me and provide for yourself." God’s way is to provide for us. Not all our wants but all our needs. Fear the Lord, fear His judgement and honour Him and reverence Him with what we think, what we say and what we do and God will make sure that we have what we need. That's a step of faith, it's so much easier to think I can just go out there and do it for myself. What a huge opposite God’s way is to our natural inclination. You know what He wants to hear us say? Yes, times are tough, yes, money is tight but I will fill out my tax return honestly. I won't claim expenses for my company that are really personal rather than company expenses. I don't care how tough things get financially I am going to fear the Lord because I am bought for a price and I am holy and I am set apart for Him and His word says that in those dark times, if I fear Him I will have no want. When I seek Him with all my heart I will lack no good thing. Do you see how different God’s way is, the way of faith, the way of putting our trust in Him. See how different that is from the world’s way which is look after number one, do whatever it takes and remember David is teaching us this stuff having been on the run from King Saul who wanted to kill him for years, sleeping in dark caves fearing for his life. This is what he learned in this dark place and that’s why he's telling us this stuff. Verse 11: Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord, living that out is what we choose to do when it's so tempting in those dark places to be smeared by the devil’s darkness. The fear of the Lord is standing in the middle of this earth afraid but deciding to trust in God’s provision. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may well grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.
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What We Do in the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 6
03/17/2025
What We Do in the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 6
Sometimes we travel through dark patches in life – and in those difficult times, it’s tempting to let that darkness smear how we think, what we say and what we do. And yet how we behave on those dark days – is so very important. It's great to be with you again this week. I'm not sure if you were able to join me last week but we began a new series called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and it's one that we're continuing on again this week on the program. We all travel through dark times in life, times of loss or loneliness or sickness or sadness or depression, the list goes on. Now I'm not suggesting that we're all a bunch of losers, I don't mean that, it's just one of the realities of life that dark times are something that we all have to travel through. Jacqui, my wife, was talking to a long time friend of hers, her children are growing up and there's lots of challenges and problems and she's exhausted. A dear friend of mine whose son committed suicide, he and his wife are still reeling from that and another friend who's been retrenched, well he's in his fifties and it's hard for him to find a job. This stuff happens; dark times are difficult because it's dark and so often we can't see where we are or where we're going. I've had them, you've had them, that's life and that's why we're talking about these dark times again this week on the program. And it's not just about the darkness but also the bright light that shines in those dark places. Jesus said these amazing words: I am the light of the world. And one of the things we saw last week is that He is in the 'light' business and that’s good news for anyone going through a dark patch. The very first thing that God created, Genesis chapter 1, was light, a trillion, trillion stars at least. That tells us something about Him; God is definitely in the "light" business, hallelujah don't you think? Last week we spent some time with King David in Psalm 34 and we're going there again today. This man David had more than his fair share of dark, difficult and lonely and scary times. That's why what he has to say is so useful; his wisdom comes from what he learned about God. So this psalm is kind of a retrospective with a benefit of hindsight, he's looking back on the dark times, on his fear and when God showed up. Let’s read the first part of that psalm again right now; this is what he says: I will bless the Lord all the time; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let all those who are afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let’s exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. See, David's saying God is a god who shows up in the dark times and delivers us. Now David isn't telling us that off the top of his head, it's from his experience. He spent such a long time, so many years on the run from Saul who was trying to kill him. In dark caves, in lonely places. David had fought so many battles where he was hard pressed and he should have been killed but God was there for him and one of the things that we touched on last week was fear; bad fear and good fear. Bad fear is the fear that David talks about in verse 4 of this psalm: I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. But he also goes on to talk about good fear in verse 7: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Fear of the Lord is something we're going to have a look at some more today because it's what this next part of Psalm 34 is all about. I want you to come with me now as we read just the next 5 verses of this psalm, verses 9 to 14 which is where we're going to spend a bit of time together today. He writes: Fear the Lord, you His holy ones for those who will fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me; I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days; keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. This is a really important part of the psalm. The first part told us all about God and what He's like, it's fantastic, we looked at that last week. This second part though; it's about the part that we have to play during those dark times. I want to tell you something about darkness; people will do things in the dark that they won't do in the light. Think about it, we're much more careful about where we walk and what we do out there in the dark, in the night time, than we are in the day time. Robberies, muggings, murder; they're all more likely to occur under the cover of darkness. And the same is true in our lives. Dark times, well they're the times we're far more likely to do things that we know are wrong. Let me just give you a few practical examples. A husband and wife, they're going through some tough times in their marriage and their eyes start to wander, they start looking around. That's how adultery begins, instead of holding on to each other, holding close and working through the issues. Or perhaps there's conflict at work; someone’s just not treating us well and we're feeling under pressure, it's really getting to us, you know. The boss is just being horrible so we take that as an excuse to justify being lazy or stealing something or gossiping behind their back or not servicing a customer properly so that the company will lose some money. Or perhaps money's really tight, we're under real financial pressure and we're tempted to lie and cheat on our tax return or when that shop attendant gives us too much change and makes a mistake; ah we just slip it into our pockets. Do you see how easy this stuff is? In the dark times, in those hidden places the temptation to do wrong is far greater than when times are good. No-one notices it, after all times are tough, I have to look after number one, I have to look after me. I have to justify myself or protect myself or provide for myself and that’s how we rationalise this stuff. Do you notice the central theme running through all that? Me, myself and I. Darkness is a time when we're afraid and in those times we can end up being tempted to turn away from what we know is right because no-one will notice and besides we just have to. The devil loves it, he's so delighted by this. Have a listen to what the apostle John says: This is the message we've heard from Him and declare to you. God is light; in Him there's no darkness at all. If we claim to be walking with Him and yet we walk in the darkness, we lie and don't live in the truth. And so over this week we're going to look at the wisdom that comes from David’s own experience in those dark times. What he learned about what to do when temptation comes in the darkness. You know how we rationalise this? I have to sin to save my skin; when I'm afraid I just think I have to do whatever it takes, no matter what the consequences are, to save my own skin.
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