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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Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2
11/18/2025
Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2
The last thing that most of us suffer from is a lack of information – the whole world is screaming for our attention. Sometimes, the quiet assurance that comes from a bit of peace and quiet just eludes us. Sometimes, it feels like we live in our world where everything and everybody seems to be screaming for our attention. Take advertising – armies of creative people who think up new, (often), very clever ways of getting you and me to buy their client’s products. The supermarket where Jacqui and I go shopping has large advertising stickers glued to the floor in some of the shopping aisles. So many people have the TV blaring every minute of every waking hour. So many people go to work, lurch from one meeting to another, without a break, without time to stop and reflect. Our senses are being bombarded with thousands of messages and signals and … ideas and requests and directions, EVERY DAY! And without knowing it, it ends up being a huge weight that we carry around. No wonder so many people are so exhausted. If only we can only put the weight down and take a break for a while. And then keep on going. It’s true, isn’t it? The more that technology – like phones and then mobile phones and PCs and internet, TVs, DVDs and radio, all that stuff has made entertainment and information so accessible – the more we become slaves to them. The more the cars replace public transport; we do this point to point rushing thing instead of, I don’t know, standing waiting for a bus for 5 or ten minutes at the bus stop. There is some real upsides to all of those things. I mean I love the fact that I can watch T.V. and people can contact me on my mobile phone, it’s so convenient. But we’ve lost something … we’ve lost the time. I don’t know, just to stop and think, to rest the senses, to rest the mind, to rest the spirit, to reflect, to imagine, to dream. And the problem with so much of the stuff that we take in as entertainment or communication, a lot of it is really negative. You watch the news at night and 95% of the news is pretty negative. A lot of it is really frivolous (in sitcoms) on TV at night. Well, there’s nothing wrong with one sitcom, but if 70% of our entertainment is a diet of sitcoms, is it any wonder that people feel empty? That there is shallowness, that there is something missing? Some of the stuff that comes across as fact or entertainment, to put it bluntly, is downright destructive. It’s like eating bad food or sweets all the time. Now that’s our condition, that’s what’s going on. But there’s a flip side. So many people, so many of us believe in God. Surveys in the west say, 70+% believe in God. But I wonder whether it’s a real relationship, a real thing in life. Or whether for a lot of people, it’s a kind of, (I don’t know), a pie in the sky, when I die type – of distant sort of faith thing. And we have this belief or this faith, on the one hand. And we have this whole need for rest and for peace and for joy and for wholeness, on the other. But a lot of people just never connect those two things. Never occurs to sometimes ask, to connect those two things in life. One of the things I love about the Hebrew culture is that they think and they speak in pictures. A few thousand years ago, there was a little passage written in book of Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 46. And the writer wrote something like this: Even when the earth is shaking and the mountains are falling into the sea. Even though the waters are roaring and foaming. Even though the nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are tottering. Even in the middle of all that, God has something to say. The beautiful picture, and the Hebrew nation, those people were not a sea fearing people. So the idea of mountains falling into the ocean and waters roaring and foaming, well, that was a real fear – turmoil thing. And the writer says, “In the middle of all the fear and turmoil that life brings, God has something to say with a voice that melts that all away.” It is like a river of gladness running through a city, with a power that stops wars and calms oceans. God has something to say into that condition and it’s this … “Be still and know that I am God.” In that big cacophony of noise that we call life – where everyone is screaming at us and yelling at us. And things are happening and mountains are falling into the ocean, and people are criticising us and the entertainment is blaring at us, in the middle of all of that … a still, small, powerful voice, whispers into our hearts with unmistakable power ... “Be still and know that I am God. Just stop and pause for a minute. And in the depths of your soul, right, right, deep down where you live, know that despite all the turmoil that you see around you, I am God and I am in control. I am here. I am with you. And I have the power to bring you peace.” With that one small statement, God connects one of our deepest needs – the need for peace, for quiet, for assurance – with the spiritual reality of who He is ... of his love and his power. It seems so crazy to me that there is so many people who believe in God, who believe in Jesus and their idea is that, you kind of go to church on a Sunday and that’s it. You worship God in a sacred zone and that’s it. But that’s not in the Bible, that not what God says, that’s not what Jesus was talking about … “Be still and know that I am God." So often when the nations are raging around us, when people are raging, when things are difficult, when the babies crying, when there is tension in our relationships … we focus on those circumstances. That’s all we can see. It’s the stress, it’s the pain, it’s the fear, it’s the hurt and we react to them. Because we see the mountains falling into the sea, because we see the oceans roaring and foaming. And God says in the middle of that, “Be still and let me speak to you, just in that little space and Know that I am God.” In practice, I think that comes out in two parts. The first is carving out some time with God everyday to connect with him and that’s a decision. It’s your time. It’s your space. But it can be such a foundation, such a rock; to pray, listen and look. And then we go and live life out there. And the stuff that people and life throws at us, well, in the middle of all that we can experience, we can taste a peace that surpasses all understanding. A peace that guards our hearts and our minds because we know who God is in Jesus. And my experience has been that in situations where (by rights), I shouldn’t have any peace, I look at it and I have the deepest peace and sense of security. Because earlier on in the day, in the morning (when it was still and calm and everyone was asleep), I took time to be still, to rest my spirit and my mind, my heart and my soul in God’s hands. And then sometimes during the day when it is difficult, or I’m having a tough meeting; I just glance towards God (just a split second). I grab some stillness in a stressful moment. And in my soul, in my heart, somewhere I look at God and I get this quiet assurance, “Be still and just know that I am God. Just know that I am with you.” Or I’m riding the bus into the city, or I just take a break and go for a short walk, or whatever ... a quick glance at Jesus, a pause, a look, a smile in the soul … God wants us to know something … “Be still, be still and know that I am God.”
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Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1
11/17/2025
Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1
Getting some balance back in our lives is a challenge for a lot of people. Either we’re doing too much or not enough and somehow, life’s out of kilter. What we need is some refreshment for our souls. I don't know about you but one of the things that many people struggle with is getting a sense of balance in their lives. Either life's just so crazy and hectic that we seem to be burning the candle at both ends and eventually we burn out or for other people life's really, really quiet, lonely perhaps. All lifestyle magazines push this whole "life balance" thing, great cooking, meals with friends, exotic holidays, happy families. And then you go and look at that stuff and go, "hang on a minute, my life doesn't look like that" and we feel even worse. What we all need at some point, in fact daily I think, is a time of refreshing, you know to renew our strength, to lift us up, to breath some joy into our souls. My wife Jacqui and I, we're a bit like that, we're working really hard at the moment and just the last few months have been really tough from a ministry and a work perspective. Now on the one hand it's a real joy and a pleasure. We get to work together, we get to do something that touches peoples lives and it's great. But when you're working long and hard, day after day after day, it takes it's toll doesn't it? In a sense ministry should be easy, well in a sense it is. So often I'm really tired. And in fact as I was preparing for today, to share this message with you, I was really tired. I was overseas last week in the USA so the time difference was knocking me around and yet God put a real holy ease, He was there. He blessed me and He just made it work for me. But the flip side of that is running a ministry, it's a tough gig. There's fundraising and managing staff and producing content and I'm writing a book at the moment and reporting to the board. All of these things that people don't see and yet they're essential to doing what it is that I do. You have the same, you have things in your life that people see and there's a whole bunch of other things that they don't see but that are grinding, that are hard work sometimes and so Jacqui and I said, "Look it's really time for a break". Now every now and then, maybe two or three times a year, we grab a weekend away somewhere just to have a rest. But we thought, "no, we really need a break". So just recently we booked a holiday in a place called, Lord Howe Island. If you haven't heard of Lord Howe it's a beautiful island about two hours flight from Sydney in Australia. It's world heritage listed, only 250 visitors are allowed on the island at once. There are no theme parks or theatres or tacky pinball parlours. It's a world heritage listed spectacular island. Soaring mountains, (I think the mountains soars six thousand feet up out of the ocean bed), beautiful beaches, virgin forests, lagoons. It's hard to think of a more, well idyllic setting and I have to tell you something, we are really looking forward to it. There's something about rest and beauty, a sense of anticipation, a change in scenery, getting away. We all yearn for that and there’s nothing wrong with that. You bring rest and real beauty together and you know, it just refreshes the soul. It brings us back to life. It does something that renews us inside. And if we have a busy life, we actually need to plan those things. We need to decide to set aside the time, to invest the dollars and go and have a holiday and maybe if we have a quiet, lonely life, "I won't go on my own, it's not worth it", what rubbish. Maybe if you're in that camp you just need some motivation. When I was coming back from America last week I flew via Tahiti. It was just the airfare I was able to get and I was sitting next to a woman between Los Angeles and Tahiti and she was going to Tahiti on her own. and she said, "Look, I've been working hard. I've been really busy and I've just decided to take a holiday and have a rest". Good on her, I think that's what we all need to do at some point. This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at this whole issue of refreshing. We all need times of refreshing so we're going to look at it over the next few days, just from different angles, different perspectives. It's great to plan a holiday but what about refreshment right in the middle of life. I mean in the daily cut and thrust, in the grind, in the every day, here and now. If we spend all of our time looking forward to escaping, "I hate my job, I hate the grind…" Here's a thought, if God is God, if God put us here, shouldn't day to day life be, I don't know, something to enjoy? I don't mean a 24x7 cocktail party, that’s not realistic, life’s not like that. It's not all bubbly and fruity and wonderful every day. But as we live our life through our family, through our responsibilities, through our work, through our recreation, shouldn't there be, I don't know, a deep sense of joy and satisfaction? I often get to Friday nights and Friday night is a time I really enjoy because I know I have the whole weekend ahead of me. And often I'm really tired on Friday nights. But Friday nights are time for me. Well it's a joyous tired. It's a happy tired. It's a tired looking back on the week saying, "I had a great time even though it was hard work and there were some challenges." I think that's right, I think God wants us to enjoy the lives that He's given us but it does come down to balance. If we're always giving out, you know we get up in the morning, we get the kids off to school, we engage with the family, we deal with issues and problems. We go to work, to school, to home, we're giving out, we're always delivering. Where's the inflow? So many people watch television every night and they wonder why they're empty. So many people are running on empty. The human eye is such an interesting organ. I know a little bit about the eye because I suffer from glaucoma which is a condition that is very treatable as long as it's been diagnosed. And the whole issue of glaucoma is that there has to be a right inflow and outflow of fluids through the eye. The problem with glaucoma is often the outflow is blocked up so the pressure builds up in the eye and that causes ultimately, you to go blind as the optic nerve at the back of the eye is damaged. But the problem with a lot of us is there is a lot of outflow, we're delivering but there's no inflow. There's nothing that's coming in that makes us healthy, that fills us up. Let me introduce you to a man called, Luke. Luke is a Doctor; Luke was a physician in the first century. Luke wrote two fairly long books in the New Testament, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. In fact Luke has written more of the New Testament than any other writer. In the book of Acts which is the story after Jesus ascended to heaven, of over about twenty to twenty five years of all that the Apostles, Paul and Peter and John, all that they did and all that God did through them. That's the story of the book of Acts. In the third chapter of Acts, in verse 20, the physician, the Doctor Luke writes this. Times of refreshing come from the presence of God. Maybe you already know that. Maybe in your head you know that but sometimes we can forget it in our hearts. And maybe for you it's a totally unexpected concept but something that we all discover, if we'd only spend some time quietly in Gods presence. For me it's a half an hour, somewhere between a half and hour and sixty minutes in the morning that I spend with God, praying and reading and sitting and thinking and just listening to what God has to say into my life. It's my daily "Lord Howe Island"; it's my daily "holiday". It's the beauty of God and its mental and spiritual rest. It’s food for my soul. It's a time that I really, really look forward to. I believe that Luke was right, there are times of refreshing that come from the presence of God. Just spending time with Him, it's not a chore. For me, spending time with God is like, well it's like going on a holiday every morning.
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The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5
11/14/2025
The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5
It’s amazing how thoroughly we manage to delude ourselves about our own failings and weaknesses. We’re actually pretty darned good at it. But God is a skilful surgeon capable of performing radical surgery. This week on the program, we've been looking at intimacy with God through His Spirit and His Word. And when you think about it, those are the two things of Himself that He has left here on this planet for you and me. His Spirit – God Himself, with a promise that if we believe in Jesus, He will make His home in us, dwell in us when we put our faith in Him. And His word – the Bible. I so often see people cringe when I mention that book. But as we've been exploring this week, this is the most amazing and awesome love letter God’s left here for you and for me. Through His Spirit (we open that book), He speaks to us in the most direct and intimate and extraordinary way. And sometimes when we open that book and read it through His Spirit, it's like holding up a mirror to who we are. And I don't know about you but sometimes I don't actually like what I see in that mirror. Let's not kid ourselves. When things aren't going well, when we're under pressure, we blame everyone else. He did this; she said that; if he hadn't done this, I wouldn't have blown up in his face, you know the sort of stuff. It's amazing how much more quickly we'll forgive ourselves than we forgive other people. We are so quick to rationalise our own failures and yet to blame others for theirs and even ours. And the longer we delude ourselves about the things that we're doing wrong or our bad character traits or our bad habits or our anger or our fear or our insecurities, the more they're going to ruin not only our lives but also the lives of people around us. There's a great passage in Hebrews in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, says this: The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides the soul from the spirit, the joints from the marrow. It's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart and before God no creature is hidden but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Boy, that's bad news isn't it? Who wants to read God’s word? Sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces, it divides the spirit from the soul, the joints from the marrow, it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No, thanks. I'll give that a miss, I think. I'll pass. But it's only bad news if we want to hang on to the bad stuff. If you or I want to hang on to our dishonesty, our critical spirit, our nasty attitudes or whatever, then this bit about God’s word is bad news. But if we want to be set free from this stuff, it's fantastic news. In other words, we read God’s word and it's like a mirror, it judges the intentions of the heart. It lays everything bare, it lays everything open. We can see in there where our intentions are wrong – where the way we think is wrong or hurting us or hurting other people and it happens to me all the time. When we let God do that, when we go to God’s word and open it up and say, "Dear Holy Spirit, you wrote this thing. Will you now open it up for me, will you now hold it up, will you pour into my heart, will you show me who I am through your word”? When we let God hold His mirror up to our faces it changes us. Let me give you an example …there’s a story about a woman caught in adultery. And the religious leaders whip up the crowd and they drag her out in front of Jesus for a good old-fashioned stoning. And it wasn't because of what she did; they were trying to trick Him. Jewish religious law prescribed that a person caught in adultery should be stoned to death. But Roman law, (remember at this point in the first century Rome had occupied the land of Israel), Roman law said, they weren't allowed to do that anymore. So whichever way Jesus answered, He'd lose. So Jesus pauses and squats down and doodles in the sand. Then He looks everyone in the eye, one by one, and He says: Whichever of you has never sinned, you pick up the first stone, you cast the first stone. (John 8:7) And one by one they all drift away. They all go embarrassed because they know that none of them can say that they have never sinned. And He's left alone with her and He says: "Woman, is there no-one left to condemn you?" And she says, "No-one sir.’ And He says, ‘Then neither do I condemn you. Go, go and sin no more." (John 8:10-11) That is brilliant isn't it? But I remember reading that and it was as though God’s spirit was holding a mirror up to my face. God's spirit spoke to me and said, "You know Berni, the way you think, the way you act, you would have been one of the people in that crowd." And it was true ... I was so judgemental, I was so critical, I was so ready to jump down peoples’ throats and tell them what they were doing wrong. And here I was reading God’s word and through this beautiful story of Jesus' wisdom and the way He protected this woman and yet He dealt with her sin. The spirit of God said to me, "Berni, there's something I want to change in you." My favourite saying used to be, "It's so hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys." And the Holy Spirit took that and said, "Now I'm going to do something in you”. And He really challenged me. God used that story. And He's still using that scripture in my heart and in my life today, and He's done a radical work. I used to be so judgemental, and now other people’s weaknesses and failures (by and large), I just let them go. And the more I've been able to do that (not in my own strength but because I opened the Bible and read the story and the Spirit of God did this work in me), you know what's happened? He set me free … from me! God is good. God through His word and His Spirit give us the power to change. That's what God's word does and that's what God does through it, through His Holy Spirit. He lifts the words off the page. He breathes them into our hearts and into our souls and into our spirits. He makes things happen inside us. He changes us in a way that we could never even begin to contemplate. It's not just about believing in Jesus, but about letting Him change us. Jesus said, “I have come to set the captives free." That's you and me He's talking about day by day. For me, that wouldn't have happened thus far. And it wouldn't still be happening if I wasn't spending time in His Word, letting His Spirit breath His life into me. Awesome stuff – God’s plan! God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword. And He is the skilful surgeon who cuts out just as much as He needs to – through His word and His spirit – and leaves us healthy and whole and free. Pretty good plan, huh? God’s Word … God’s Spirit … God’s way.
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Understanding the Letter // The Spirit and The Word, Part 4
11/13/2025
Understanding the Letter // The Spirit and The Word, Part 4
Once people get over the fact that the Bible isn’t a bunch of do’s and don’ts, the biggest thing that stops them from reading it is that it doesn’t makes sense. One of the things that I'm really passionate about is, I guess, just being here with you today and knowing that through our time we've spent together (somehow), God's used that time to draw you closer to Him. Life's too short to live it without a passionate and a dynamic and a real and a beautiful relationship with Jesus. Some people may scoff at that. But deep down – right deep down in our spirit – we all hunger for God to touch us, for God to fill us, to give us His peace and His joy and His abundant life. And what's so sad for me is to see people living their lives as though all of God's blessing, as though God Himself is somehow a million miles away. When all along, He's closer, closer than even their deepest secrets of their hearts. This week on the program, we're looking at intimacy with God through His spirit and through His word. People make a mistake and say, "God is all about a bunch of rules and it's all about a bunch of doctrine and logic and so I've got to get all this head knowledge to know God." And hey, knowing God's word is fabulous. I make a living out of doing that. I try and let God use me to bless you by doing that. But there's more … there's God’s Holy Spirit. If I just pick up His Bible and read it as a bunch of words and a bunch of rules and don't let God’s Spirit work in me and lift the words off the page and put them into my heart, what I end up with is some sort of legalistic – religiously thing. Here, you and I are in the world that God created. Jesus in the flesh has been here and gone, He's promised to come back. But in the mean time God has actually left two things of Himself behind. Now sure, the world and the universe and all that’s in it are God's but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the two things of God Himself that He's left here for us, here and now. What are they? The first is His Spirit, the promise of Jesus to His disciples and to you and to me (here and now) is to pour His Spirit out on us, to come and dwell in us. Through His Spirit God has left behind God Himself, the Spirit of God. And the second thing that God has left behind of Himself is His word, the Bible. Now many people cringe at that. But His word is His love letter to us, His story, His promises, His wisdom, His grace. And it's so sad to see people want more of God, to hunger for Him, to thirst for Him and they have a Bible on a shelf or in a cupboard somewhere and it's gathering dust. I often meet people like that and they see my enthusiasm for God, or they hear it in my voice and they say, "I wish I had that." No! I'm nothing special. In my own way, I'm just like you. Where do you get that real relationship with God that just bubbles over? And so I say to them, "When was the last time you read your Bible?" Hush … silence. The Bible (in my neck of the woods) is looked at with mistrust and negative connotations, fundamentalism, conservatism. There are more 'isms' poked at the Bible that we could poke a stick at. And so I say to people, "If God wrote you a love letter, wouldn't you want to read it?" Well, He did and it's called the Bible. "Yeah well, I don't understand the Bible. The Bible's hard to read. It's all over the place, who's Ephraim, what was Babylon all about? And who was Paul? And why did Jesus tell a story about a Samaritan? None of it makes sense to me so I just gave up. It was too hard." I understand that … so I'm going to share just four practical tips with you that anyone can implement and do in their lives to read God’s love letter. And the first one is – to pray in the Spirit. The Bible says of itself that the Holy Spirit inspired every word that it contains. If the Holy Spirit inspired and wrote the thing through men and women, then the Holy Spirit can open it up and speak it into your heart and into my heart. And I tell you the truth, I never open that book without first asking Him, the Holy Spirit, to open it up for me. Dear Holy Spirit, I'm about to read your word, and I need you to open it up. And I need you to lift the words off the page. And I need you to feed them into my spirit because if they're just words, they're useless. But these are God’s words and God I need you to feed me with your word. That’s the first thing, to pray in the spirit to ask God himself to open the book for you. The second one is nowhere near as spiritual – get a Bible dictionary. What's that? You can get a Bible dictionary that’s thin and small paperback. You can get one that's 27 volumes. I've got one that's 27 volumes but I've also got one that's one volume and it's called, "The Holman Bible Dictionary". And I just had a look online and it's under $50.00 or less than a pair of shoes. And it has pictures and diagrams and maps so when you come to read about Ephraim you can read two paragraphs and you know who or what Ephraim is. And when you come to read about Samaria or the Temple or David or Ruth, you can go a look those people up or those places up and just in a short time, all of a sudden we know what it's talking about. A Bible dictionary is a wonderful tool. As I said I use the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. It's under fifty bucks and there are stacks of them online. You can go to . It has a whole bunch of Bible dictionaries online to help explain things and issues and concepts that we may not understand because the Bible was written in different times and different cultures. Pray in the spirit, get a Bible dictionary. The third one, – get a Bible translation that makes sense to you. People sometimes ask me, "What's the best translation? Which one should I have?" The one that you'll read is my answer. I have several. I love the New International Version. I love the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version). I love the Contemporary English Version. I love The Message By Eugene Petersen, I love that, it's really contemporary. So I have a few, I rely on the NRSV as my favourite translation but hey, that's me. It may not work for you. You may prefer an NIV. And one of the things that we can do is get a study Bible. A study Bible has an explanation about each book and what the context was that it was written in … about the author, it explains situations and has word references and maps and cross-references. They're really helpful. Get a Bible translation that makes sense to you. And the fourth one is – get serious, do this every day. Just twenty minutes, some prayer time, reading God’s word, listening to Him, praying again. Read it through book by book. We have on our website www.christianityworks.com some 'read me' plans. You can read from beginning to end. You can read in chronological sequence, you can read the Old Testament, the New Testament in parallel. Go to our website www.christianityworks.com and have a look at the Bible 'read me' plans. Come on – get serious! This is God wanting to talk to you. Let me ask you a question, are you hungry for God? Are you thirsty for God? Do you want to be filled with His Spirit? Well, get serious! Open His love letter and enjoy.
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Love Letter from God // The Spirit and The Word, Part 3
11/12/2025
Love Letter from God // The Spirit and The Word, Part 3
When you think about it God’s gone to amazing lengths to preserve His love letter to us down through the centuries. You know the Bible. Yeah – that’s it – His love letter. Sadly, these days we tend to send and receive very few letters. I mean personal letters, letters of friendship, and letters of love. There's something about receiving a personal letter in the mail. It's so much better than email, it has a stamp and a post-mark and you have to open it and then you sit down with a cup of tea and you read it. That friend who wrote it, you can see their handwriting, it's so personal, it's so wonderful! So much better than all the emails that flood in my in-tray. I wonder if you can ever remember receiving love letters. Well, what if we received a love letter that was thousands of years old, written by God himself and preserved down through the ages just for you, just for me, what if? That's what the Bible is; it's a love letter from God (sixty-six different books). Some of them stories, some of them songs and poems, some of them letters written to different groups of people at different times. Each one of them, written by someone that God handpicked – someone in whom He breathed His Spirit, someone to whom God spoke and was just the right person at the right time – this someone who listened to God and wrote one of the books, one of the sixty-six. Paul, the Apostle, wrote letters to Churches while he was in a dungeon on death row. Matthew and Mark and Luke and John wrote the four Gospels to different groups of people to tell them about Jesus. And God preserved them all over thousands of years from the first to the last with an incredible degree of historical accuracy. Before the printing press they were copied out by hand, by people called scribes. You know how thick a Bible is; it's a pretty big book. And you can imagine hundreds and thousands of scribes copying the Bible over and over and over again. It wasn't until the 30th of September 1452 that Johan Gutenberg’s printing press published the first book on mass and that book was the Bible. Now, these days, when we look at all those different copies and translations and manuscripts there are almost no discrepancies in the hand copies and any that there are there are really minor and not very important. The Bible is this vast, amazing, confusing book, and story that begins right at the beginning with God creating the heavens and the earth. And tracks through the story of Israel in Egypt and their departure through the Red Sea and their forty years in the desert, into the promised land and all the turmoil and war, the exile and the return. And there are stories of people, Moses and David and Ruth and Esther and Paul and Timothy. And it's an account of God's Son, Jesus. And of the fledgling Church and the Book of Acts, the letters of Paul and Peter and John and others. This amazing array of God's stories spread over thousands of years, preserved for thousands of years more, now here, in your hand, in my hand to read. God’s amazing love letter! Not a text-book, not a theological text, not a book of dry rules, not a book of dot points – but of stories and poems and people in pain and agony and fear, crying out to God. And people praising God and worshipping God, seeing God’s hand in delivering them and protecting them. God's a heartbeat through it all, loving them. God's word's there for you and me, God's story there for you and me. God crying out through it all, ‘I love you, I love you so much.’ God's promises, God's power, God's mercy, God's wisdom all laid out in this vast story. This huge canvas which is a story of God touching people. It's the story of God revealing Himself. It's history; His story and not in a dry text, not just in words but through His Spirit. Every part of the Bible was inspired by God’s Spirit. If we open that book and just read the words, we miss the point. But if we approach this love letter in prayer, in the Spirit of God and say, "God open it up to me. God, as I open it up speak to me today." The most awesome amazing spiritual reality happens as God pours His love and His spirit out through those pages into our hearts and our lives. People who stare at the Bible as some fundamentalist doctorial statement like Karl Marx's communist manifesto or Hitler's Mein Kampf, you miss the point or people who call themselves Christians who have a Bible or two or three or four that they never open, just collects dust. It's too hard to read or hard to understand, we miss the point. God's written a love letter. God’s taken men and women and told their story and had them write it down and preserved it and put it in our hands to tell us about His love for us, “I love you.” God is speaking to someone today; I believe that God today is crying out to you, reaching out from His heart into your heart saying, "I love you, read my love letter." Can I ask you a question? Do you want to know that love, deep in your spirit every minute of every day? Do you want to live through the turbulent and difficult and uncertain days knowing the promises of God in your spirit? Do want to have so much of that love in you that you can't contain it? That His love and His spirit just overflows from you into the lives of others? Are you so hungry for God that you ache? Are you so thirsty and parched and dry that you just have to drink? Then pick up His love letter for yourself, pray, "Lord, where do you want me to begin?" Follow His lead, follow His spirit. "Lord, now show me, now speak to me, now feed me because I need you." And He will show up and in those words of His love letter, you and I will experience and know and hear Him through His spirit. Father, I pray for each one of us today, pour your Spirit into us, give us a passion to open that love letter. And as we do, as we read the words, lift them up off the page and speak them into our hearts. Bring life, bring refreshing, bring peace, bring joy in Jesus Christ’s name, we ask. Amen.
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The Law of the Spirit // The Spirit and The Word, Part 2
11/11/2025
The Law of the Spirit // The Spirit and The Word, Part 2
No matter how much we want to believe that God is a God of grace, we all at some point end up living life as though He’s a God of rules……the law of His Spirit and life can seem a long way off. When we talk about God, well that name "God" means so many different things to so many different people. Yesterday on the program, we looked at the notion that God is kind of a bunch of rules and sometimes people want to reduce Him down to being just that but that's not it. If God's a bunch of rules, then He's bad news not good news. It's an easy thing to do and some people do it, to pick up the Bible and read it as though it was a book of rules. And that’s where people get this sort of Bible bashing, accusing, condemnatory form of religion. But that's not it. Jesus said: "I've come to set you free and if I set you free’ said Jesus, ‘then you're really free." (John 8:36) So how do we make sense of all that? If we read this book, the Bible, as the letter of the law then it's full of condemnation. But what about the spirit of the law? What does God mean by it all? And what about the law of the Spirit, which is what the Apostle Paul talks about? Is there really freedom in all of this? The way I try to understand that is looking at the three different ways that we can be a parent. To me there are three models: The first model is the model of being the tyrant dictator. I'm the dad or I'm the mum and these are the rules of the house. And if you don't like it, go and live somewhere else. It's rigid, it's inflexible, it's dictatorial and it doesn't work. We can force kids, I guess, to comply with rules but we can end up losing their hearts. We lose the relationship, we lose what it means to be a mum and a dad and a family. So that's one model, the tyrant dictator where being a parent is all about enforcing rules. At the other end of the scale, the second model is what I call the anarchistic model. No rules, anything goes. Messy room – fine. Stay up late – fine. Let the boyfriend or the girlfriend sleep over in the same room – fine. Smoke, drink, get drunk, be rude, be disrespectful, be lazy – fine. And that’s the model where the parents abdicate responsibility, where there are no rules. Is that good for our kids? Is it a fun way to live as a family? The third model is the model that God always planned, the model of being a good parent. It's about love and relationship and affirming our kids, and caring for them, and honouring them, and respecting them. But at the same time setting some boundaries. Setting some rights and wrongs, saying, "No, in this house there are some rules". And letting them bump into those rules and live the consequences of bumping into those rules. Under those circumstances home is a place to live and to love and to learn. It's a place where it's okay to make mistakes and live out the consequences and still be forgiven and held and affirmed and nurtured. So the three models: the tyrant dictator, the anarchistic model and the good parent model. Which one makes sense? No one would advocate totalitarianism, no one would advocate anarchy, and it’s pretty obvious, really. So why do we think that God is any different? Why do we say God is a dictator, God is a bunch of rules? It's easy to look at God that way but to do that is to miss the point. On the other hand, people try and see Him as a god of no rules, as a god who's being a sugar daddy and that's misses the point too. God's a good dad. God’s a good parent, one that loves and wants to be in relationship with us, and wants to affirm us, and care for us, and honour us, and respect us. But still set boundaries of right and wrong. God's a good dad. And that's what the Apostle Paul’s says when he writes: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the Law of the Spirit of life in Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8: 1-2) There's no condemnation because God has replaced the rules of law and said, “It's different now in Jesus because in Jesus you're one of my kids. In Jesus you're one of my family and I want to breathe my spirit of life into you. I want you to know that I honour and respect you and care for you." And in that relationship you get to grow because God did what the law, what a bunch of rules couldn't do – by sending His Son as a man to pay for sin on the cross. He did away with sin through Jesus so that the just requirements of the rules and the law could be met. And then He said, “Now that you're forgiven, walk in the Spirit. Here, let me breathe my Holy Spirit into you." Says God, "Be one of my kids." There’s no condemnation because the law that God wants now is the law of the Spirit, the law of life, the law of being set free from rules and regulations dominating our lives. The law that says, "Jesus paid for our failures, we're forgiven." God’s approach is the good dad model, not the tyrant, not to say there are no rules. God's a god that's a good dad. He's wiped the slate clean. I don't know whether you have stopped to let that sink in. But in Jesus, He's taken all our failures and all our sins and every mistake we've made, are making and will ever make. And He's wiped the slate clean and said, "There's a different law. There's a new law, there's a law of my Spirit of life and goodness and relationship with me." How does that work? You know when we have kids who are teenagers and they might be lazy, or they might be disrespectful, or they might be doing something wrong, or they mightn't be working hard enough at school. And when we put boundaries in place and part of that is, if they step over the boundary, there are consequences and there's punishment. It's painful for a while but when we accompany those boundaries with love they respond and they grow. It's amazing how relationship with them, honouring them, kindness, and gentleness affects them and they grow and they actually want to please. God knows that, that's what we're like, that's how He made us and that is why He forgives us and brings life and love rather than rules and regulations. Further down in that passage we just read, in Romans chapter 8, He says, For all who are lead by the Spirit of God are kids of God. You didn't receive a spirit of slavery and fear but a spirit of adoption so that we can cry out, "Dad". (Romans 8:14) God’s word, the Bible, does set some boundaries; don't lie, don't steal, don't talk behind people’s backs, and don’t yell at people. Don't get angry with them and let that anger fester. Don't be critical. But when you look at those boundaries, you look at any of them and you say, "You know something, those boundaries make sense." And God even, somehow, sets these boundaries for our hearts that are designed to set us free. He says, "Go and forgive people." In a sense it's a boundary because He says, "If you don't forgive people, I'm not going to forgive you." But on the other hand it's an enormous freedom, when our hearts forgive other people, we are set free from what they've done. Yeah sure, God's word sets some boundaries but not many and they're good boundaries. And at the same time God's Spirit brings forgiveness. If you believe in Jesus, you are forgiven. And His spirit comes into our lives and ministers that forgiveness into our spirits, into our souls, into our hearts. God’s Spirit comes into us and brings God’s very presence into our lives, to change them, to make this faith real. That's why Paul talks about the rules and the regulations as the law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit as life. What a great Dad!
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The Letter of the Law // The Spirit and The Word, Part 1
11/10/2025
The Letter of the Law // The Spirit and The Word, Part 1
Sometimes we can look at God’s Word – the Bible and think of it as a book of rules. But it turns out that this notion that God is all about the letter of the law is way off the mark. Sometimes we can look at God’s word, the Bible and think of it as a book of rules. But it turns out that this notion of God is all about the letter of the law is way off the mark. The law's a funny thing … some people say the law’s an ass, it's something that we both love and we hate. On the one hand, when we see a serious crime committed like a child killed by a drunk driver or a murder or a rape or terrorism, we want the perpetrator to experience the full force of the law. On the other, sometimes the law does indeed seem to be an ass. When people apply the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law, we can end up with silly, sometimes damaging outcomes. In a sense that's how we think about God. If God was God, holy and righteous (whatever that meant,) then I knew that I fell short of that. And therefore, God must be a bunch of rules that I'd fallen foul of. But my hunch is that, I don't know. If we understand God that way well maybe we're missing the point. I wonder if you recognise any of these: I'm your Lord, your God and you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or bow down and worship an idol. You shall not use the Lord’s name in vain. You shall keep the Sabbath day of rest. You shall honour your father and your mother. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bare false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covert your neighbour’s wife. (Exodus 20: 1-17) Well of course, we recognise those as probably the Ten Commandments – Gods law in a nutshell – the things that Moses brought down from the mountain on the tablets of stone. But actually, you may or may not know that in the Book of the Law (as the Jews understand the Law), which is the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, known as the Torah, there a 613 commandments and prohibitions. So the Ten Commandments are just like the top ten. Then there's another 603 commandments and prohibitions on top of that … do this, don't do that, don't do this, do that. Some of them make a lot of sense – don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery, and don’t lie. There's a whole bunch of other ones that we look at now and they'd make our stomachs turn like animal sacrifices and all that sort of stuff, things that don't make a whole lot of sense to us, (here and now, today). I mean, could you imagine going to Church and taking some animal and slitting its throat? Probably they'd come and lock us up for doing that these days. So some of God’s Laws come naturally. They make sense and others don't. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't bare false witness – they make sense but the temptation's always there. Just run your eyes down those ten and most people have broken at least one of those in just the last 24 hours let alone the other 603. In one sense, the law does make sense. Imagine what our society’s would be like without the will of law. Look at what happened in Bosnia, look at what happened in Rwanda, look at what's happening in Israel and Lebanon. Without law there's anarchy and innocent people get hurt and there's pain and there's oppression. So the law does make sense but you can take it to extreme. Totalitarian law is ugly and oppressive. People’s freedom is taken away. So the law is a great servant but a terrible master. But (and here's the but), it's easy to think of God’s Law as being like a totalitarian regime. If God's God, He is the ultimate totalitarian because He's all-powerful, so who wants to have a part of that? Who wants to have some rule-based God that's got all the power? No, thank you very much. Well, in fact, there was a bunch of people called the Pharisees. They were a bunch of religious leaders in the 1st century who lived at the same time Jesus did and the word Pharisee comes from the Hebrew word ‘to separate’. They were religious separatists and they took following God’s Law, those 613 commandments and prohibitions, to the most absurd and extreme lengths. What do you think God would say about that? Is God a rule-based god? Is God a god that says, "Yes, there's someone following my law, I'm excited about that." This is what Jesus said to these Pharisees. He said: Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites because you tithe mint and dill and cumin but you neglect the weightier matters of the Law. Justice, mercy, faith, it's these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others, you blind guides, you strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:23) What’s this tithing of mint and dill and cumin all about? Well, these days we go to the supermarket and we buy a bunch of mint or we buy some dill or we buy a jar of cumin and we think so what? Back then, mint, dill and cumin were pretty high priced herbs and spices. There weren't take-aways on the local corner. So herbs and spices were important and tithing was part of Gods Law. Tithing was giving a tenth of your income to the priests to keep that whole priestly system in the temple and the synagogue and everything running and so everybody had to tithe. But Jesus is saying to these people: You hypocrites, you do the tithing, you do the external things but in your heart what about justice? In your heart, what about mercy? In your heart, what about faith? It's like straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel, you hypocrites. (Matthew 23:23) It seems to me that Jesus was much more interested in goodness, in relationship, in justice and mercy and faith. He didn't want to throw tithing out but to Him it wasn't the main game. To Him there was something much more important – what's going on in our hearts. Sure do the right thing and tithe and all that sort of stuff but there are some things that you should never, never neglect. Why are we talking about this stuff today? Because this week, we're starting a new series called Spirit and Word. Some people pick up the Bible and discover the letter of the law. They think that's what God is all about, and you can read the Bible that way. You can pick it up and read the 613 commandments and prohibitions and if we did that we'd be missing the point. On the other hand some people never pick up the Bible. ‘Man, I'm walking in the Spirit, you know’. They believe they're getting inspiration direct from God and they're missing the point completely too. Paul writes to his junior minister, Timothy and he says: Every last bit of the Bible is inspired by God and it's there for our instruction and for our correction and for us to grow and to learn and to understand. (2 Timothy 3:16) That’s why the Bible is called God’s Word, it's God speaking to us. Maybe some people think, 'Oh no, that wacky fundamentalist sort of Christian thing, the Bible! Give me a break’. Part of me agrees with that because if we try and understand the Bible as just a bunch of rules, what we discover is that some apply to us today, like murder and adultery and stuff. But others, like the Levitical sacrificial system, no pork, no crustaceans, a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't. And we try and apply those rules and say, "God is a bunch of rules and if I work hard and I follow those rules, I'll make it into Heaven." Try and do that and it just doesn't make sense. It's where you get that Bible bashing, fundamentalist, oppressive, totalitarian religious thing from. But in that book, the heart of God is there. There's the Spirit of the Law, the gentle, powerful, breath of fresh air. That's what we're going to look at for the rest of the week on the program – His grace, His mercy, His love, His forgiveness, God’s Spirit and God’s Word.
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Be Filled With The Spirit // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 5
11/07/2025
Be Filled With The Spirit // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 5
We chug, chug, chug through life – and pretty soon, we’re running on empty. And then we try filling up with all sorts of different things. But running on the wrong fuel can have disastrous consequences. In a world that's hungry for some sort of authentic spiritual reality. It just blows me away that God has a plan. He's always had a plan, that plan is to pour His Spirit out on us, His Holy Spirit, a flood tide of His life, His love, His presence, rivers of living water, an overflow of abundance. You think I'm going a bit over the top? Well they're God’s words not mine. Sometimes in our day-to-day desert existence we get a puny view of God and His plan, but that doesn't change the fact that God is a god of overflowing abundance. And the biggest blessing of all is to be so immersed in Him and His Holy Spirit that we can't wipe the smile off our face and adulation out of our hearts. That's why He urges us, "Go on, go on being filled with the Holy Spirit." We all go through times in our lives when God seems a long way off and the further away He seems the smaller He looks. The day-to-day reality crowds our vision, God ends up being a small speck somewhere in the landscape, you know what I'm talking about? Recently I had a large job to do, it was a huge job, now I'm involved full-time in this ministry of Christianityworks but I still do some IT consulting work because it helps us to cover the costs of producing these radio programs. And for four months I worked 12 hours a day and had literally only about 3 days off that whole time. Now don't try this at home, it is not a balanced existence, it's not to be recommended and you can't sustain that sort of thing but it was a season, it was something that I had to travel through. Fatigue and exhaustion really knock you around physically, emotionally and spiritually. I have to tell you some days, God felt like He was a long, long way away. So what does it mean, "go on being filled with the Holy Spirit". It's easy to say but when life's not easy you don't feel very spiritual, some days maybe we even despair, where is God? But what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit when life's tough? Because that's exactly the time that we do need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There's an interesting story of Jesus when He's ministering and Jairus the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter is dying comes to Him and there are crowds everywhere and he presses through and says, "My daughter's dying, quick I need you to come." But there's this other person, this woman, this woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years, she's unclean, she's an outcast, she's spent all her money on Doctors, she's in absolute despair and she hears that Jesus is in town and this is what she does. When Jesus crossed back over by the boat from the other side of the lake a large crowd gathered around Him while He was at the lake then one of the synagogue rulers named Jairus came there, he saw Jesus and fell at His feet and pleaded earnestly with Him, "My little girl is dying, please come and put your hands on her so that she'll be healed and live." So Jesus went with him and this large crowd followed and pressed around Him and a woman was there who'd been bleeding for twelve years. She'd suffered so much under the care of so many Doctors and she'd spent all she had and instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus she came up behind Him in the crowd and just touched His cloak because she thought, ' if I just touch His clothes I'll be healed.' Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering and at once Jesus realised that power had gone out from Him. He turned around to the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples went, "Come on, there's a whole crowd pressing in against you and you ask who touched me?" But Jesus kept looking around to see who'd done it and then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet trembling with fear. She told Him the whole story. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go on, go in peace and be freed from your suffering. That power that flowed out of Jesus when she touched Him in faith was the power of the Holy Spirit and a small desperate seed of faith is all it took. It was an act of sheer desperation, just a single touch and a desperate faith. "Go on being filled with the Holy Spirit." Paul writes that, the Apostle, in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18. He says: Don't get drunk on wine it leads to debauchery, instead go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. Speak to one another in psalms and hymns and sing spiritual songs and sing and make music in your heart to God, always giving thanks to the Father for everything in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We can try and fill ourselves with all sorts of stuff. Here Paul says, don't try and fill up with wine, that's not where it's at. Shopping doesn't soothe your soul. Winning at work doesn't make you happy. Don't chase after all those things; instead be filled with the Holy Spirit. Do things like reading God’s word and singing hymns and songs and making music to God in your heart. God's given us the ability to sing in our hearts maybe you haven't got such a great voice, that's okay, God loves your voice. When you and I worship Him from our hearts, when we sing and we say, "Praise you God," we just sing the melody in our hearts. God is overjoyed because we're worshipping Him and that's how we end up getting filled with the Spirit by doing the simple things of drawing close to Him every day. Just the simple basic things, spending just a little bit of quiet time every day, praying and asking Him and bring Him our needs and worshipping Him. He says in His word, "If we draw close to Him, He will draw close to us." My experience is that every day I need to do that because every day I get filled with His spirit afresh and I pour that out to other people, other people benefit from that and I get to the end of the day and I think, "I need some more of what God’s got, I'm addicted to the Holy Spirit. I'm addicted to His joy and peace and His wonder and awe." Be filled with the Spirit, deliberately do the things that will reach out and touch Jesus, press through the crowd and the clutter of every day life, through adversity and pain and worship Him anyway. Pray anyway, make a melody in your heart to Him anyway. Lord I don't feel like worshipping you today but I will anyway. God seems so small on those days, such a long way off and our faith feels so small like the size of a mustard seed but what happens? What happens when we reach out through the crowd and the clutter with just the smallest bit of desperate faith and touch Him? Immediately Jesus felt the power go out of Him. The Holy Spirit, day after day wants to do that as we touch Jesus. When we do the little things to draw closer to Him, He will draw close to us, to fill us day by day, to flow through us, to re-fill us to flow out, to re-fill us in the process to be changed, healed, and transformed. That's the plan for the Holy Spirit and you.
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There Is No Condemnation // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 4
11/06/2025
There Is No Condemnation // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 4
The biggest thing that keeps us from drawing close to God is the fear of condemnation. He’s perfect and I’m not - so I’m in trouble. Makes sense. But fortunately, God’s grace isn’t logical. The biggest fear I ever had of getting close to God was the fear of judgement and condemnation. I didn't understand what Holy meant but I understood that if God was God then He was holy and He was good and He was perfect and I wasn't. And so the only logical thing for God to do if I let Him get close to me was to judge me. I could just hear Him, "Well now let’s have a look at your ledger, hmm, no you're not worthy. No you're not good enough, no go over there and sit in the corner." That would be logical, it would be fair too, but fortunately, fortunately God’s grace isn't logical and His mercy isn't fair, maybe that's why they call it the Good News. It's a bit of a dilemma isn't it? Because when we look in the mirror we know that there are things that we're doing wrong and when we talk about the Holy Spirit and Holy God, holiness means that God is perfect that's why this week we're having a look at the Holy Spirit and me. Who or what is the Holy Spirit? And if I'm meant to get close to God, which I am and you are, how do we do that? When God and His Spirit is holy, perfect and I'm not and you're not. The Holy Spirit is the most misunderstood of the three persons who are God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit and I guess that's because we can understand Dad, we can understand Jesus the Son but we don't have a picture in our heads about this Holy Spirit. Earlier on this week we saw that it was an amazing part of Gods plan for us to have a really close intimacy with God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and Gods desire to take our life, which is sometimes a desert and to bring it to life, to put rivers of living water through it. To fill it with peace and joy and life, that's what Gods plan, is and it comes to life in us and through us, through His spirit, His holy spirit but me, I look at God and I'm just not up to it. Now some people these days would laugh at that, "Come on Berni. We're all good enough, if it feels good – do it. We eat and drink for tomorrow we die so let’s just get on with it." But get those people in a quiet honest moment and that sense of deep inadequacy, of failure, of emptiness, of uncertainty, it's out there in plague proportions. And that very need is so often the thing that keeps us from drawing close to God, from seeking Him out and having an intimate real relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit who, over the last couple of days on the program we've seen that God promises us, if we believe in Jesus, if we give our lives over to Him, if we love Him and obey Him, He wants to fill us with the Holy Spirit. He wants to come and make His home in us through the Holy Spirit. This problem of us being imperfect and God being perfect, is something the Apostle Paul writes about. If you have a Bible you can check it out later in Romans, chapters 7 and 8. He writes something along these lines, he says: "You know what my problem is, I know what’s good and I know what’s bad and I want to do what’s good but the problem is that I can want to do what’s good but I just cant do it, in fact this is how it works for me, whenever I want to do good, evil is right here with me. There’s nothing good in me," says Paul, "Nothing, I'm so wretched and pitiful. Who'll save me?" Thank God Jesus will. In fact," he writes, "there's no condemnation for those who believe in Jesus. None because in Jesus God did something that rules and regulations can't do. He did away with sin because Jesus paid the price with His own body on the cross and now that struggle between good and evil isn't my problem anymore because Jesus set me free from that. So here's the choice that I have, if I set my heart and my mind on things that are wrong, that's where I'll end up, an enemy of God but if I set my heart and mind on the things of God, on the things of His spirit, that's where I'll end up, with abundant life. It's not a self-help program anymore, if I draw close to the Holy Spirit, He's the one that changes me, He's the one that brings life to my otherwise dead body, He's the one that makes the freedom that Jesus bought for me on the cross a reality here and now in my life today." Isn't that great, Paul’s coming to a realisation. I mean, here's a man, God gets him to write almost half the books in the New Testament, he has the same problem that you and I do. He knows what’s good, he'd love to do it, he just can't and that's our problem. The self-help program doesn't work. We can pedal and struggle and try but ultimately we can't change ourselves. Paul is saying here, "You know something; I've finally figured it out. Even though I've made mistakes, even though I continue to make mistakes, I believe in Jesus and Jesus is my salvation and Jesus is the one through whom God forgives me and because of Jesus dying on the cross and rising again, you know something, I go to God and there's no condemnation because Jesus paid the price for me. Now I have a choice to live; now I can do one of two things. I can either set my mind and my heart on things that are wrong or set my mind and my heart on the Holy Spirit and when I set my mind and my heart on the Holy Spirit, He changes me from the inside out, He changes me." And that’s been my experience. I get so much joy from God. So much peace, so much life, so much enthusiasm, so much strength, so much power that I can't conjure up on my own. Power to be humble, power to be honest, power to be decent. Don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect and I never will be until that day when I stand before God but God is busy changing me from the inside out and that’s the way it works. And you know the days when I really, really make a mess of it, they're the days when I haven't set my heart on Him. They're the days when I haven't stopped and rested and just prayed and spent some time with His word in the morning and set my heart and my focus for the day on Him. Come on, God wants to change us, God wants to give us power and life through His spirit and the message of the Bible is that it is not a self-help program. It's about setting our hearts and our minds on the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, spending that time with Him in the mornings, walking with Him during the days, worshipping God, making melodies in our hearts to Him. Thanking Him, turning to Him in every circumstance, every step, every situation, every struggle, every victory He changes us. He heals us from the inside out instead of us trying to change ourselves from the outside in but not only does He change us, He imparts Gods forgiveness into our spirit so that we know, that we know, that we know that we're forgiven. This is what Paul writes in the same chapter that we just read over, Romans. "We that are led by the Spirit of God are God's kids and God didn't give us a spirit of slavery so that we'd fall back into fear but He gave us a spirit of adoption so that we can cry out 'my God, my Dad', that's the very spirit of God bearing witness in our spirits, that we're His kids." Father it is hard sometimes for us to accept your forgiveness and to know it. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you would pour your Spirit into us right now, that you would witness your love to us through your Spirit, Lord that you would open our hearts and blow us away with your awesome wonder and joy and power through your Holy Spirit. Father I ask it in Jesus name.
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Experiencing God // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 3
11/05/2025
Experiencing God // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 3
The only way we really get to know someone is to live with them. Problem is that today, that can just mean shacking up. But God has a plan to make His home in us – and it’s so much more than what the world has to offer. The only way really to know someone is to live with them in the same house, day after day, year after year. Boy meets girl and they get engaged, they get married and on their honeymoon they think they already know each other but the reality is they don't really and they're going to spend the rest of their lives trying to figure one another out. That’s the wonderful mystery of marriage. When I signed up with Jesus, when I made that decision to give my life to Him, to follow Him, I thought, "I just don't want some Sunday religion thing, I want to know Him and the only way to know someone is to live with them." Nowadays living together, couples just moving in, is an accepted part of life in our society. Many people decide never to get married at all. In any case the whole marriage thing, well it ain't what it used to be, somewhere between a third and a half of all marriages end in divorce. The idea is that you move in on your own terms without any permanent commitment and if you want you can leave, it's the way of the world, it's a lifestyle choice. Sounds good until you talk to someone who's been through divorce or been through a separation, when a man and a woman share each others homes and lives and souls and bodies and when they sleep in the same bed they become one flesh, that's Gods plan. The two become one and when you tear that apart it hurts something terrible, it's an unbelievable pain. So what about God? If we want to know Him we have to live with Him and that's the way it goes but what does that plan look like? What if it ends up in divorce? How do we live with God? Jesus has a plan, it's a beautiful, eternal, wonderful plan for you and me to get to know Him. And it's not like the worlds plan that says, "Stay as long as you feel like it." It's a perfect plan, it's a plan made on God’s terms and not ours. Have a look at this, this is what Jesus said. We looked at this yesterday and I'd like to look at it again today. He says, "If you love me you'll obey what I command and I'll ask the Father and He will give you another counsellor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world can't accept this spirit because it doesn't see Him or know Him but you know Him because He lives with you and He will be in you. I won't leave you as orphans, I'll come to you, before long the world won't see me anymore but you will because I live you'll live too and on that day you will realise that I am in my Father and you're in me and I'm in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them that one loves me and the one who loves me will be loved by my Dad and I too will love Him and show myself to Him and we will come and make a home with them." A promise of Jesus to be with us, in us, make His home with us through the Holy Spirit forever and ever and ever, but it's not for everyone. Let me say that very clearly, I was talking to a man a little while ago who wanted God but wanted to live his life on his own terms. He wanted the relationship but he didn't want to live it God’s way. Look at what Jesus said again: If you love me you will obey my commandments and I will ask the Father and He will give you another counsellor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. In other words this is on Jesus terms. If you love me, you'll obey me. Jesus isn't some cuddly lap dog, some fluffy soft toy, not some buddy to perform tricks when we want Him to and to get us out of a pickle. God is God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Not a bunch of rules, not saying you've got to do all these things in order for me to love you but if we want to be in a relationship with Him we have to be in that relationship on Gods terms. He is looking for someone with a heart that’s open to learn from Him: If you love me, if you really love me you will want to obey my commands and I'll send another comforter just like me. I love that second bit. I'll send you the Holy Spirit to be with you forever. Not shacking up, not a try before you buy arrangement, I mean I accepted God as a teenager but as I grew up into adulthood I turned my back on Him, I wandered so far away I didn't even know if He still existed but He was still there in my hour of need because the promise of Jesus was: I'll be with you forever. And I'd accepted Him and for eighteen years I wandered in this wilderness and forgot all about Him but He didn't forget about me. And the third part of His promise, firstly that God will send us another counsellor, Holy Spirit who's just like Jesus. The second part is that He will be with us forever; the third part is a promise of intimacy. Jesus says, "I won't leave you as orphans, I'll come to you. The world won't see me but you will and I'll be in Dad and you’ll be in me and we'll be together and I'll come and Dad and I and the Holy Spirit will make our home with you." That’s the language of marriage, that's the language of intimacy. The promise is the presence of God in us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus, Dad, the Holy Spirit making their home, living together in us forever. When you think about a husband and wife they share every room in the house, they share their body and their soul, it's the same with Jesus but deeper. With the Holy Spirit we get to share our spirit with Him, that deepest, deepest part of us. Now some people want to keep Jesus out of this room or that room and then they wonder why there's no intimacy. "Well I want all of Jesus but I don't want Him in this part of my life" or "I still want to go off and do this and not obey Him" and think well, it's not working, that's because Jesus said: If you love me you'll do what I command. It's on His terms; the amazing thing is Jesus doesn't actually say "don’t do this" very often. There's a handful of things that He says, "they're not good for you - don’t do them" but if we want to go against them, if we want to be angry, if we want to criticise people, if we want to lie or cheat or be dishonest, we're not going to know this peace and this intimacy and this relationship. Will we let Jesus and the Holy Spirit into every room in our lives, work, school, homes, thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, anxieties, everything? Will we have a relationship where there's no room that we don't let Him into? No part of our lives that we don't share with Him, the Holy Spirit and me, the Holy Spirit and you. God has a plan, that plan is for a wonderful intimacy, that plan is for Him to set up His home in me, in you and to live together not for a month or a year or five years or ten years until we divorce but forever and ever and ever. And even when you and I blunder and we go off on our own and make mistakes, Jesus never forsakes us, He never leaves us, never goes away because His promise that when we accept Him, He will come and dwell in us forever and ever and ever. The Holy Spirit is how He does it; the Holy Spirit is God in us.
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What Jesus Said About Him // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 2
11/04/2025
What Jesus Said About Him // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 2
Jesus said some strange things. Just before He was crucified He said to His disciples – ‘You know something it’s good for you that I’m going away.’ Really? What was that all about? When life is parched and dry, empty and hollow Jesus has a plan. That plan is to pour fresh living water into us, deep, deep inside. His plan is to fill us to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. Sounds all religious doesn’t it? But here's the thing I really like about Jesus. He's not so much into ritual and religion. No not that at all. There's another 'R' word that's much, much higher on His list. Relationship… and that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. But who or what is the Holy Spirit? What's He like? What's He about? Why does He exist at all? Well today let’s check Him out. What did Jesus have to say about the Holy Spirit and what’s the Holy Spirit got to do with you and me? Fresh living water is God’s plan for a parched dry life. It's a great plan, in fact I think life is meant to get parched and dry and thirsty sometimes because God wants to make rivers in the desert and turn our lives into a fresh vibrant living life and the living water that He promises is God himself, God the Holy Spirit. Now God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are the three persons in the one God head. Don't ask me to explain it to you, it's a mystery. We don't fully understand why God is like that but we know that God is three persons in one. Now God the Father, Dad, as Jesus called Him which outraged the Jews, we have a picture of what a good dad is like. Maybe we all haven't had good dads but we understand what God is saying about Himself when He says, "I'm Dad." And Jesus, Jesus the Son, well we know what He's like because we've seen Him in the flesh. We can read about Him in the four Gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John which are the accounts of Jesus life and all He did, the things He said. So we can picture Him. Tender hearted, He loved and healed and blessed and fed the outcasts. He hated religious hypocrisy, He suffered, He died, He rose again, we can read all about Him. We can in a sense see Him and hear Him. But the Holy Spirit, well He's not Father and He's not Son but He is spirit and holy and that’s not easy to picture or to understand and sometimes I've heard people call Him "it". So who is He and what's He like? Jesus told us that. Jesus was about to be crucified, He'd lived for three, three and half years with His disciples, He'd been out doing His public ministry. He'd been out healing people and blessing people and preaching amazing sermons and just being Jesus and being God and being just the most wonderful, wonderful saviour. And they're about to go into this tough scary time because Jesus offended just a few people. Jesus showed up the religious hypocrites. Jesus went and healed people that the religious leaders wouldn't have even given a tuppence for. So there was this plot afoot for Him to be crucified because He was upsetting the religious apple cart and this is what He says to His disciples who, at that point in time, were fearing for their lives. Jesus had been telling them that He was going to be crucified, they were petrified, they saw this man who they knew to be God but He was going to be killed, what’s that all about? And into that He speaks a promise, it's always what God does you know, we expect God to disappear when life gets tough, we think He's a million miles away and all of a sudden God shows up with a promise and here's the promise that Jesus had for them. He said, "If you love me you'll obey what I command and I'll ask the Father and He'll give you another counsellor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The rest of the world can't accept Him because they don't see Him or know Him but you do because He lives with you and He'll be in you. I won't leave you as orphans." Jesus says, "I'll come to you. Before long the world won't see me anymore but you'll see me because I live, you will live too. On that day you'll realise that I'm in the Father and you are in me and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them he is the one who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I'll love them too and show myself to you and I'll come and make my home with you as will the Father." Jesus promises another counselor, another comforter, another one just like me literally is what the words say in the Greek. So all of a sudden we know what the Holy Spirit is like, the Holy Spirit is just like Jesus. Jesus was crucified, He rose again, He went back to be with Dad in heaven and the disciples really didn't understand what was happening, what was going to happen, they were devastated. And into that Jesus says: This Holy Spirit I'm going to send, this other advocate, this other comforter who's just like me, it's not for everyone, it's not for everyone in the world because a whole bunch of people wont get it but if you love Me, if you follow Me, if you give your life to Me, if you're prepared to die for Me the way I am for you then I will send you another one just like me and we will come and make a home in you. I'm in my Father, you're in Me. You know this close and tender and wonderful relationship with God and the Holy Spirit is God in us dwelling, abiding, never leaving, never getting up in a huff and moving out. No that's not what Jesus said, "If you love me you'll obey what I command and I will ask the Father and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever." Just let’s think about that for a moment. Jesus is saying, "God is not some distant concept. God is not some idea or book or building. God is not the dry, boring religious patriarch that we might expect. This God that I'm going to send you, God the Holy Spirit is just like Me." This Jesus who went into the tax collectors house and sat and had dinner with them, this Jesus who reached out and touched the outcast leper and healed him. This Jesus who looked the religious leaders in the eye and called them, "You brood of vipers. You hypocrites." This Holy Spirit is just like Jesus and in the same breath Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you and my peace I give to you. I don't give the way the world gives so don't let your hearts be troubled, don't let them be afraid." These disciples had everything to be afraid of, they were in fear of their own lives and Jesus said, "This Holy Spirit, this is Me coming to dwell in you and this Spirit that I'm giving you and putting into you and pouring out into your life will bring you peace and joy and living water in a parched land." In fact, Jesus said to them, “You know something, it's good for you that I'm going to go away because if I wasn't you wouldn't get the Holy Spirit." Isn't that awesome? Jesus is saying, “it's better that you should have the Holy Spirit than it is that you should have Me because the Holy Spirit can be with you 24x7 and the Father and I and the Spirit can dwell in you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without any physical limitations.” This is an intimate, intimate desire of God to dwell in us, to give us joy and contentment. Father, I pray for each one of us, that you would just open our hearts and pour your Spirit in, in Jesus name.
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A Parched, Dry Land // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 1
11/03/2025
A Parched, Dry Land // The Holy Spirit and Me, Part 1
So many people live out a spiritually parched existence and all along God has a plan – a plan of power, a plan of peace, a plan of intimacy, a plan……of abundant life. His name is the Holy Spirit. Sometimes life can feel, well, parched and dry. We can be doing all the right things – living life, being a parent, working, whatever it is we do – but it's as though we're giving out all the time and not drinking anything in. And we look at life and think, “Hang on, I'm doing all the right stuff. Why does it feel as though I'm running on empty?” And so people go looking in all sorts of weird and wonderful places to fill up again. Day spas, meditation, holidays, coffee shops, yoga, you name it and we look in some funny places for that … I don’t know … spiritual reality. So, how thirsty are you? How dry, how parched do you feel? Let me invite you on a journey this week because as it turns out Jesus understands that dry and parched and thirsty thing, and my hunch is He has a plan. It's funny reality, but living life can drain the life out of us, it's a paradox isn't it? But it's true, whether you do work or study or maybe work at home, you're a husband or a wife or mum or a dad or a volunteer or doing all the good things in life that we do. Giving out like we're meant to do, it's all great, but you can stand back and you take a look at that – all the things that we do in life, that stuff together that we call life – and even in the midst of all that good stuff there can be something missing. We live in a world that’s thirsty for a spiritual reality. There’s a hunger in so many people’s lives and can I say, even in people who say, "I believe in Jesus." There can be emptiness and dryness and an unsettled feeling to say, "I'm doing all these things but there's something missing, there's some spiritual reality that’s not in the puzzle and until that particular piece of the puzzle is there, I'm not whole, I'm not complete." I wonder if you know anyone like that? Our soul and our spirit can feel like a dry, parched land, like a desert and we need to drink in that authentic something, a deep draft of fresh, clear, living water. I wonder if it wasn't always part of God’s plan that we need that something, that we need Him. Have a listen to what He writes. He says in the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament: I will make rivers flow on the barren heights and springs within the valleys. I'll turn the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia and the myrtle and the olive. I'll set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know and may consider and understand that the hand of God has done this, that the Holy one has created it. See, God knows that life drains the life out of us, God knows that sometimes our life is like that parched land, like that desert and He turns around, through Isaiah and says: I want to make rivers flow, I want to put springs in that place, I want to turn your desert into pools of water and the parched ground into springs. I want to put trees and life into that void for you and the reason I want to do it is so that when you look at it, you'll know it was my hand that came to do this for you, that it was I who breathed life into you, fresh, living water. God uses this picture all through His word, through the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament about the way that He pours life and His sprit into us. There’s a beaut story when Jesus … His disciples had gone on into the town and He's at a well outside the town but He doesn't have a bucket to put down into the well and draw water. And there's a woman there, a Samaritan woman. Now the Jews and the Samaritans did not get on, I have to tell you, and this woman was out there in the middle of the day in the heat lugging water because she herself was an outcast. And He comes to the well and He says to her, "I need some water". This is the story: When this Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" because His disciples had gone into town to buy food and the Samaritan woman says to Him, "You're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman, how can you ask me for a drink?" Because the Jews didn't associate with the Samaritans, and Jesus answers her and says, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him for a drink and He would have given you living water. She said, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with in the well it's so deep, where are you going to get this living water from? Are you greater than Jacob who made this well?" And Jesus answers her, "Everyone who drinks this water, you get thirsty again but whoever drinks the water that I'll give them will never thirst. Indeed the water that I will give them will become like a spring inside them, this water welling up to eternal life. And the woman said, "Sir, give me some of that water so that I won't get thirsty again and have to keep coming here to draw water." And Jesus says, "Let anyone who's thirsty come to Me and let the one who believes in Me drink and from their heart will flow rivers of living water.” Now He said this about the Holy Spirit. So how thirsty are you? How much do you want this fresh, living water, the Spirit of God pouring into your life? Jesus said, "Come to Me and drink but it's not for everyone." He said, "Those who believe in Me can come to me and drink." So what about you? Do you want this living water? Let me pray for you right now. Father, sometimes when we hear what You have to say and we hear the words of Jesus it can all get a bit scary, we can get a bit apprehensive. God getting this close to us, I remember Father how scary that was for me and opening ourselves up and letting You pour your Spirit into us in abundance, we can get apprehensive. Father I pray for each of us right now. Lord, will you give us the peace to know that what we just read and what we just saw is You speaking to us in a supernatural way. Lord will You open us up to be filled up afresh today with your Holy Spirit, this fountain of living water. Father, we ask You in the name of Jesus to put that fountain inside us today. Lord, we want to have this fresh living water so that we are never, ever spiritually thirsty again. So that in an instant Father, we can turn to You and know that You are like a well in our hearts and in our souls and in our spirits to give us fresh life. Father we ask for this, to be filled with Your spirit in Jesus Christs name. Amen. It's an amazing thing that when we are in the desert, when our lives are dry, when we think that God has disappeared, that's the very time that He shows up – like He has today through His Word – and makes a promise. And that promise is very simply this, He wants to turn our desert into a rich, abundant valley of life. The promise is this, that if we believe in Him we can go to Him and say, "Father, give me this fresh living water, give me this well inside of me. Fill me to overflowing with the Holy Spirit so that every minute of every day I can know that you are in this place."
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His Eye is on the Sparrow // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 10
10/31/2025
His Eye is on the Sparrow // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 10
We live in a crazy, chaotic and confusing world. I mean, if you were God, how would you keep a track of it all? Would you even bother? And when it comes to the little problems, even the big problems, in the lives of people like you and me, well, where would you find the time and the energy to deal with those? I’m so excited to be with you again today. Here we are at the end of another week. I don’t know about your week but mine’s been pretty busy. In fact you look around at all of the things that are going on in our own lives, the kind of wider community and globally; six and a half billion people, and it just seems like utter chaos. I was in India just one year ago (where a billion of those people live) and the crowds and the poverty and the chaos, they were kind of sad and exciting and mind-blowing all at the same time. I mean if you were God how would you cope with all of that? You and I can’t because we’re not God. We’re flat out coping with our little corner of the world, right? We see the high-profile prominent people in the world, and somehow we get this idea, well, God would notice them but not me, not in all this chaos and noise. God would notice Billy Graham or the Pope, or George Bush or Bono, but not me. What do you think? When you ask people a question like that you discover that there are two ways of knowing the answer. One is in our head. One means that we can recite the answer; one means that we can even argue it. Maybe I can quote the scripture verse that say no, no, that’s not true, God notices all of us. I can know that in my head. The other way of knowing it, is in our hearts. If you know it in your heart you live by it. If you know it in your heart it makes a difference to the way you see the world. Well what about you? If I asked you, does God notice and care about and help little people like you and me, what would you answer? Would you know it in your head or would you know it in your heart? There’s plenty of people who know the answer in their heads but far fewer who know it in their hearts. Well if God is God, of course He notices each individual, of course He cares, that’s one way of knowing it. But do you know in your heart that it’s true of God and you? When fear comes your way, when adversity comes your way, when uncertainty comes your way, when disappointment comes your way, does something in your heart go, “It’s okay because God is in this place with me?” Is there a quiet, beautiful voice breathing into your spirit saying, “I love you, don’t be afraid, I love you, don’t be afraid?” If so, you know it in your heart, if not, you don’t. Jesus knew but we need to know in our hearts that God knows what’s going on in our lives, that God cares about what’s going on in our lives, that God can cope with what’s going on in our lives, that God is not surprised with what is going on in our lives. Jesus knew we needed to know that stuff. He was talking to some of his followers and He was saying, "Listen don’t be afraid. When I go, things are going to get tough. People are going to try and kill you and they might harm you. Don’t be afraid of those people". And I’m sure the people He was talking to said to themselves, “Well Jesus that’s easy for you to say, you seem to be able to do all these amazing miracles. It’s really easy for you to say but what about us?” I wonder what those same people thought when they saw Jesus hanging on the cross? And He said: Look think of it this way, look at these two sparrows, what are they worth? What do you reckon, a penny, that’s what they sell in the market for, right? Yet not even one, not one of them will fall to the ground without God knowing about it, and without God being in control, not a one. ‘So’, said Jesus, ‘in God’s eyes what are you worth? More than these two sparrows you think?’ Well, people answered, of course we’re worth more than that. Jesus said, ‘Absolutely you are. He even knows how many hairs you have on your head. Even the hairs you have on your head are counted by God, so stop worrying.’ (Matthew 10: 26-31) Now this is more than a metaphor. Do you know how many hairs you have on your head? I got to tell you, I don’t. Maybe you’re lucky and you’re bald and you can tell exactly how many hairs you’ve got on you head. But I’m not and I wouldn’t have a clue. God does though. God knows every detail of your life and mine – how many hairs we have on our head, the things were good at, the things were not, the things were scared of, the things inside of us that need healing, the challenges, the fears, the hopes, the dreams, the adversity. God knows each one and He knows it better than we do. Isn’t that exciting? Doesn’t that make your heart go, nothing in my life is hidden from God. God doesn’t miss a thing. God has an eye for detail that we cannot begin to imagine. I love how Jesus talks in pictures. I love it when He talks about these two sparrows, and you look at two sparrows and you know if God is God, I have to be worth to God than two sparrows. And then He says: If these two sparrows drop from the sky, if just one of them dropped, God would be in control, God would notice, God wouldn’t miss a thing. How much more are you worth to God? Don’t be afraid. God just doesn’t hang around with superstars, God hangs around with you. Whenever it’s tough, whenever it’s scary, whenever people come against you, whenever there’s a battle, God sees that. God is in that place, in the middle of that. God knows who we are and what we need better than we do. Jesus said of Himself, “If you want to know what God’s like look at me because I’m Him.” So when you read in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and those four gospel accounts, the historical records of Jesus, and you see Him touching the leper, you see Him standing up for the prostitute, you see Him protecting the woman caught in adultery, you see Him healing the sick. You know what He’s saying when He’s loving those little people? “This is what I’m like; this is how I care for little people.” He didn’t hang around with the religious leaders. He didn’t hang around with the political leaders, He hung around with the little people. Have you ever read one of those gospels beginning to end? Matthew or Mark or Luke or John? I dare you. It’s about a two to three-hour read to read one of them from beginning to end, and I dare you to read about Him. And when you see Him doing that stuff He’s saying to you and me, here and now two thousand years on, on the other side of the world: This is what God’s like. This is what I’m like. Come to me because you are worth so much more than the sparrows, than the mountains, than the oceans, than the seas and the whole plant and the whole galaxy. You’re worth more than all of the stars in the universe to me. I know what’s going on in your life, I care, I want to be a part of that with you. I believe God wants us to know that in our hearts today. You, today, here and now, do you know, have you heard? Have you heard him whisper in your life, “I love you so much?” No matter who you are, what you’ve done, what life has done to you, how good, how bad, how happy, how sad, how wonderful, how horrible you are and your life is, today – here and now, God wants you to know something in your heart. Not only does He love you, not only did He send Jesus to die for you, He knows everything happening in your life and mine. He wants to be a player. He wants to help. He wants to love. He wants to heal. He wants us to have peace when we have no right to have peace. He wants us to have hope when we have no right to have hope. He wants us to have joy when we have no right to have joy. He wants you and me to know that in our heart. And my prayer for you is that right now God’s Holy Spirit will drop that truth into your heart for ever and ever and ever.
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Soldier, Giver, Prayer // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 9
10/30/2025
Soldier, Giver, Prayer // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 9
It’s easy to look at some people and even at ourselves quite frankly and think, if God were going to use anyone for good it wouldn’t be that one. It could never be me! Funny how quickly we are to underestimate what God can do, through bog ordinary people like you and me. Most of us would agree that war is a horrible, ugly thing. So, what motivates people to join the armed forces? I spent ten years as an officer in the Australian regular army. For me, well I was young, it was an adventure, it was about excitement. But what about a Roman Centurion in the first century AD? What motivated him? Would have been a tough gig, an officer in an army occupying a foreign land. The Roman Empire of course ruled the known world at that time. In fact if God was God and sent his son Jesus as a Jew, the last person you would ever expect God to use would be a Roman Officer, don’t you think? Well think again, because God has this habit of doing things through people that you and I probably wouldn’t have a bar of. Cool is a very, very important quality and commodity these days. It’s about acceptance, it’s about funkiness, it’s about aspiration. Cool, is well … it’s cool. And if you’re not … you just aren’t. Ask any teenage kid and they’ll tell you, cool is an incredibly important thing. It’s everything. Adults, we’re into cool as well. Things, people, we judge them, if they’re cool and acceptable we like them if they’re not, they’re not. We do that, don’t we? So if we were expecting God to use someone, if God is God and God is doing something good in the world and God is touching people’s lives, we would expect that He would use one of the cool people. Would He use a Roman Centurion, a soldier and officer? Well not if you’re a first century Jew, I mean God is the God of the Jews. God was the God who chose Israel to be His chosen people. And Roman Centurions, Roman soldiers were a brutal occupying force. If I were a Jew in the first century I would definitely not be happy with God using a Roman Centurion to do something. But the scary thing is God did exactly that. He was a man called Cornelius, and he lived in Caesarea, a port city on the Mediterranean. And it says that an angel appeared to him and this is what happened. The angel says Cornelius! And Cornelius stares at the angel in absolute terror. This is what the angel says: Your prayers and your giving to the poor have ascended as a memorial before God. Isn’t that an interesting thing for an angel to say to a Roman Centurion? Your prayers and your giving to the poor have risen up and ascended and they’re like a memorial before God. And then the angel gives him some instructions. He says: Look send some people over to a place called Joppa, to where this man Peter the Apostle is, and get him to come over here and tell you about this Jesus. Recognise up until now the Jews thought that God was only for the Jews and Jesus had only come for them. I mean He was one of them. Jesus was a Jew and they figured well, if Jesus was the Messiah, not all of them believed it, but they said if Jesus is the Messiah surely He came for the chosen people for the Jews. God had a different plan. God came for you and me as well as the Jews. Because God loves us all. Now you have to understand this is a radical, radical notion. And God picks Cornelius and sends an angel to this Roman Centurion and his family. God picks Cornelius to be the first of the Gentiles, to receive the good news about Jesus. Now Peter is a Jew and it was a radical idea to him as well. But just at the same time as this angel was appearing in Caesarea to Cornelius, Peter was having a radical dream. You can read about it in the book of Acts Chapter 9. A dream that was opening him to the possibility of sending the good new to the Gentiles. And so the men came to Joppa and they knocked on Peter’s door and Peter was ready to go and he went back to Caesarea with them. And he sat everyone in Cornelius’s household down and he told them all about Jesus. And it says in the book of Acts, while Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word – Cornelius, his family, his servants, his whole household. The Jews who were there were astounded, that God had poured his spirit out on the Gentiles as well. And subsequently the Apostle Peter goes back to the other Apostles and says, “Look this is what happened guys … what do you reckon, is this legit?” They had to talk about it; they had to think through their theology and say do you think we should let God go to the Gentiles as well? And yet God had this plan. God had this plan to pour his love out to you and me as well as to all of the Jews. And you know what? You and I are a bit like those Jews that were there in Cornelius’ house, they were surprised that God would use Cornelius in such a powerful way. You and I have preconceived ideas about what God should do and how He should do it and whom He should use, don’t we? We look at some people and think, “Well God could never possibly use that person for any good.” If you had asked Peter and the other Jewish followers of Jesus a few weeks before, would God do this, would God go to the Gentiles, would he use a Roman Centurion to do it? I bet you their answer would have been a resounding, “No, surely God could never use one of these brutal, Romans, to pour his love out.” If someone asked you, “would God do something powerful through you?” What would you say? God is a big God, God uses little people, God makes some surprising choices. Berni Dymet was an IT Consultant; information technology is what I did. I was a tough, hard-nosed, materialistic, businessman. Berni becomes a Christian and today, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people are listening to this program in over sixty counties. Go figure!! God does some bizarre things that you and I would never, never, in a million years think that he would do. That is an exciting message. God doesn’t care about our external packaging. God cares about our hearts, and he got the angel to say to Cornelius, your prayers and your giving to the poor, the things that you do in secret they have ascended as a memorial before God. What’s a memorial? You know when you see a memorial to fallen soldiers for instance, it has all their names on it. And it stands above other things and separate from other things and it stands for a long time and it’s something you notice, it commemorates them and you notice it. So what the angel said was to Cornelius, Gods noticed the way you pray in secret. Gods noticed the way you give money to the poor in secret, that’s like a memorial in front of his eyes. When God was looking around for someone that He could use to be the first Gentile, this memorial with Cornelius’s name was in front of God. It was there because Cornelius had a relationship with God. A Roman Centurion, for crying out loud, was doing this stuff. And when God was looking around for some little people like you and me to do something amazing to pour out his Holy Spirit on the Gentiles, absolutely radical, this memorial was in front of God’s eyes. And God said, ‘I know who I’ll pick, I’ll pick Cornelius, because Cornelius has a heart for me, Cornelius has a relationship for me, even though he’s in an impossible job as a Centurion, Cornelius has bowed down before me’. And so when we take that step and say, “God, I want a relationship with you like what Cornelius had.” And just quietly follow God, pray, adore Him, worship Him, do the things He asks us to do. That is like a memorial before God’s eyes. And one day when God needs a little person just like you, to do something amazing that God has planned in His heart all along, that memorial will be in front of his eyes.
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A Faithful Mum // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 8
10/29/2025
A Faithful Mum // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 8
Being a mother would have to be one of the toughest jobs going around. And mums often feel that they go unnoticed, that nobody values their enormous sacrifice. Today we’re going to meet a faithful mother, who, as it turned out, ended up having a huge impact in this world. Of all the jobs someone could have in life, have you ever wondered what would be the toughest one? I’ve had a chance to think about it and I reckon being a mother would be the hardest of all. Of course that’s not an option to at least 50% of us. Being a Dad’s hard sometimes too, of course. But I don’t know, to me there’s something so incredibly special and sacrificial about mums – carrying the child, the pain of childbirth, the night feeds and mostly these days, it’s still the mum who stays at home with the teething and the dirty nappies, you know! Rewarding, but tough. And so often the mum has to put her career on hold, it must be really tough. So often mum just wants to be her own person for a while, have some adult conversation for a while. My hunch is that some days mums feel undervalued, ignored and forgotten by everyone. And yet you know the two sides of the motherhood coin, the sacrifice on the one hand and the reward on the other, they’re so special. I think the sacrifice is so much a part of the reward, seeing the kids grow up, seeing them develop, seeing them become independent. And you mix mum’s sacrifice in all of that, what must go on in a mothers heart who has borne this child? You get a sense of that as a Dad. But I think you’d agree being a mum is so very special. Through all those different stages, through bearing the child for nine months, through the pain of childbirth, and then the feeding, and the toddler, and the school, and the teenage years and the young adult. They all have different stages and different joys and different challenges. But they all along involve sacrifice. They all involve giving, making a long-term investment. And you know when I was a kid I never appreciated what my parents did for me, not even as a young adult. It’s not until you kind of have to start making you own way in the world and bring your own children into the world that you realise the enormity of the sacrifices that your mum and dad made for you. And so much of being a mum is mundane, it’s routine, it’s a grind. Women often say no one notices, no one appreciates me. I do this stuff day after day, takes me all day sometimes half the night and no one appreciates me, no one even notices. Let me ask you a question, does God notice? I mean does God show up to that place? This week and last week on A Different Perspective, we’ve been going through a little group of programs called Little People Used by a Big God, because you know something? I think we need to know that God does show up. I think we need to know, and I think mums need to know in those difficult times God’s in that place with you. He hasn’t left, he hasn’t departed, he knows exactly what’s going on. God is in that place with you. I’d like to introduce you to two mums today. One’s called Lois, and one is called Eunice. The Apostle Paul was responsible for telling much of the known world in the first century about Jesus. And he wrote almost half of the books in the New Testament of the Bible. You’d have to say Paul is right up there on the Bible “A” list. You name Abraham and Moses and David and the Apostle Peter and Paul, he’s one of them. He’s one important high profile dude. Did God notice Paul? Of course, He did. Paul was a superstar and yet along his journeys Paul meets a young man who effectively becomes his apprentice, a young minister. His name was Timothy. Now Timothy is not as well-known as Paul, he’s not one of the “A” list names. You’d probably have to say Tim would be on the “B” list. Paul writes two letters to Timothy in the New Testament. They’re letters of guidance from an old hand in ministry to this young fresh but really talent and gifted minister. And they’re beautiful, warm and loving letters. In the second of those letters in Chapter 1:5, the Apostle Paul writes this verse. He said; I really, really want to see you again Tim, I’m reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois, and then your mum Eunice, and now lives in you. For this reason, let me remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you. (2 Timothy 1:4-5) So Paul writes to Tim and he remembers Tim’s mother, Eunice. And he remembers Tim’s Grandmother, Lois. This one verse is the only place in the whole of the Bible that Lois and Eunice appear. But what a beautiful reminder of the impact that a mum can have from one generation to the next. If Paul is on the “A” list and Tim is on the “B” list, well Lois and Eunice are really just extras. You know their names gets mentioned once. Yet Paul speaks of a beautiful faith that’s in Timothy and he says, “Look you know where that faith came from Timothy? It came from your grandmother Lois then she passed it on to your mother Eunice, and your mum Eunice she passed that faith Tim, on to you.” And young Timothy ends up impacting hundreds even thousands of people’s lives with God’s love. Being a mum is one heck of a sacrifice. It’s an investment that lives on. I imagine that when Lois was bringing up her young daughter Eunice, I imagine there were some tough days. There were no disposable nappies in those days. I imagine that when Eunice was a teenager, Lois had problems with her and yet somehow through all of that time Lois talked to her about God. Lois passed her faith on to Eunice and then Eunice gave birth to Timothy. He was a boy, he did all the stuff that boys did. He probably did all the stuff that teenage boys did, all the stuff that maybe your teenage boys have done, and yet Eunice talked to him about God and passed her faith on. They experienced all the things that mums do today and then some. And yet Timothy went on to touch hundreds and even thousands of people with the love of Christ because of what Lois passed on to Eunice and what Eunice passed on to Timothy. Some days we wonder whether these kids that we’ve loved and sacrificed for, whether they will ever turn out okay. God’s message to each mum today is that you have such an incredibly important job to do, from Lois to Eunice to Timothy to thousands of people. And on those days that days that you look at your teenagers and you just want to scream, on those days when you as a mother feel as though no one notices and no one cares and no one understands what you’re going though. On those days, Jesus Christ is with you in that place, on those days He notices, on those days he wants you to taste and experience His love and encouragement for you. As you grow in your relationship with Him, as you develop a faith and a joy of knowing Jesus, you have the most incredible opportunity to put that seed in to your children, like Lois did for Eunice, like Eunice did for Timothy. And Lois and Eunice must have looked at that boy Timothy as he grew up into a young man and started doing things in the name of Jesus Christ. They must have said, ‘What an amazing harvest, what an investment that was so worthwhile’. God uses little people, like Eunice, like Lois, to plant seeds, to serve children, to make them ready to go and do things that God wants them to do. He’s a big God. He uses little people like you and me.
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Little People with Pain and Honour // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 7
10/28/2025
Little People with Pain and Honour // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 7
You and I are, well, we’re us. But in 100 years’ time, if we’re lucky we’ll be an unknown name on a family tree somewhere. Nothing to make us stand out from the crowd. Probably, in a hundred years’ time, we’ll be completely forgotten. Or will we? Have you ever looked at your family tree? I have. My dad gave me a huge piece of paper with our family tree, going right back to the 1700’s to a Duchess of Romania. Of course, I recognised my generation and my parents and my grand-parents, but to tell you the truth, that’s about it. Just a long dry list of unimpressive names, pretty sad really. All people with lives. Who knows who they were? Two books in the Old Testament, 1 and 2 Chronicles are books that chronicle the history of Israel. And the first dozen or so chapters of 1 Chronicles is a long list of dry boring names, sound familiar? Now you get to 1 Chronicles, Chapter 4 and verse 9, and so far they’ve been through 425 different names. Then suddenly without explanation there’s a brief biographical sketch given of a man called Jabez. It’s like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy room. What’s going on there? We’ve been looking at what I call “superstar syndrome”, you know, this notion that we all have great people that we admire, sports people media personalities, that’s great. But the media kind of pumps them up and makes them larger than life. And we live in a culture of fame and superstardom. And one of the things that I really love about God is in stark contrast to that, He loves little people and He uses little people. The fact that there are big people, implies that we’re little people, we’re not as big, we’re not as important, we’re not as well-known, we’re not as wealthy as some of those other people. And God delights in these so-called little people. Last week we talked about little people used by a big God, and I introduced you to some of the people in my life. People who in the world’s eyes might be little people, average people like you and me. But for me, in my life, they were superstars and they still are and they always will be. Yesterday, we looked at a man called Jahaziel. And it’s a real encouragement to see historically how God used this nobody, this little person this face in a sea of faces to bring enormous encouragement and guidance to the King, when they were about to be attacked by the Ethiopian army, which was a million strong. Today, we are going to look at Jabez because you go through all this whole family tree and the first dozen or so chapters of this book of 1 Chronicles. I got to tell you it’s really dry reading. But all of a sudden name number 426 in Chapter 4 and verse 9 is a guy called Jabez. This is what it says: Now Jabez was honoured more than his brothers and his mum called him Jabez because it means I bore him in pain.” (It’s a good start to life, isn’t it?) Jabez called on God saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my borders, and that your mighty hand would be with me and that you would keep me from sin and I would cause no pain’. (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) Isn’t it an interesting little biographical sketch that comes out in the middle of all these names? You know so and so begat so and so who begat so and so. And all of a sudden we hear about Jabez, and Jabez’s name is Jabez because his Mum says, "I bore him in pain". Could you imagine if your mother or mine called us “You are a pain”? If I was given a name in the culture where the meaning of names is important and my name was “You are a pain” and my mother gave it to me, now there is a stunning start in life isn’t it. And yet it says Jabez was honoured more than his brothers. There are so many people who think that their start in life has ruined their lives. Maybe you had a lousy upbringing, maybe your parents weren’t the best, maybe you look at yourself in the mirror and you think I just don’t look anything or maybe there’s a health issue or a disability or something. We all have something in our lives, don’t we? And we think, well you know I’m kind of handicapped, well you know I kind of can’t do as well as the next person because I’ve got this in my background or I’ve go this in my past and you know what I’m talking about. God would have none of that. Here’s this little person Jabez, it says that he was honoured more than his brothers. Why? Jabez prayed: God bless me, bless me indeed, God enlarge my borders, God I want your mighty hand to be with me and God stop me from doing stupid things so that I may cause no pain. Very specific prayer by Jabez. His name means, “I caused my mum pain” and he says, “But Lord I don’t want to cause anyone else pain.” Here’s this man Jabez whoever he is, whoever he was, this is the only thing we know about him. And he humbled himself under God. He bowed down, he said, “God bless me.” Question: What is Christianity all about? Is it doing good? Is it playing by the rules? Is it telling other people when they’re not playing by the rules? Is it being superior? Is it being a superstar? Well, those things are sure what used to be high on my list of what I thought Christianity was about. But the more you look at it, it’s not about being mighty, it’s not about being superior, it’s not about telling people what they’re doing wrong. It’s about doing what Jabez did – humbling ourselves. God I want you to be my God and me, I’ll be your me. Lord I want your way, whatever you say goes. Change the things that are rotten in me Lord, let me be a blessing. Let me do good, God bless me, be with me. It’s so normal, it’s so ordinary, there’s nothing super spiritual or super academic about any of this stuff. We’ve this tendency of separating the spiritual dimension from our life and this huge separate gap but yet here Jabez is saying God I want you to be in my life. It wasn’t separate for Jabez. Lord, I had a lousy start, will you bless me, anyway? And it says the Lord honoured him more than his brothers. God will you enlarge my borders? Yes! Will you give me influence? Yes! God, will you come with me? Yes! God stop me from doing the stuff that will hurt others. Yes! And right after the passage I read to you it says this: And the Lord granted his requests. What do people expect out of life? Superstars? Well … 00001% of us might become superstars. Wealth? Well you get wealth and how happy does it make you? Me, I like this prayer by Jabez. In fact I pray this prayer from my heart to God almost every morning: Lord just give me a simple life, just bless me. And the borders, the borders I pray for that I want God to extend are the borders of this program and this message into different countries. Are the borders of these radio programs into tens and hundreds of thousands of people’s hearts. People just like you! A quiet, simple, spiritual desire to have God in my life, not separate, not in a cupboard, not in a box, not in a Sunday morning church box, but here with me every day. Lord, bless me indeed today. Lord I just want to see you extend my boarders so I can touch more people for you. Lord I just want you to keep me from evil. Lord that I won’t hurt anyone. Lord I want you to go with me; Your mighty hand to be with me all the time. What a great prayer, and it’s that prayer that distinguishes Jabez from the 425 names that came ahead of him, and from all the names that came after him in that long, long list. You and I, in thirty, forty or fifty years we will be forgotten. What will they write on your epitaph, what will they write on my epitaph? God honoured him, God honoured her more than their brothers or sisters? Well, that depends, you and I, we’re just little people. But will be humble ourselves before a mighty God and let Him do great things through us?
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God Speaks to Little People // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 6
10/27/2025
God Speaks to Little People // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 6
So let me ask you a question. If God is God, does He speak? I mean, does He speak here and now to people like you and me? Interesting thought. Does He? It is great to be with you in a new week and look at life again from a different perspective. We live in a world of superstars. We suffer from celebrity syndrome. Many of the people we admire and aspire to, well, they’re in the media, on TV in newspapers and the media tends to pump them up until they’re larger than life. With so many people like you and me, we end up feeling like little people, as though somehow we’re less significant. Maybe God’s like that. Maybe He only shows up for superstars. Well last week, I introduced you to some superstars in my life, little people in the world’s eyes. This week, I’d like to introduce you to some so-called little people in history who God used mightily. Let me take you back almost 3000 years to a time when a man by the name of Jehosaphat was the King of Judah. This is a time when Israel had split into two. And the ten tribes at the North were called Israel and the two tribes in the South were called Judah. And this King Jehosaphat, it’s a weird name, isn’t it. “Berni why are you doing this, why are you taking us back to the Bible and all these old-fashioned names. What’s that got to do with today?” Well it depends on whether you see the Bible as a set of myths like Grimm’s fairytales or Aesop’s fables or a real historical account of what actually happened. And what I see is a real historical account of what actually happened that’s where I am. So the story of how God did stuff with real people in real situations is His way of speaking to you and me, here and now. So humour me. Jehosaphat let’s call him Josh. So Josh is one of the good guys, he honoured God and God blessed him and all the people and they had peace and rest. So Jehosaphat as King of Judah, had ten years of peace, there were no wars, it’s a real blessing. Then all of a sudden the Ethiopian army, one million strong decides it’s going to attack Judah. This is serious stuff; this is a war like the ones we see on TV only massive. An army of one million Ethiopians is about to march on Judah, and Judah has a much smaller army of only five hundred and eighty thousand. In the book of 2 Chronicles, Chapter 20 and verse 3 in the Old Testament it says that Josh was afraid, he was petrified, and he prayed. Nothing’s really changed has it? People tend to pray when they are afraid, when they have loss or when a disaster happens. Anyway, Josh prayed and all the people gathered with him and they fasted and they prayed. It’s a huge crowd, because they were taking this very seriously. They were saying "God this army of a million people is marching on us what are we going to do? We can be taken as slaves, we could be killed, the place could be burned down." And in this crowd in front of the King as they were praying was a man, just one face, called Jahaziel. Jaza we’ll call him. There were thousand around him and somehow God chose him. The spirit of the Lord fell on Jaza like a bright light. Somehow deep inside him God empowered him. Now the nation of Judah had recognised prophets. These were men whose job it was to listen to what God was saying. They were gifted to speak on behalf of God, that was their gig. But not Jaza, Jaza was one of the little people. He was a nobody, and God did something. God got Jaza to stand up in front of the King and the whole of the nation of Judah and say something on behalf of God. Now remember the King isn’t a King like we understand Kings to be today. The King has absolute power and authority. The King has power of life and death over everybody. But Jaza just senses that God has touched him. And in the middle of this tense situation in the middle of a nation and a King who are bowing down before God and they’re petrified of the Ethiopian army marching on Judah. Jaza speaks barely hundred words. This is what it says in 2 Chronicles Chapter 20. The Spirit of the Lord came on Jahaziel and he said, "Listen all you inhabitants of Judah and you King Jehosaphat, God has something to say to you today. The message that God has for you is don’t be afraid of this great army that’s coming against you, the battle isn’t yours the battle belongs to God. Tomorrow God down against them and the end of the valley, that’s where they will be, this battle isn’t for you to fight, take your positions, stand still and watch the victory that the Lord your God will win on your behalf." (2 Chronicles 20: 14-17) What courage must it have taken for Jaza to stand up and say something like that in front of the King, in front of a nation that was petrified? What if he got it wrong? They would stand there tomorrow at the battle and be defeated by a million strong army. And yet when Jaza got up and said this it rang true in the heart of the King. It rang true in the heart of the people who were afraid. And it goes on to say that the King and all the people bowed down and worshiped God and said thank you and praised God. It was an incredible encouragement to the nation of Judah. You see they were afraid, they were focusing on what they could see, not what they couldn’t, because what they couldn’t see was God. They were focusing on what they knew was marching over the hill, an army of a million men. God knew that. So God gets Jaza – a nobody, a little person, He raises up one of the very least so that the people would know that it hasn’t come from the man, its come from God. Because what “nobody” would stand up in front of the King and say something as radical as this? And it gave them an instant encouragement. Here was a small person, used by a big God for a huge impact. There have been a few occasions in my walk with God where somebody has come along and given me a word of encouragement like that. And I’ve known instantly that it was from God. I remember on my last day at Bible College, I was just rearing to go, you know I want to do stuff for God and a man by the name of Mark came and spoke to me and he said, “Berni I just feel that God wants me to tell you, God is not in a hurry. He’s not in a hurry.” And that has just given me so much peace; it gave me the peace to wait until God was ready to use me in the way that He wanted to use me. We think God would never use me to do anything significant, but He does. Look at Jaza, one face in a crowd of nobodies. One face in the middle of a country that was in despair. And God, for some reason picks Jaza and pours his spirit out on this man. And the man stands up and speaks boldly and prophetically exactly the words of encouragement that God wanted him to speak. And the next day, if you read on in 2 Chronicles Chapter 20 exactly what he said comes to pass. God fights the battle for His people and they defeat this massive army without raising a finger. God does amazing things; God uses people we would never expect. What about you? Do you believe that God still speaks today? Do you believe that a small person like you or me could be used by a big God? Go on! Do you believe, do you have the faith, do you want to live your life serving a massive and wonderful and exciting and tender and loving God? God uses little people to do amazing things.
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An Excellent Encourager // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 5
10/24/2025
An Excellent Encourager // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 5
It’s a harsh, cruel world out there, isn’t it? And sometimes it seems that we live in a world devoid of encouragement. Some days, it feels as though all the encouragers that God ever created, have been wiped off the face of the earth. Completely extinct. And then you meet one. Wow! Thank God for the encouragers in this world. Amen? We’ve been looking this week at being a little person used by a big God, and in particular, I have been sharing some stories about some little people, who God has been using so mightily, in my life. A young man called Joseph in Africa, Max who works in the studio here with me, my wife, a silent servant. It’s amazing how we suffer from superstar syndrome. We see all these larger than life media personalities, people who aren’t really people, they’re brands, and think, ‘I can never be like that. I can’t have significance like that’, when all along, God has a crazy plan. He’s looking for little people, little people like you and me, who He can use in the lives of others. I’d like to finish up this week as we look at significance by talking about a man in my life called ‘Ton’, as he likes to call himself. He is a few years my junior, but he is the most excellent encourager you will ever meet. Tony is this tall, gangly, curly redheaded guy and he himself would say, ‘I’m no oil painting’. He’s kind of right, he should be in radio with me. He’s a Queenslander, that’s a little bit like being a Yorkshire man in the U.K. or a Texan in the U.S., right? Queenslanders are kind of special, something different and wonderful about them. And he runs an advertising and design company. They do the most amazing, creative work. I met Tony when he was really, really down. He’d done some free concept work for a particular ministry who were doing a media campaign and they took some of that and then didn’t use his company any more. God had really laid something on his heart at the time to support a media ministry, and one thing led to another and now he supports our ministry. Now he’s on our board and he has this passion and fire for what we do. His creative company helps us with brochures and newsletters and just stuff that a ministry like this has to do. And as I said, they do the most wonderful creative work. We have recently put a website together, called . They did all the printing and promotional stuff for that and it’s just stunning. You know, the work they do is just wonderful. Now this guy was full of disappointment because he thought God was leading him down one path and that fell over, when all along God was getting him ready to work with us, to be with us. And in the middle of this disappointment, God was getting things ready for him to not only be a ministry supporter of Christianityworks, but also a personal friend and supporter to me. We live in a world where very few people encourage one another. Encouragers are like dinosaurs, they seem to be almost extinct, in the work place, where people give you the credit when credit is due. I was talking to a young man by the name of Mike and he is the assistant manager of a large organisation, well known and they just opened a large new iconic store in the middle of a large city and the regional manager visited and gave the credit to the store manager. The store manager, in reality didn’t really do much. He left it all to his assistant manager, Mike. But the store manager never passed the credit on. The store manager never said to the regional manager, ‘You know, this guy, Mike, has done such a good job we could never have done it without him’. Not so much as a ‘thank you‘! No, ‘I could have never done it without you, Mike’. Have you ever noticed that? Sometimes it feels like we live in a world devoid of encouragement. Like you have been wiped off the face of the earth. And then God goes along and gives me Tony. Now Tony is a visionary guy. Tony lifts my gaze. I think big, this guy thinks huge. And in a ministry, when you are working day to day and you’re managing the detail and the nitty gritty, sometimes you loose your strategic vision. Well, I organise to have coffee with Tony once every three, or four or five weeks and this man is so passionate for God. He focuses me, he lifts my gaze, he lifts my focus up to remember what God has really called us to do. So he doesn’t just help the ministry, he encourages and builds me up. I don’t know if you have ever thought about it, but being a person who does radio, who lives in a studio and does programs, you don’t exactly have a million people around you. Not that I get lonely, but it is naturally a lonely way of working. Now fortunately for me, I am cut out to do that. But it is so wonderful to have Ton in my life, to get me over a cup of coffee and give me a shake and encourage me and bless me with his stories and pray for me and support me. Doesn’t matter who we are, we all need that, and you know something, the people around us need that too. They are needful as well, they need support, they need encouragement, they need kind words, they need people to help them make connections, they need people who exercise their own gifts in their favour. This week I’ve spoken about four different people – Joseph, a young African man whom I met in the UK, who’s been through the most horrendous life as a refugee on the run for his life, hunted like an animal. And he stepped into my life and has just blessed me. Because of Joseph, our programs are now going right across Africa. A gifted sound technician and producer Max, a knob twiddler, as I call him. You know, Max sits here in the studio every day with me and encourages me and blesses me with his gifts and abilities. A gifted, silent servant, in my wife, who does so many things in our ministry, that I could never do, looking after the supporters and looking after people who call in after programs and looking after our prayer partners And now, Tony an advertising executive. You know advertising and marketing people, they are kind of a different breed to the rest of us. They’re creative and you know, wear different clothes to me and all that sort of stuff. But this guy takes everything he is in his business, everything he is as a person, everything he is as a follower of Jesus Christ, and lays that at my feet and supports me and encourages me, and blesses me. Just four people we have talked about this week who so bless me. If we talked about them all, we’d be here for months, because God has just been so good by putting these people in my life. Have you ever thought you and I are meant to be those people in other people’s lives? Have you ever thought that your ability to encourage, just to write a kind email, just to pray for someone and say, “I’ve been praying for you.” Just to say to someone, “You are doing such a good job, keep going.” Just to say to someone, “You blessed me so much.” We are put there to bless other people, you and I, little insignificant nobodies. We’re not superstars. We’re not going to have our faces plastered all over televisions, and we’re not going to earn $130 million dollars a year for wearing a particular brand of sporting clothes. That’s not us! If it is, ring me, I’d love to talk to you. But, it’s just not us, right? God takes little people, and in my case, just a small number of little people who have a number of things in common. First, they are little people, they’re not famous. Second, I happen to know them. Third, they put their gifts in God’s hands and use them for my benefit. And fourth, He has taken the ordinary things that they do, the ordinary gifts that they have, the ordinary people that they are, and done extraordinary things with that in my life, and the lives of so many other people, touched by these programs. I believe God is calling you today, to put your ordinary gifts, your ordinary resources, your ordinary abilities at His feet and say, ‘Lord Jesus, how do you want me to use this for You?’ I believe God is calling us to lay our gifts and our abilities down at His feet so that He can take us, little people, to be used by a powerful God.
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A Silent Servant // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 4
10/23/2025
A Silent Servant // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 4
Every now and then you meet someone who just has this knack of serving you in the most incredible way. They’re not some great superstar but this wonderful, silent, servant. We all, absolutely love that quiet achiever. Every now and then in life you meet a person, someone who has a particular gift to serve you. You can probably think of just a handful of people in your life, who, you know, just serve you. They’re the sort of person who if you put them in a customer service role, in a large department store, or in a call centre, well, they’d stand out head and shoulders to the customers, above everybody else. Their gift is to serve. These people are not only rare but are worth their weight in gold. And as much as we value them, we don’t recognise them in society. They are not superstars, in terms of our superstar syndrome mentality, but we value them in our hearts. Silent servants! I met one on the 22nd June 1997, and I married her. On the 21st June 1997, I was a very sick little puppy dog. I had a temperature of around forty degrees Celsius, which makes you really sick. It was a Saturday and I was scheduled to preach and lead worship at my Church on the following morning. Now that means about an hour and a half on your feet, singing and speaking. Well, I have to tell you, I was in no shape at all to be able to do that. On the Saturday, I wrote the sermon, about a minute or two at a time, because that’s all I could sit up. The next morning, I woke up and I was still so sick. I still had a high temperature, but I just felt that God wanted me to get up and go to the Church and lead the worship and preach. And so I had a shower and hopped in the car and very slowly I drove the mile and a bit up to the Church. I went inside and I just knew that couldn’t stand up in this state, so we went into the Pastor’s office and a few friends laid their hands on me and prayed for me. Nothing happened … nothing happened. Then all of a sudden, one of the women, her name was Kim, she’s English, laid her hand on me, and she prayed for me and I felt the temperature drain out of my body, from my head to my feet. Now, I wasn’t perfectly well, I still had a cough, but I felt I could stand up and do what I needed to do. I did, I led worship. I began to preach and about half way through the message, in the middle of a sentence, I looked out and there was this beautiful woman and I just felt God say to me, ‘That’s her! She is going to be your wife‘, and unbeknown to me, she was having exactly the same God experience from the other side, saying, ‘He is the guy that you are going to marry.’ Well, one thing led to another. It’s all history now. In six months we became engaged, and about a year and a bit later, we were married. And before we were married, someone said to me, a wonderful Christian woman, she said, ‘This woman, Jacqui, whom you are about to marry, will be able to help you in your ministry, in ways you can never imagine.’ Now, I wasn’t even involved in full time ministry then. I had no idea what God had before me. Jacqui’s worked in all sorts of different rolls. She’s worked as a personal carer in aged care. Now those people have a tough job and they get paid peanuts. You know, there’s heavy lifting, it's messy, it's smelly, people with dementia who try to take a swipe at them, and hit them. It is a really tough job. And when she left her job, all the elderly people in the home were so sad to see her go, because she just has a gift for working for the elderly, loving them and caring for them and being gentle with them. She went on to a role as a rehabilitation assistant, where she was again dealing with older people, who had hip replacements and were doing rehab. And it was the same, she was dealing with people in pain, and she just had this ability to love them and care for them and walk them from their bed up to the rehabilitation unit and back again. When she left that job they were so sad to see her go. From there she moved on to a large department store, where she ran the bridal register. You know, when people get married they have a bridal register at a store and then you can buy the gifts from that store. Now it all looks really wonderful and romantic, but the truth of the jobs is, it’s a tough job. It’s complex administratively, it’s about bringing gifts together from right around the country, and getting them there on the day. It’s a tough job and she had this real client focus, of looking after the couple that was getting married. Making sure that everything went well on the bride’s special day. There is a pattern emerging here – this gift. Here is a little person. Now, you will never see Jacqui up on a platform speaking. You will never hear Jacqui behind a microphone speaking. That is not her gift. Wild horses could not get her to do what I do, and I have to tell you, wild horses could not get me to do what she does. And here we are in this great ministry, Christianityworks, where we are sending radio programs right around the world, we are building internet sites, that tens of thousands of people come to each month. And if you happen to call our ministry, on one of our toll-free numbers, in Australia or New Zealand, chances are, you’ll end up speaking to Jacqui. She handles the data bases, she is so passionate about getting peoples names right, she’s passionate about getting the radio program CDs to the stations before the due date, and making sure that when someone gives to the ministry the thank you letters get sent out on the same day. She remembers people’s names and their situations, she cares so much, she gets back to people quickly when they ring and they get the answering service. Everything you’d expect if you called a Christian Ministry. That’s what she does; she works long hours, she loves it, her satisfaction is not in external recognition, because nobody notices outside. Her satisfaction is in meeting the needs and expectations of listeners, supporters and prayer partners. She’s got it figured out – I’m really good at this, I really enjoy this, I don’t need to be a superstar. I love one on one, just to touch people in the way that God made me to be. You know something; I reckon we’ve been duped. We’ve been duped by society into thinking that money and recognition and fame is where it’s at. Yet when we exercise our gifts, the simple everyday gifts and motivations that God has given us, it is such a joy, it is so fulfilling. When we put those gifts and abilities and resources and time into God’s hands, God takes little people like you, like me, like Jacqui, and like Max that we talked about yesterday and like Joseph, that we talked about the day before, and He has this amazing plan. You would not believe the number of people walking on this planet thinking, ‘I’m not good at anything, I’ll never succeed,’ yet they have this incredible ability, this incredible gift locked inside them. And when we look at ourselves sometimes, we think, yeah but, my abilities are so ordinary. Of course we think they are ordinary, because we live with them all the time. You look at someone else’s ability and I look at Jacqui’s ability to do what she does in our ministry, I think it’s amazing because I certainly couldn’t do what she does. But to her it’s ordinary. Our own gifts always appear ordinary. To me getting up and speaking to two or three thousand people, getting up behind a radio microphone and speaking to you, to me that’s ordinary. Because that’s who I am, it’s a joy for me. Just because we think our gifts are ordinary doesn’t mean that they’re not a gift. It doesn’t mean that when we put them in God’s hands for Him to use, for Him to touch the hearts of other people, that He won’t do that. That’s what He wants to do. Not just bless us but use us to bless other people. God see us with the abilities that He has wired into our DNA. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians Chapter 2 and verse 10, that: We have been created in Christ Jesus to do the good things that God planned beforehand for us to do. So we kind of walk into them, bump into them because God’s already put them in our path. Jesus picked disciples that were fishermen and tax collectors, they were bumpkins, they were uneducated. He took the ordinary and with them He did the extraordinary. You and I have gifts and when we let Him take them the ordinary, He will take those and do extraordinary things with them.
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A Gifted Knob Twiddler // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 3
10/22/2025
A Gifted Knob Twiddler // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 3
We’re all different, aren’t we? Each of us with different strengths and weaknesses. The problem is though, that we can spend so much of our time comparing ourselves with the next guy that we lose perspective on our own gifts and abilities. One of the things we tend to do a lot is to compare ourselves with other people. We live in an age of superstar syndrome. It’s sweeping the globe and frankly, it’s more insidious than bird flu. And that’s a dangerous thing. We look at the people around us and we see how clever they are, how talented they are. So and so is so good at that, I wish I was that good. So and so seems so confident and poised, I wish I was like that. You know what I’m talking about. When we’re in that sort of a mood, and that sort of a frame of mind, we kind of see their strengths but we ignore their weaknesses. Somehow we hold them up as paragons of virtue, and forget that they have failings. They make mistakes. I’d like to introduce you today to a good friend of mine, Max, who seems to have this part of his life pretty well sorted out. Max is a knob twiddler extraordinaire. He is the producer of all the radio programs I am involved in. Every time I’m sitting here in the studio, behind the mike, Max is sitting on the other side of the soundproof glass panels, doing what he does. You hear the intro music to the program, well, that’s because Max put it there. You hear the ending music of the program, well, he put that there too. You think, man, that Berni could talk under water, he never stumbles. I’ll let you in on a secret, that’s because Max takes out all my stumbles. You will probably never see or hear Max but he makes me sound good. Listening to radio, we never think about production quality, but we sure would if it wasn’t there. Well, that’s Max’s job. Put it simply, no Max, no Berni! Every now a then I get in behind the mike to voice something. And you know something, he doesn’t like doing it, but he does have an ear. He knows what it sounds like. I can be sitting in the studio and he’ll come on in my headphones and say, come on, Berni, you can do much better than that, try that again. Max is, well, he’s fifty something, he’s a lanky Australian, he has chooks in his back yard and he farms bees. So every now and then I get some eggs and some honey. He’s got a grey ponytail, he’s sort of an arty-farty, trendy sort of a guy, a gifted musician, a worship leader and there are any number of things that Max could be doing with his life. He could be doing more commercial work, which would certainly bring in more dollars than the work that we do together. He could do more up front muso worship type stuff and he’d get a lot more recognition. He could do more work with the ministry that he’s involved in, LL, which is involved in healing. And he would get much more one on one relationship and recognition and maybe satisfaction. Yet he chooses to twiddle knobs for me on this program. In fact, he loves it. I’m the only one who ever notices he’s hidden. He unrecognised, he unsung, yet he still does it. Max, why do you do it? “Gee, Berni, I guess because it’s the sort of thing the Lord asks me to do. I was working in the commercial area, over twenty years ago now, working in theatre – working in live theatre, getting lots of kudos, working with lots of very big name people. And I just felt as though God was saying to me, I want you out of all of that and I want you to build a little studio under your house and I want you to do work for Me. Now my ticket out of that situation was a regular job with a fairly large client, doing educational work. They were employing me six months of the year, so in a way it was pretty easy for me to give up a full time job and go freelance, but they dwindled. Work kept coming from different quarters and what was twenty years ago, work on to cassettes, now I work on to CDROM, and all those sorts of things. I still find myself sitting in the control room thinking, I actually enjoy doing this. There are some moments of it, like every job, ninety percent of it is just hard work, but there are moments, particularly with you, Berni, that I think, this is what God wants me to do. There are other things in my life. I am involved, as you said, in music, and worship leading, with LL Ministries, with praying with people. We’re doing all sorts of things, but there’s something about this job that I really enjoy doing and I know it’s making a difference to thousands of people around the planet.” Thanks for that Max. But it is great. You know Max and I spend a lot of time together in the studio and not only does he do the technical things brilliantly, but he has got such an ear, such an intuition for sound, and how we put things together. Again, they’re not things that you would normally notice when you are listening to radio but they are really, really important. Now, on the days when I come in, and maybe I’m not feeling on top of my game, Max prays for me, Max encourages me. He’s just good at this thing. He is just cut out to do it. Put him behind the mic, as I said, he doesn’t really like being there. Now I’ll tell you, I couldn’t really be in the control room most of the time, because twiddling those knobs would just drive me absolutely nuts. I know I couldn’t possibly do it. yYt he’s cut out for something. In the world’s eyes, Max is not a superstar; Max is not one of the people whose faces you will see on the television or at the movies. He’s got the face for it though, not like me, but you’re just not going to see that. He’s good at what he does; he has a gift in this whole recording and production area that I could never dream to have. And together Max and I are a team, together we do something, and Max is happy to be a silent servant. Max is happy to do the thing that he’s good at, that he’s blessed to do, that he is gifted to do and he gets fulfillment from that. Even though he’s not a superstar in the world’s eyes. I just wonder whether there isn’t a lesson in that for us. God uses Max, one of the little people in the world’s eyes, to touch hundreds and thousands to people around the world every day with His love. Just let that sink in for a minute. God uses Max, uses the gifts and the motivations that Max has to do what he does so well, to touch lives all round the world. Max didn’t have to give his time over to do this; Max didn’t have to become involved in recording all these programs, and producing them and all that stuff. But the bottom line is, God can do so much with people who don’t want the glory. Max is good at something, not just the techo kind of things, but with his ear and his encouragement, and his prayer, is a gift that he chooses to use for God’s glory. He has a gift that he lays down at God’s feet and God uses him. It’s a partnership between God and Max. It’s a partnership that brings deep, deep satisfaction. You! You aren‘t good at what Max is good at, probably. You aren’t called to do what Max is called to do. But you are good at something, you are very good at something, and it’s something that probably, you really, really enjoy doing. Now give that one thing to God, give that to God for Him to use. That doesn’t mean run away from your job and do something totally different, maybe it does, but probably it doesn’t. God uses who we are, where He’s planted us, to touch other people with His love. When we offer up the gifts and abilities and resources that God has put in our hands, that God has put in our hearts, that God has put in our DNA, when we offer that up to God, and say God, You use it, I don’t want the glory, You get the glory, God does amazing things. When you give your abilities to God, you watch how God shows up. When you give your ability to God, you see how He uses little people to achieve BIG things – that’s God! There’s nothing as fulfilling, there’s nothing as exciting, there’s nothing as wonderful, as letting God use our gifts. Go on, I dare you!
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A Faithful Facilitator // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 2
10/21/2025
A Faithful Facilitator // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 2
Now just imagine that you’re a refugee from a war-ravaged African nation, your country is a mess, people are dying and you’re on the run in a jungle from rebel fighters and from forced conscription as a teenager. What could you ever make out of your life under those circumstances? Superstar syndrome is something that touches just about every corner of the globe. You know larger than life media personalities that somehow, well, so many people secretly aspire to that sort of recognition and status. And when we look in the mirror at our faces, we discover not only aren’t we like that, but we will never be like that. So is there any hope for little people like you and me? I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day, Joseph. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa. He is 28 years old, and he has had the most incredibly destructive start to his life. His story begins in Liberia and in 1989, at age 12. He was faced with the ravages of war. Now Joseph is no superstar in the world’s eyes. He is one of the little people, but to me, to me he’s a giant! Have a listen to Joseph’s story Joseph’s father is a pastor in Liberia. In most parts of the world, pastors don’t earn a lot of money. Well, that’s especially true in Liberia. At age 12, civil war hits and Joseph became a refugee. Now I remember my parents, who were in Europe during World War 2, talking about what it was like being refugees during wartime. I can’t imagine it, I’ve never experienced it, and I pray to God that I never will experience it. But Joseph did. In the West, we so often see images of African refugees, starving African children. Most of the people who watch those images on the news day after day, week after week, sadly become desensitized. Joseph is one of those. He fled to different countries, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guyana, Togo, I gather not with his parents. And at one stage in the Ivory Coast, he lived in a car for almost a year with some other kids. Today, fifteen or sixteen years on, he still talks about those days with some difficulty. When he was in Guinea, he spent days and nights in the forest, hiding, escaping from forced recruitment as a rebel fighter. Remember, he’s twelve or thirteen years old. He was hunted like an animal. He recalls living on a riverbank with lots of other kids his age and then fleeing on to yet another country. I, for one, cannot imagine the trauma of that, can you? I first met Joseph in June last year at a broadcasting conference in the UK, Stoke on Trent. It was a ‘chance meeting’ and the thing that struck me about Joseph when I first met him, was the sparkle in his eyes. I guess it is accentuated by the deep black skin. When we got talking, I had no idea about his background, or even his current situation. He heads up a Radio Broadcasting School at a Christian Media Training College in South Africa. He was so excited to meet me. He interviewed me for a radio program. He was excited with what I was doing. He listened to radio programs that I was producing and listened to what we were doing on the internet, and had a look at one of our internet sites, . He’s just an overwhelmingly delightful, enthusiastic young man. And so the conference finishes, and we head back to our respective homes, he to South Africa, me to Australia. Now don’t know if you have ever done conferences. But how it normally works is, people make all sorts of promises – I’ll keep in touch with you, we’ll catch up, we’ll do this, we’ll do that, at conferences, and ninety nine percent of them never do. So Joseph went back to South Africa, and I thought, ‘Oh well, I might hear from him and I might not’. Well, Joseph really made a point of connecting with me. Joseph made a point of not only connecting with me but trying to connect me with people of influence that he knew in Africa, with his boss, at the Media Village, where he works, with thirty or forty radio stations right across the continent. And still I had no idea of the circumstances in his life right at that time. It was only much later, in fact, only just recently that the life story of this bright eyed, well-dressed, enthusiastic connector of people, came to light. Today, as I said, Joseph is connecting us with dozens of radio stations around Africa. So that this program right now is being heard by tens of thousands of people right across Africa. Here’s this little person, a person that most of us will never ever meet, Joseph, having an influence in the lives of tens of thousands of people. Isn’t that exciting? Well, what’s the point? Joseph is one of the little people. He looks like Tiger Woods, the American golfer. But, I tell you he doesn’t get paid US$130 million a year to wear a certain brand of sports clothes! He’s a little person with a tragic background, and right now, his current circumstances are that he’s not particularly well off at all. I didn’t find that out until somebody else, from Ireland of all places, visited me who knew Joseph, who told me his story. Joseph works fifteen, sixteen hours a day and then works all weekend, in order to make ends meet. Yet he has that sparkle in his eyes, the sort of sparkle you see from someone who knows Jesus. He could have let his background get him down. He could have let his current finances get him down, but, oh no, this guy has a fire in his heart. He has a sparkle in his eye; he has a smile on his face. When I met Joseph at that conference in the UK, he was smartly dressed but I would never have guessed what his background was. And he came with the attitude, ‘I’m here to serve’. God took that young man, and taught me a thing or two. God took that young man and made him a superstar in my life. God took that young man and used him to reach tens of thousands of people, across Africa with his love. This little person, Joseph, is loved by a big God. This little person, Joseph, is used by a big God. I trust that you find Joseph’s story a blessing and an inspiration. But it’s not the main point of the story, because this is not just Joseph’s story. This is also God’s story. This is a story about a real God who calls His real grace into the real life of a person who was a refugee, of a person who was hunted like an animal, of a person who fled wars. This is a story about a God who loves Joseph so much that He would pour His own Spirit into Joseph and give him that smile on his face. This is about a God who puts a sparkle in Joseph’s eyes. This is about a God who takes a life from such adversity and says, ‘This Joseph is one of mine, this Joseph is someone that I can use’. This is a story about God’s grace. And as I read through the Bible and I see how different people react to God, how different people interact with God, what I see is God’s story woven through that. Joseph has a namesake in the Old Testament. There is a Joseph in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis. You read through the second half of the book of Genesis and you read about Joseph, who is Jacob’s son, who is Isaac’s son, who is Abraham’s son. And Joseph had a life of adversity. And he just carried on and followed God and loved God and God used that Joseph mightily. Just as I believe God is going to use this Joseph, in Africa, mightily. When we look at our lives sometimes, and we look at our circumstances, we look at the adversity, we look at ourselves and we say, ‘Well, I’m not a superstar, I don’t have what it takes to do superstar type things’. I think we are kidding ourselves. And I think we are missing out on the whole point of God’s story right through the Bible, which is, God takes little people like you, like Joseph, like me, little people who will make a decision just to follow God. Just simply with who they are and what they are and what they have and God uses people like that, mightily. Just as He’s used Joseph. What about you?
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Superstar Syndrome // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 1
10/20/2025
Superstar Syndrome // Little People Used by a Big God, Part 1
The world is full of superstars - sports stars, soapy stars, rock stars, influencers. Have you noticed? Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but what happens when this whole superstar syndrome starts messing with our own self-esteem? We live in an era of superstars – men and women who have been pumped up by the media until they are larger than life. Whether sports stars or singers turned lingerie designers, or business gurus, or personal development magi, they command unfathomable salaries for minimal output. They go from person to phenomenon, from soapy star to superstar. Their faces are instantly recognised, people flock to get a glimpse of them. But the superstar coin has two sides to it. The side that we like to look at is the shiny side, the one that speaks of celebrating success. But the other side is, well, kind of dull, you have to rub it to read the writing, but it says something like, if they are a success, you’re not. They’ve made it, you never will. But we don’t like to look at that side too much, so we flick it up in the air with our thumb and hope that it comes up heads. Well, in a sense there is nothing wrong with superstars, there is nothing wrong with admiring people. There are some sports stars and entertainment stars and contemporary philosophers, and commentators and you know, we look at people and we think, gee, I really like that person. I love the actors, and the writers and the directors on the television show The West Wing. I think that is clever and I love it. There are some cricketers - I am a great cricket fan. I don’t know whether you like cricket, know what cricket is, hate cricket. There are just a few cricket players that I look at and think they are really, really good guys. And there’s the odd politician and it’s okay to admire, to respect, to enjoy their achievements. People like that can have a good and a positive impact on our lives. They can be good role models, they can teach us things, they entertain us, they lead us and most of them come from humble roots. All of them were unknowns once. And somehow they have been good at what they do and they’ve made it. Who are the people that you admire? The names, the faces, the achievements? That’s good, its right that we should look up to certain people as role models. But here’s how it starts to go off the rails. Fame these days equals fortune. Recognition equals the opportunity to make big, big bucks. That’s why soapy stars become singers, become lingerie brands. That’s why generals who fought in the Gulf War, travel the world speaking at conferences, where people pay thousands for a seat to listen just for two hours. People – when they become famous, become a commercial commodity. They become a commodity that can make money. And so, the media pumps them up and they become larger than life. Larger than you and me and something inside us secretly aspires to being like that. Because we live in a world that suffers from “celebrity syndrome”, from “superstar syndrome”, something inside a lot of people says, ‘I want to be like that too’. But for 99.99% of us we can never achieve that. It’s not just in rich and affluent cultures. It’s true in Africa, it’s true in very poor parts of Asia, it’s true in poor black communities in America. They elevate a black sporting star and they pay that person megabucks, to sell shoes and sporting clothes into the black ghettos with a message that says, ‘Well, you can get out of the ghetto too. You can be like this sporting star too’. As though a pair of runners can do that for you. You see the cycle? So back to your and me. It may get us to buy whatever they are selling, and they are always selling something. But what’s the message it sends to you and me about what we’re worth? Well, let’s go back to that superstar coin; look at the other side for a minute. Look at all the people you admire in the media, in sport, on television, in the movies and so on. Now put yourself up next to them. How do you stack up? How valued do you feel? How successful are you? I mean, in your own eyes, what’s the image that you carry around of yourself in your heart? That can be a scary thing to answer. Because when we suffer from ’superstar syndrome’ we look at those superstars with more than admiration. We look at them as something we aspire to but we know deep in our hearts we can never achieve. And all of a sudden our sense of worth becomes messed up. It may sell sporting shoes and t-shirts but it’s easy to see where low self-esteem comes from. And so when it comes to God, whoever God is to you, it’s easy for us to impose that whole superstar syndrome thing on Him. We imagine somehow that He would show up for the superstars – the big people, the people with value and importance, the people who can wave their arms and command crowds of tens of thousands. The people who are BIG, even if they’re big in Christian terms. Now there are some big Christian artists, performers, preachers, media personalities. We think, well, God would definitely show up for them. But me? You flip over onto the other side of that coin and you look at the darker side, you give it a rub with your thumb, you really think about what you’re worth, one of the little people. Surely God wouldn’t show up for me? Surely God wouldn’t show up for you? It’s sad but it’s true. Many people have this unspoken belief in their hearts, that that’s how God behaves. That God shows up for only the superstars. Over these next couple of weeks on A Different Perspective, we are going to be doing a little mini-series of programs called ‘Little people used by a big God’. And this week, in particular, over the next four days, I’m going to share with you some of the people in my life. If I shared all of them it would take me months. Some of those little people who actually, for me, are superstars. Some of the little people that I have met along the way, who’s face you will never see on a television screen, whose name you will never hear anywhere, who have had such an impact in my life. Now I could preach to you about this stuff, but I don’t want to do that. I would just like to share some real life stories about some so called little people. My prayer is that you will discover that God shows up for little people – especially for little people. And the ultimate little person for me is a baby that was born in a stable, a baby who was the Son of God. The only baby in history that could choose where and how He would be born. And God chooses for His Son to be born into a humble carpenter’s family in a place called Nazareth, which is the pits as far as first century Jews were concerned. God chose humble circumstances for His Son. I think God has something to say through that. I think God is telling us that He is a God for little people. Not just for little people too, but especially for little people. And my prayer is over this next week or so, if you can join us over that time, that God will do some work in your heart and in my heart too – to speak to us about His heart for little people. God is not a God that shows up for superstars alone. I’m sure there are some superstars on this planet who believe in Jesus Christ and God shows up for them. But He doesn’t have favourites. God doesn’t show up for someone because they are a good singer. God doesn’t show up for someone because the world sees them as being important, or they can run quickly or they can play sport well or anything like that. God doesn’t show up for someone because of the salary they get paid, because of the brand they wear on their chest, because of how they play sport. That’s not now God’s economy works. Over the next few days, I’m going to share with you some of the superstars in my life, who have made a difference that I’ll carry on into eternity.
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Look Around - They're Hurting Out There // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 10
10/17/2025
Look Around - They're Hurting Out There // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 10
When it comes to sharing Jesus with others, we can sometimes think – one day, one day God’ll use me in a big way … one day – and yet all the time, right at this moment, the people around us are headed for a Christless eternity. Right at this moment, there are people aching out there, people who desperately need to encounter Jesus. C S Lewis was a great author and in his book The Screwtape Letters he points out that one of the greatest deceptions for anyone who calls themselves a Christian is to imagine that one day, well in the future in some far distant land God has some amazing evangelistic job for us to do. And so the days slip by, they turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years and we wait for that long off, far distant call and all the time, right here, right now, there are people around us who are hurting. Not in another country, not in another city but at home, at work, at the football club, at school. Right under our noses. One of the things that stops us sharing Jesus sometimes with those people is this romantic notion that one day, one day God will do something big with me. But in the mean time, well the people around us are going to hell. Does that sound a big strong? Does that sound a bit dramatic? We know well, those people around us who are going to hell. If they don't know Jesus, if they've never met Him and never put their faith in Him, never experienced His love and His grace through faith and tomorrow they die of a stroke or a heart attack or next week they get run over by the proverbial bus, that's exactly where they're going. Is it a bit strong? Well maybe but it's just the way it is. These last nine programs over the last couple of weeks have been all about the freedom to share Jesus with others. Not a 'how to' guide, not a series of dot points, not some theological tree ties. Just born out of a conviction that so many Jesus followers feel inhibited, feel constrained, feel as though, "I can't share Jesus with other people. I can't do this great commission thing." And so we've looked at a whole bunch of things that stop us and looked at the power of praying for people and getting out there and doing what God's already doing in today's deeply spiritual landscape across society. We're thinking about finding the words and the confidence and putting our lives on the line. Not with the aim of creating some simple trite 'how to do' list. I don't think there's any such thing but just unpacking that great commission. Go on, go into the ends of the earth and tell them about Me and make disciples of them all. Unpacking that. Taking it from being a burden, from being an albatross hanging around our necks, to being the incredible freedom and liberty that it actually is. With all my heart I believe that Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Saviour, Jesus the Son of God wants to use you and to use me to touch the people around us with His love. Not in five years time, not in ten years time, not in twenty years time. Not half way around the world necessarily. But today, here and now. So what about the people in your life? Your husband or your wife or your kids. Maybe adult, maybe teenagers, maybe younger children. Your extended family, your brother in law or your sister in law or cousins or uncles or aunts or grandparents or grandchildren. Your neighbours in your street, your friends. The parents of the kids that your kids might go to school with. When you think about it we actually have relationships with a large number of people. Our work colleagues. You look around at your little group and there are probably fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty people that we regularly have contact with. It's quite staggering when you think about it. Then you think, "Oh, hang on, a good number of those don't know Jesus. A good number of those are doing exactly what Berni just said. A good number of those are going to end up in hell. Wow, what do I do with that? There's too many of them for me to deal with all at once. How am I going to deal with all of this?" Well God doesn't expect us to deal with all these people. God knows the ones with whom we can really connect and I believe that as we pray towards the end of this program, which we're going to do, God will bring the faces of the people that He wants to touch through your life and mine, right before us. I believe that as we pray a prayer at the end of this program we will see those people through the eyes of the Almighty and all loving God. And you know something, they may not be the ones that we expect. When God shows us those faces I can almost guarantee the feeling of, "Oh no, not him. Not her. They're such a problem bunch of people. That person’s marriage is falling apart. Oh that one, that one is a pain in the neck. I can't stand that person." I tell you, God will bring those people in our lives because He's got a sense of humour and He's got a sense of grace and He's got a sense of love and when He speaks to us through His Spirit and says, "This one. This one, that's the one I want you to touch. I want to touch that person through you. Or this one. Or maybe those two or three." God will know exactly what He's doing. When God shows you that person or those people, who they are, right near you, let me ask you something, will you be Jesus to them with everything that you are, with everything that you have? Why has God brought them to you? Because they need Jesus and the reason they need Jesus is because their life maybe in a mess without Him. It's really easy to say no. It's really easy to say, "well Lord, you know, that was a nice exercise praying that prayer but, oh no, I don't think so. I've actually got a lot to do. I'm really busy in ministry or I'm really busy at work or I'm having a family thing and I need to go and earn money." When God brings those faces before you today, as He will if we pray and ask, will you make the emotional investment in their lives? Will you make the heart investment in their lives and be like Jesus was to the lepers and the prostitutes and the tax collectors? Come on, let's pray. Father God, We know that you have a plan to use us, a plan to bless people with your love. A plan to bring people to that door, to open the door so that they can meet Jesus and have eternal life with you. Father, Sometimes we know it's not going to be convenient and sometimes we know we're not going to be able to and sometimes we know we're going to make mistakes but Father, we ask you in the mighty name of Jesus today to bring before us, right now, the very face of the person or the people that you want us to minister to. Father, By your Holy Spirit show us that face, show us that name, speak that into our hearts Lord and put it on our hearts the fire that burns for you to be Christ to these people. Lord, equip us, strengthen us, encourage us, give us the endurance and give us everything that it takes for you to use us as much or as little as you choose to bring this person or these people, that you bring before us now, to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Father, We ask you that in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. As you contemplate what God is doing in your life. As you contemplate the people that God surely brought before you, let this knowledge set you free. Jesus the Christ means to use you and me in the lives of the people whom He's put next to us so that He can set them free. It's all about sharing Jesus with others. Not sometime in the future when we're all perfecto. But right now, right now, just as we are. One of my absolute favourite passages of Scripture is Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which God prepared beforehand for us to do. Just the way we are. His workmanship. God's already gone ahead. God's already done things. He's started working in people's lives and He calls us alongside to love someone and speak to someone, to share our Jesus with them. Are you ready?
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Walking Boldly - Treading Lightly // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 9
10/16/2025
Walking Boldly - Treading Lightly // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 9
We all hate people ramming their opinions, their beliefs down our throats, don’t we? So, how can we share our faith in Jesus with others, without giving them that same experience? Good question. To quote a comedian who used to make me really laugh a few years back. "You know what I hate? You know what I really, really hate?" I hate it when people shove their beliefs and their doctrines down my throat. I hated it way back before I was a Christian and to tell you the truth, I still hate it today. Even more so right here and now. To me it's somehow offensive when people try and bludgeon me to death with their beliefs. When they lecture me instead of pulling alongside me. When they somehow imply that they're better than me because of what they believe. And so many people have spent so many years watching Christians telling people about their faith in that kind of a way, that they think that's the only way it can be done. And I don't want to be like that so I'm not going to tell people about Jesus. I'm just going to shut my mouth 'cause I don't want to offend anyone by whacking them over the head and shoving my beliefs down their throat. In society today, let's face it, for a lot of people the Church is on the nose. My hunch is a lot of it has to do with the doctrinism and the dogmatic approach of telling people about their faith. The Church is anti this and anti that and anti this. And all that "anti" implies judgement and criticism rather than love and grace. Now don't get me wrong, you'll never hear me standing up for, say for abortion. It's not so much though what we say, I think it's how we say it. Before I went into ministry I was in the Information Technology industry. One of the things I did was to travel a lot to conferences and do a lot of public speaking right around the world. But I began to notice, when I was quite a young man, that some speakers seemed somehow to have a superior tone yet others were at my level. I felt like they were like me and the mentor of mine, a man that mentored me for over 20 years, a guy called Graham, explained to me what that was all about. In part someone who gets ups and speaks at the podium, who has a superior mentality. You know, "I'm the expert. I'm the one that knows all about this subject. Now you listen to me and write it down and do as I tell you." Well that's kind of offensive these days. It may have worked back in the 1950's and 1960's but it doesn't work today. People like that make me cringe because they demonstrated an outdated notion of relationships. They demonstrate a notion of a relationship that goes back to the 1950's and 1960's which says that they are the experts and the institution stands above people and they tell us what to do and we do it. Now that was okay back then but 99% of the time it is not going to work for people today. So in part it's a superior attitude. Then there are other people who kind of pull alongside. Who share their experiences. Who invite me to think about what they're saying with questions. Who share not just their successes but their weaknesses and their failures and their challenges and the insights that come out of that and the stuff they still don't understand. They talk more in terms of "us" and "we" instead of "you" and "me". You know what? I love listening to those people. I have so much to learn from people who speak in those terms because it demonstrates an attitude that says, "Hey, I'm not an expert. I don't know everything but there's a few things that I've got insights about." Why don't we share those? Why don't we discuss them? Why don't we have a dialogue? Why don't we pull alongside one another and be better off for the experience? And to me that second type of communicator is someone who treads lightly. Yes they reflect an attitude which is contemporary in terms of relationships which is where we all, by and large, are today but they also find language that's about "us" and "we". That's about questions. That's about engagement rather than, 'I've got this now you should do that. And I believe this therefore you should believe that and if you don't, you're wrong'. You know, those sorts of people tend to have really reactive language like, "I don't like" and "I'm absolute" and they try to steam roll you with their beliefs. And I'm not just talking about Christians. You can go to the abortion lobby and you'll find exactly the same sort of person there. There are people right across the social and political and religious spectrum who want to bludgeon me to death with their beliefs and my answer, like most other people, is, "Hmm, no thanks. I'm really not interested." This concept of using our attitudes and our languages to tread lightly, to me, is a beautiful concept. To me it's relational. To me it's like I love dealing with people like that because they want to engage me rather than bludgeon me. Now don't you think that's natural? Yet at the same time it's still possible to walk boldly, to be certain of what it is that we believe. If you're a Christ follower, if you're a Christian, my prayer for you is that you are absolutely rock solid in your faith in Jesus Christ. That you look at everything that the world does that is right and wrong out there in the world and say, "Look, no matter what's going out there in the world, in my heart when I look at the cross I see a Jesus who loves me, who is prepared to die for me, who's coming back and when I believe in Him I'm going to have eternal life and I want to share that Jesus with other people." I'm so certain about that and I'm so safe in that I don't have to be shy about believing in Jesus. We don't have to be uncertain in our faith just because other people don't like it. We don't have to be afraid of what other people might think of who we are and what we believe. No, no. Are you a Christ follower? Have you put your faith in the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the creator of the universe and He died for you and me and that is a fantastic message? Does that flick your switch? Man, it flicks my switch. It works for me every time. Do people aspire to the sort of faith that is uncertain? Would you be impressed with someone who wasn't really happy with who they are and their faith in Jesus? Charles Spurgeon was a great preacher in the 19th century. He told a story of a young preacher that was one of his students who went out to speak at a Church and obviously this young guy was pretty uncertain about stuff when he got up to speak. And a crusty old parishioner came up to him at the end of the service and said, "Lad, I don't expect to believe everything that you say when you get up and preach on Sunday mornings but young man, I expect you to believe it." It's kind of true isn't it? I mean, sure people won't always agree with what you have to say about Jesus or what I have to say about Jesus. But if we profess a faith in Jesus I reckon people expect us to be passionate about it, to be real about it, to believe it and to be rock solid in our faith. And to me it's wonderful to think of treading lightly on the one hand yet walking boldly at the same time. Treading lightly, to me, is about not having a superior, pulpit style attitude about people. About me being better because I happen to have met Jesus. And yet walking boldly is, "I do know the one in whom I have placed my faith." And I think that when you take treading lightly and walking boldly and you put them together in the one person that equals humility. That looks like Jesus. Jesus said: I am lowly and humble of heart. Come to me and I will give you rest. Jesus wasn't some woos. He did both things. He trod lightly in the lives of people. He didn't come down to judge them. He didn't come to pull them down. Sure He attacked religious hypocrisy, He did that but that's about the only thing He ever attacked. All those people out there who didn't know Him yet, who didn't believe in Him yet, He was gentle and loving and yet He was so bold in knowing who God the Father was and who God had put Him on this earth to be. We can be certain and yet respect people and tread lightly in their lives. Jesus gave people time to unpack His story, to come to grips with who He was. Why can't we do the same?
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Out of His Abundance // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 8
10/15/2025
Out of His Abundance // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 8
Sometimes, we can be a bit shy about sharing our faith in Jesus with others, because, well frankly, our own lives aren’t looking so flash right now. So, when life isn’t going along just the way you’d hoped, when perhaps you yourself are wondering what He's up to, how do you share Jesus with others? You know sharing Jesus with others can feel like a tough gig sometimes. Especially when our own lives, well they're not going quite so well just at the moment. And let's face it sometimes life, overall, isn't fantastic. And what we're tempted to do is to put on a brave face and pretend you're a super Christian and try and sell people something that, frankly, we don't have happening inside us right now. Now, people aren't stupid and in an age where they're hungering for spiritual authenticity, people can see right through that kind of sham. No, if we're going to share Jesus with others the whole 'Jesus' thing has to be happening on the inside of us, no matter what's going on the outside. We and the rest of the world, we tend to judge success on external factors. You think about it, the pastor of a Church is successful when? When they have lots of people in their Church. When they have a big Church. When there's money rolling in. When the building programs doing well, right? You and I, we're successful when? Well, when we earn a lot of money. When we've got a nice wife or a husband. When we've got three well adjusted children. When we look happy. When we're driving a good car. But we know that that's not what success is about and we know that God doesn't look on the outside stuff, He looks on the inside. He looks on our hearts. Turns out that God is looking for people whose hearts are a flood with His joy and His love and His peace and a passion for their Saviour. They're the sort of people that God's looking for and when it comes right down to it, today's generation. You know we live in a world that no longer is impressed by large Church buildings. We live in a world that's no longer impressed by institutional religion, right? We're not into those things anymore. And even though we live in a world that is so incredibly materialistic. You scratch under the materialist veneer when you meet people, people who have bought everything they could possibly have with the income they have and they want something more. We live in a world where today’s generation is looking for an authentic form of spirituality. Something that gives real meaning beyond buying stuff. It turns out they're looking for exactly the same thing that God is looking for. A heart that's a flood with a joy and the peace and the patience and the love and the goodness of God. They're looking for people who've got something that they don't have. They're looking for the stuff that's going on inside. One of my favourite authors is John Piper. He's written a book called The Supremacy of God in Preaching. He makes this point, he says, "You can't consistently give something to someone else that you yourself don't have." We can't sell the concept that Christianity works, Jesus is wonderful, you should have this in your life. When deep down in our hearts we're not living that joy and that peace and that wonderful thing that happens when we connect with Jesus Christ. We try and sell a religion, people will see through it. Being a Christian, sharing Jesus with others, you know something, it's not about flogging a philosophy, it's not about flogging some political dogma, it's not about pedalling a belief system or religious doctrine. There are enough doctrines. There are enough philosophies out there. There are enough dogma's out there. I think that when you or I decide that we need to share Jesus with others it's kind of like one beggar showing another beggar where to find the bread. The bread of life. The bread that feeds us. The bread that's good. The bread that works. I'm eating this bread, I'm having this relationship with Jesus and it's fabulous and I want to give you some too. Let this set you free. Telling people about Jesus doesn't rely on our outward success but on our inner peace and joy which comes from having a day, by day, by day, by day walk and relationship with Jesus. I don't have to be rich to share Jesus with others. I don't have to live in a big house or drive a flash car or be the most successful person in the world or be the most articulate person in the world or be the smartest person or be the most beautiful person. None of those things matter. You know why? Because some people are tall and some people are short. And some people are fat and some people are skinny. And some people have grey hair and some have brown hair. And some are smart and some are not so smart. And some are good looking and others are less good looking in the world’s eyes. It's just the way it is. And no matter what we look like or how smart we are or how well we speak or how much we earn. That peace that Jesus Christ died for and rose again for to give to you and me is available to each and every person in every circumstance when we place our faith in Him. No matter what the world throws at us, I can be in bankruptcy, I can be going through divorce, I can be suffering pain and persecution. I can be living in the middle of a war. I can be starving and yet still know the inner peace and the joy that comes through knowing Jesus Christ. 2,000 years ago the Apostle Paul was on death row. He was in prison. He had chains around his ankles and his wrists and he wrote a letter to the Church in Philippi and there on death row he writes these words. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. Man that guy had a fire. That guy has something I want. That guy has something burning inside his heart for Jesus and that's what people are looking for. If you are a Jesus follower, if you have the Holy Spirit on fire in your heart and you spend time with Him praying. You spend time in God's word today. That's where that peace and that joy comes from. Got problems? Well pray. And in the same breath from his prison cell Paul writes. Pray. Ask God. Give thanks and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. Man, that guy knows some stuff. He knows some stuff about joy and peace in the most dismal of circumstances and that stuff, I want to have. My very favourite author other than the Biblical authors is a man by the name A W Tozer. The very first book I ever read after I became a Christian was ‘The Pursuit of God’. This is what he wrote about that book on the cover: This book is a modest attempt to aid God's hungry children so to find him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it's a discovery that my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much further into these holy mysteries than I have done but if my fire is not large it is yet real and there maybe those who can light their candle with its flame. Man, isn't that beautiful? Don't you want to have a life like that? Where there's this fire burning inside you like Tozer, like the Apostle Paul and people look at you and they think, "Man, I want to light my candle there. I want to be around that person because flowing out of their heart is this living water that is Jesus Christ." They're working out of abundance that Jesus has given them no matter what's happening. There's this flood tide of blessing flowing out of this person and you might say to me, 'Berni, I don't have that abundance' and Jesus said, Without me you can do nothing. Nothing. Without Jesus it's a sham but the fullness of His joy and His peace and His love is available to you and me, here and now, when we place our faith in Jesus. All we have to do is ask. All we have to do is spend time waiting on Him. Everyone grows tired and weary. Even youths will faint but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength and they will soar like eagles. That's His promise. When we share Jesus, the only way, the only way we can share Him is through His abundance and His grace and His presence and His peace and His joy.
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Finding the Words // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 7
10/14/2025
Finding the Words // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 7
One of the things that stops a lot of people from sharing Jesus with others is a fear that they don’t know what to say. And yet they manage to communicate okay in every other part of their lives. So what exactly is going on here? Well ... you know ... one of the hardest things I've found about sharing Jesus with other people is, well ... finding the right words. What do you say? Where do you start? Now that's really weird because I'm a prolific writer and speaker, it's what I do for a living. But all of a sudden, stick me one on one with someone and say, "Okay Berni, tell them about Jesus" and I tell you, I used to be petrified. And so for a large part of my walk with Jesus I just didn't do it. Have you ever felt like that? I know I'm supposed to tell people about Jesus but I'm just not up to it. I'm not good with words. They'll never listen to me. I can't do this. I'll just embarrass myself and I'll embarrass them. No, not me. And so we clam up. We don't share Jesus without ever thinking that that decision can have devastating eternal ramifications. It's not an unusual phenomenon. You think about the sales person, they do sales, they maybe doing cold calling. They have to pick up the phone and go and see people they don't know and try and convince them to buy their product. Maybe the products a car or a house or an insurance policy. Could be anything. I don't think there's a single sales person on planet earth who's never felt that unique sense of trepidation of making the cold call. Picking up the phone, of going to see that person that they don't know. Now, let’s unpack that for a minute. What's it all about? Why is it that sometimes we're afraid to tell people about some stuff? Well, when you think about it that sales person dynamic, success equals they buy my product and failure equals they don't. It's as simple as that. There's no in between ground. And my hunch is that a lot of the trepidation is about the fear of rejection and the fear of failure. My hunch is that this salesmen sense of trepidation is at the heart of our dilemma in sharing Jesus with other people. Think about it. We have friends. We go and have coffee or a drink with them. We have no problem sitting and talking about our issues in our lives and all the stuff that's going on. We have dinner at their home, we have dinner at home with our family, we all sit around the table, we tell what's gone on in our lives that day. And at work we have to deal with this person about that issue, and that person about this issue. We do it all the time. By and large we do all of those things, well ... pretty naturally. Maybe we're not all public speakers "par excellence" but it's just as well. The world would be really boring if we were. But we are able to find the words when we need to. To do things everyday, day by day. So in a sense it's not really about finding the words or not finding the words, it's not words. I think it's the fear of failure and rejection. It's the fear that they'll think that we're strange because we believe in Jesus and that we're weird because we're telling them about Jesus. Let me set you free from this. Telling about Jesus isn't being a salesman doing a sell job. It's about listening and learning. You see it's not my job, it's not your job to give them a brochure to answer all their product queries, to close the sale and seal the deal. If we think that sharing Jesus is a sales transaction, I think we've got it wrong. What an arrogant notion that it's our job to represent God and close the deal on His behalf. What do we think? We're going to get paid commission, we're going to get sacked if we don't sell. No, my job and your job is to peer into their faces. To look at them, to know that here is a person made in the image of God, to hear their hopes and their joys and their motivations and their hurts and their losses and their failures. To laugh, to experience their triumphs, to cry with them, to feel their pain. And in the middle of all of that, to see them reach out for a spiritual answer. For a spiritual experience with that deep need that God has placed inside each one of us to know what life's all about. To know the news, the good news about Jesus. My job and your job is to believe that God is already at work. In one of our earlier programs in this series we talked about the fact that once Jesus walked into an area around a pool where there were lots of sick people who needed healing. A lot of sick people and He went in and He healed just one. And when they asked Him why He did that, He said: I tell you the truth, the Son can only do what He sees the Father doing. In other words, do what Dad's doing. Believe that God is already at work in this persons life or that persons life and then we're just there to listen. Do you know how hard it is to get someone just to listen to you these days? Even when they are families, even with friends, even at work. It seems that nobody has time to listen. If we take the time to listen to people, to hear what's going on in their lives, to learn and to touch. To see this person as one of those lost sheep reaching our for his saviour, his shepherd, and to share, right at that point, our Jesus with them through our lives and through our touch and yes, through our words that Jesus lays on our hearts just at the right time for them. What an awesome thing it is to be used by God in that way. Not my job to close the sale. We're not doing a sell job or a snow job and we're not doing the deal. If we approach it that way that attitude says to this person that they're an object of our evangelistic effort. "When I get them into the Kingdom of God I'll just cut another notch in my rifle butt." Come on, seeing what God's doing, being there in the middle of all that, in someone’s life, is such an incredible privilege. Being the word of God as they look at our lives, as they see Jesus shining out through our touch and through our smile. Through our word of encouragement and when we need words God promises us that those words will come. He says: Don't worry about what you'll say. Right at that moment as you're standing there my Spirit will give you the word. Just be you. Just be you. You know something, people are so tired of words. They want authenticity, they want care in a cruel world. They want love in a lost world. They want authentic spiritual realities in a world where so much is sham. Where do they see that? Where do they find that? I'll tell you something, it's at looking at my life and looking at your life. They'll either discover Jesus is awesome or they'll look at us and think, "Jesus is a hypocrite." I can't remember who said it, they said, "Tell people about Jesus and when all else fails, use words." Sure we have to use words sometimes but what a privilege to walk into a place where God is already doing stuff in someone's life and He's just put you or me into that place to love this person into the Kingdom of God. Father, I pray that each person that's with us right now will just know that it's not about finding the right words or being a theologian or having text books under our arms. Father, Teach us, through Your word, through Your grace, through Your Spirit, through looking at Jesus. That sharing our Lord is about living a life that reflects Your glory into the lives of other people. Father, Take away any fear that we have of failure, any fear we have of rejection, any fear that we might have that people would think that we're loopy and set us free to be Jesus. The hands and the feet of our saviour in this lost and hurting world. Lord, We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Isn't it awesome? You and I, if we believe in Jesus, God calls us to touch people with our lives. He doesn't call us to be salesmen, He doesn't call us to be great evangelists. You know what, He just calls you to be you and me to be me and for us to be there when He taps us on the shoulder.
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Surveying the Spiritual Landscape // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 6
10/13/2025
Surveying the Spiritual Landscape // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 6
Sometimes, we’re afraid to share our faith in Jesus with others, because, well, we look at society and think to ourselves – they don’t want Jesus, they don’t want to hear this stuff – when all along, there’s a deep spiritual yearning happening out there, right now, in the hearts of so many. It's interesting you know as we look around at people and society as a whole these days that there's a spiritual paradox playing itself out in the lives of so many people. On the one hand most have rejected the institutional bricks and mortar Church thing of the 1950's and yet still there’s a spiritual hunger bubbling away just beneath the surface. My hunch is that one of the reasons that so many Christians are shy or backward about sharing Jesus with others is that we mistake the rejection of the traditional Church, whatever that means or is, for a lack of spirituality. But just scratch below the surface and you find a whole generation or two or three that's more spiritually in tune and inclined than ever before. There's been quite an interesting shift in the spiritual landscape in these last few decades. It's a really generational change. The more chronologically endowed amongst us, you know, older baby boomers and the generation before them, too many of those people faith and spirituality was a very, very private matter. There's an old adage that you never talked about sex, religion or politics. And it's important that we understand and we respect that. It's still true amongst my parents generation, that's very much the case but the younger baby boomers and the Gen X's and the Y's and so on, well we're on a real spiritual journey in this world. In one of my previous programs I spoke about a senior IT executive and a lawyer with whom I had lunch a while ago. And I'm thinking, "okay, well it's going to be a business lunch and we'd be talking about this and that and IT matters. So I'm expecting this business discussion, right?" Now the IT executive who's a really senior guy in this global IT company, a really well known brand, he spent the whole of the lunch time talking about his spiritual journey and trying to discover Jesus and the problems he'd faced in some Churches and my lawyer friend pitches in and I discover he's on a spiritual journey as well. He's been searching. He's gone through some things and spent weekends trying to discover his own spirituality. Now I've only ever seen these two men before as an IT executive and as a lawyer. I never really thought of them as God's children on a spiritual journey. Here are people who are made in God's image and they're looking for something spiritual and they don't know exactly what. I believe that was sacred ground. That to me, that lunch, was just the most amazing experience of God's grace. Because here were these men, these two men with a deep calling underneath calling, searching because God, as He's made each one of us in His own image has put something inside us that causes us to go on that journey, that causes us to go on that search, that causes us to reach out and to look for something beyond ourselves. That something that we call "spiritual". Now for many, many years Christians and Churches have looked at "evangelism", and I put that in inverted commas, as getting people to come to Church. Getting people to believe that facts about God and about Jesus and what He did and to accumulate some head knowledge and then to say, "Yes I believe that." But today, today the post moderns, as the sociologists call them, they don't so much want to believe all with their heads, they want to believe with their hearts. They want to count on intuition and faith. In a sense they want to give up on the idea of truth in an absolute sense and have an experience of it instead. And so we can go on preaching the old way to a generation that's changed the way it thinks or we can say, 'hang on a minute, these people, these post moderns, these younger people, they're looking for something. Something authentic. They want us, in a sense, to preach with our lives, to share our lives with them'. These people are tired of words, they want evidence. They want it to be credible. They want it to be plausible. If we're talking about this God and this Jesus, they want to see it in our lives. They're searching for something authentic. They're searching not for a sermon but for a relational exchange. For an experience with God. A Jesus that's more than bricks and mortar religion. See these people are suspicious of authority. They're suspicious of institutions and yet they hunger after small stories, the stories that you and I have in our lives. Stories that speak of God's love, God's grace of real life. Of the fullness and a life that has some extra spiritual dimension to it beyond what they've been experiencing. Post moderns may have rejected the sort of institutional wrapping of the bricks and mortar Church. Yet they hunger for an authentic spirituality. And at the same time these same people really don't know the Jesus story. They're not so much conscious of guilt. It's more a sense of doubt and uncertainty in a world that’s changing more quickly than they can imagine. A world that feels as though it's out of control. And they are sick of condemnity rhetoric, whether it is from the Church or from anyone else and yet they have multiple alienations. Self esteem is a huge issue in society today. We have broken and fractured relationships. People are more isolated than ever. I want to ask you to let this set you free, to share your Jesus with them because when you look into the face of someone in need, there, right there is someone made in the image of God, who planted in their DNA, has a deep yearning for God. We should never look at people and at society and say, "Okay, they've rejected (and I call it this deliberately) bricks and mortar religion." The thing that religion was, maybe in the post World War 2 time, in the 40's and the 50's and some of the 60's and even the 70's, they've rejected that, by and large, because they've rejected social institutions. And yet they're searching for something and that something is Jesus. Shoemaker in his celebrated poem wrote this: They crave to know where the door is and all that so many ever find is only a wall where a door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched groping hands, feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door yet they never find it. Men die outside that door as starving beggars, die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter. They die for want of what is within their grasp. They live on the other side of it, live because they haven't found it. What if God put you and me in their lives because of our face and our smile and our shoulder to lean on and our hands that can gently guide one of those children to that door to discover this Jesus for themselves? To walk through the door. Yes our culture has often rejected bricks and mortar Christianity. That's a challenge but what a huge opportunity this rediscovered sense of spirituality in our society really is. A spiritual hunger. An openness more than ever before that enables us, at the right time with the right words, to tell people about Jesus. In the middle of that spiritual hunger He plonks you and me and He taps us on the shoulder and He whispers, "Show them. Show them the door. I've put you there to show them the door."
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Telling God's Stroy, God's Way // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 5
10/10/2025
Telling God's Stroy, God's Way // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 5
Okay – so you want to tell someone about Jesus. But how? Where do you begin? What do you say? Do you know enough? All questions that we might ask ourselves. But how would Jesus tell people about Jesus? Or should we just leave it to the experts? Let me ask you a question, if you had to get up at a barbecue with some dozen or so of your friends or work colleagues, people who may not know Jesus and you had just two minutes, only two minutes mind you, to tell them about Jesus, what would you say? Just the thought’s enough to send the good many Christians into a panic attack. What would you say? How would you say it? You know that's one of the things that really stops a lot of Christians from sharing Jesus with others. It used to be my problem too until I discovered that God Himself is just the best communicator and He uses plain, simple, everyday language and everyday stories to get His point across. Right at the beginning of the New Testament, in the second chapter of Matthew's gospel, if you have a Bible there's an amazing story. We know them as the three wise men. Now we don't actually know how many there were because Matthew just tells us there were a number of wise men. But these wise men were following a star to go and find this Jesus who had been born in Bethlehem. They were looking for the Messiah. Now the word that Matthew uses for these wise men is Magi. And Magi were astrologers and soothsayers. And to the Jews that was sinful and pagan and occultish. Kind of like today if some witches and warlocks wandered into a local Church. I guess there'd be more than a few Christians who would be a bit disturbed about that. So these wise men, these Magi, were astrologers and the second thing that Matthew tells us about them is that they were from the east. Well that's kind of code that we may not understand today because east of Jerusalem was Babylon. And Babylon was like, I don't know, like the Third Reich to the Jews today. Babylon was a place where several hundred years before they'd been exiled into slavery and so the symbolism of Babylon is probably pretty close to Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich. Okay, that's what they thought when they read "from the east". So God calls some sinful pagan astrologers from Babylon, from hell, across to meet His Son. Now would we have called them? You and I, today, if we had some astrologers or some witches or whatever living next door, would we invite them over for a barbecue? Would we invite the tarot card reader down in the local mall, home over a barbecue to talk about Jesus? "Ooh, no, no. That's a cult issue. Ooh, have to keep away from that." Well ... God invited them. He invited them when His Son was born to worship Jesus. But how does He get their attention? How does He get them to come from Babylon to meet Jesus? Does He send them, say John the Baptist or a prophet or a preacher or a Billy Graham? No, He sends them a star. An astrological symbol, do you get it? God is the most amazing communicator. Would you or I (A) even have bothered to send them and (B) if we had would we have sent them a star? And what that says to me is that, okay God hated their sin but He loved them so much more than He hated the stuff they were into. Here and now He is saying to us, "this is how I see people, I care about them no matter what. No matter what they are into, I love them." Jesus is here for everyone and God was prepared to send the astrologers a star. He was prepared to call even the astrologers from the Third Reich. That's God's way. Jesus hung out with lepers and prostitutes and sinners and He told simple stories and sometimes we think we have to be theologians or carry text books or have a Bible under our arms. Look at this story, this simple story. It must have been so shocking to the first century Jews who read it, to think that God would have called these astrologers and told them a simple story through a symbol that they could understand in their sin of astrology. Do we need to convince people about Jesus through some erudite apologetic argument? Would it ever occur to us to go to astrologers with a star? What's your story about life and how you grew up and how Jesus came into your life? What has He done in your life? What is it like knowing Him? What are the things you've struggled with? What's the stuff you perhaps haven't got your head around? I wonder, if you had these astrologers at your barbecue in your backyard. You know, some sausages, a bit of coleslaw, some onion perhaps and the conversation was flowing across the table. Well, I don't know about you but this is what is was like for me I guess, it was like this. Maybe we could tell people about Jesus in plain, everyday language. Just the way He has impacted on our lives. Maybe we don't need to be theologians after all. Now I'm not suggesting you shouldn't go to Church and I'm not suggesting we shouldn't learn. No, but you know what I mean? I think sometimes we think that experts should be doing this. A Doctor should hand out the medicine. An evangelist should hand out Jesus. But look at how Jesus communicated. He'd just wander around talking to people and touch them and tell them stories and have insights about their lives and was there to encourage them and just being with some of those people. Just Him taking the time to hang out with tax collectors and people that were rejects was an awesome thing for Him to do. I wonder whether we're making it all too complicated. I wonder whether we're struggling with things and tying ourselves up in knots when sometimes the people around us, the people we work with, the people we live with, the people who are our neighbours or the parents of the kids down at the local football club. I mean those people look at us and they just want us to be real and to share our lives with them. And to share a barbecue with them. And to share a sausage with them and a sandwich with them and some coleslaw and to talk to them about life. And somehow, in all of that, what Jesus did for you and what Jesus did for me. It's part of who we are. It's part of the fabric of our personality. It's just the way it is. Simple real life stories. Can I set you free through this idea? Through this notion that God wants to use you just the way you are. Through your plain everyday simple language and observations and reactions to touch people with His love. To reach out to people in real life with His love. So how would you share? How would you tell people about Jesus in your life? Maybe that's something we all need to spend some time thinking about and praying about and pondering about and turning over in our minds. In fact, let me pray about it right now. Father, I pray for each one of us who's here, right now, listening to this message. You know our hearts. You know where we are. You know what we feel. You know our fears and our anxieties. Father God, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that as we listen to Your word, You will just set us free through Your Spirit. Just the way Your word says that You would set us free, just wonderfully and casually to share our Jesus with the people that you put in our lives. Father, Show us. Show us what you were doing. Show us who you would put beside us. The ones that you want us to reach out to. The ones that you want to reach out to through us. Show us. Lord God, Encourage us. Set us free. Fill us with Your Spirit so that we can just shine the love of Jesus Christ into their hearts. Father, Where we feel a bit embarrassed or ashamed, I pray that You would just wipe that away. Set us free I pray Father, to share Jesus and I ask You that in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Doing What Dad's Doing // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 4
10/09/2025
Doing What Dad's Doing // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 4
One of the things that can stop us from telling other people about Jesus, is well, there are so many of them. The task is overwhelming. Where do I start? Too hard – I’ll just leave it to the experts. For me, being someone who has come to know Jesus is just the most awesome thing in my life and has been for the last decade and a half. But for a good many years the notion that I have some role to play in sharing Jesus with others, well it was like a millstone around my neck. I suspect it's like that for a lot of Christians. But when I really spent some time figuring out God’s plan for me in this whole evangelism thing, all of a sudden I discovered a freedom to get out there and share my Jesus with other people. One of the things that use to really get to me was the overwhelming size of the task. I know so many people who don't know Jesus and yet I don't feel gifted to tell them. It was such a burden. And then, I saw something in Jesus that set me free from that. There are so many things that paralyse us from sharing Jesus with others and one of them is the sheer volume of effort. It's demanding. We all know lots of people who have never met Jesus Christ. We can't tell them all about Jesus, can we? I remember being in India a few years back. India is a place with so many people and I'm looking around thinking, "Wow, most of these people have never met Jesus Christ. I can't do all this. It's not me. God hasn't called me to do this. I'll leave it to the experts. That's what the Billy Graham's of this world are made for after all. That's what they do." And when we take that attitude, when the volume and the size of the task just kind of gets to us and we give up, as surely as God made little green apples, guilt begins to set in. We have this attitude that all of those people out there who need to know Jesus and don't know Him because I know them, they're my problem, they're my burden, I have to do something about it. "Oh Lord, what am I going to do? There are too many of them. I can't do this. It's too hard. I'll leave it to someone else. The minister will. The evangelism committee with all the street ministry team at my Church or you know, somebody else’s job, it must be, it's not mine." But you know, Jesus won't let it rest there because He has a plan. He has a plan to use you and to use me to touch people’s lives with His love. And the reason that this niggles away at us and it never seems to ever quite go away is because Jesus has this plan. Question is, how do we deal with the fact that there are so many people who need Jesus? And you and I are just one person each, you know. There's a wonderful story, if you have a Bible it's in the 5th chapter of John's gospel which is the 4th book in the New Testament. It runs over the first 20 or so verses of chapter 5 of John’s gospel. There's a festival happening in Jerusalem and Jesus goes to a pool near the sheep gate in Jerusalem and there are so many sick and blind and lame and crippled people lying close to the pool. Lot's of them. And beside the pool there was a man who'd been sick and lame for 38 years. That's most if not all of this guy’s life. Now what does Jesus do when He wanders into a place where there are so many people who need healing? I mean Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus has the power to heal all of them. What does He do? What would you and I do if we had the power to heal all of them? Well, He sees this one guy who's been sick for 38 years and when Jesus realised that He said: Do you want to be healed? And the man said, 'Lord, I don't have anyone to put me down in the pool when the water's stirred up. I try to get in but someone always gets there before me.' And so Jesus said to him, 'pick up your mat and walk.' And right then and there the man was healed. He picked up his mat and he started walking around. Now it was the Sabbath day. Jesus heals this one guy, just one. This was Jesus remember. He could have had a mass healing service that day. It could have been a really spectacular event you know. Why does He only heal one? Well just a few verses later He tells us. Jesus told the people: Truly I tell you, the Son of man cannot do anything on His own, He can only do what He sees the Father doing. And so He does exactly what He sees the Father doing that day. That just blows me away. This is Jesus, the Son of God and He says, "the Son cannot do anything on His own." What is it that makes you and me think that we can? If Jesus says, "I can't heal people on my own. I can only do what Dad's doing today and when I see what Dad's doing, I go and do that." I've heard someone refer to this particular verse, John chapter 5, verse 19, just really simply, "do what Dad's doing." Now why was His Dad, why was God the Father only healing one guy that day? I don't know but that's what God was doing that day. That's what Jesus saw Him doing and so Jesus walks into that one thing because God had prepared it, ordained it, it was for Him to do on that day. If you listen to the first message in this series we talked about Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 and it said: We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that He prepared beforehand for us to do. Why did Jesus only heal one man that day? Because God had only prepared that man to be healed on that day. Now let's unpack that a little. I think this takes a huge burden off my shoulders and off your shoulders because we look at all those people out there. People whom God created. People who God knows and all of a sudden God's saying, "well My Son can't do anything without Me when He's walking around here, so why is it that you think you can? Why is it that you think that it's up to you, that you have to pick the people to talk to?" What is it that makes us think that we have to go in there on our own and heal everybody and bring Jesus to everybody? That's God's responsibility, it's God's timing, it's God's choice. God is doing stuff out there. Do what Dad's doing. So what's our responsibility, yours and mine? I think it's like Jesus when He walked into that pool area. Our job isn't to heal them all. Our job isn't to bring them all to Christ. Our job is to get close enough to Jesus to hear Him whisper in our heart what He's doing today. Today, call so and so, ask them out for a coffee. Or today, send so and so an email, ask them how they're going. Our responsibility is to figure out what Dad's got planned for today. Let me ask you a radical question. What if we started every day, every meeting, every Church service, every barbecue with friends with a prayer that goes something like this: Dad, show me today what you’re doing. Tell me who you want me to encourage or pat on the shoulder or have a cup of coffee with or help. I've already said before in this series, my gift is doing exactly what I'm doing right now. My gift, in particular, is not one on one evangelism. I'm passionate about what I'm doing right now but that one on one evangelism thing, to be truthful, doesn't flick my switch. Yet I can point to over the last year, a half a dozen people who have come to me when they were ready. Who know who I am. Who've worked with me or fellowshipped with me and they've come to me and said, "Tell me about your Jesus." I had a close friend who I've known for years, we're great mates. He's made some mistakes in his life and he's worn the consequences. And I've never felt to preach at him and tell him what I think. I just felt to be there and encourage him and he contacted me recently and he said, "I want to get together with you to talk about Jesus. I'm ready now." See we can try and do things in our own strength and they're called dead works. And they're worse than a waste of time. Not only will they not work. Not only will they not have worked for Jesus had He walked into that pool to try to heal all those people because Dad was only healing one guy that day. That it's down right destructive when we try to shove the good news about Jesus Christ down the throat of someone who's not ready to listen. But when we do what Dad's doing then we experience the power of God in people's lives. Can I set you free? Telling other people about Jesus isn't taking it all on our own shoulders. And it's not about me taking it on my shoulders. Telling people about Jesus is listening to Dad and doing Dad's stuff. Doing the stuff He's already doing and the closer we get the more we'll hear His call to do our little bit, the more we hear His heart beat for that one person that He wants us to touch today.
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Reflecting Jesus in Your Life // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 3
10/08/2025
Reflecting Jesus in Your Life // The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others, Part 3
It’s one thing to tell people about Jesus. It’s another thing entirely to bear His family resemblance – to look like Him. To love like Him. To forgive like Him. Yet the first thing that people see of Jesus – is actually, the way we live our lives. If there's one thing the world hates, it's a hypocrite. Particularly a religious one. And you know something, I think that's fair enough. Whether it's in business or politics or family or work. We hate it when someone says one thing and yet, behind our backs, does completely the opposite. Of course none of us is perfect but by and large we want people to practice what they preach, right? So when it comes to sharing Jesus with others, if there are areas in our lives where we know things are wrong, well chances are we're going to be making lousy ambassadors for Christ. "Oh great, so now what? I have to clean up my act as well, become perfect before I can be free to share Jesus with others." Well, it turns out God has a much better plan than that. If I met the Swedish ambassador in my country my hunch is that I would expect him to be tall and blonde with blue eyes and a name like Sven and have a nice little Swedish lilt. And I guess if I met the Chinese ambassador, I'd expect the Chinese ambassador to look and sound and behave Chinese. And I'm sure if I met the Indian ambassador, I'd expect the same thing. But if somehow the Swedish guy rocked up and said, "hi, I'm the Indian ambassador", well it just wouldn't work for me. I mean it just doesn’t gel does it? The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20. If you have a Bible that's where it is. He refers to himself and I guess to us too, as ambassadors of Christ. Now let me ask you, if the Swedish ambassador should look like a Swede and the Chinese ambassador should look like a Chinaman and the Indian ambassador should look like an Indian, what should an ambassador of Christ look like? Jesus right? Passionate. Real. Honest. Humble. A servant yet knowing what they believe and knowing what God is all about. When it comes to sharing Jesus with others what we do, how we look to them, is the most important thing. Because if I look Swedish and I claim to be the Indian ambassador. If I look like I'm not a Christian yet I claim to be the ambassador of Jesus Christ, it's not going to gel, it's not going to work. It will look hypocritical. Now how we behave, that speaks so much more to people about who Jesus is than what we say. Now here's the dilemma, most Christians know that Jesus calls them to share Him and who He is with other people. And every Christian I know knows, hopefully they know, that they're not perfect, that there's areas in the persons life where they fall short of God and His glory and who He is. Now have you ever tried to clean up your act in a particular area? It's one thing to say, 'Well I know I let myself down. I let Jesus down in this area or in that area of my life'. But when you try and clean up your act, something’s I guess you can do but others are completely impossible. In fact I would go as far as to say we each have one or two things in our lives that we ourselves simply cannot clean up. And if we take the attitude that we'll strive and we'll work hard, it all becomes a work space thing, it'll be hard. And it ends up not being fun and it ends up feeling empty. I once read a quote from someone, I don't know who said it but they said, "He who claims to be a self made man simply displays the horror of unskilled labour." We can say the same for a woman, "She who claims to be a self made woman simply displays the horror of unskilled labour." I've tried it, it doesn't work. We can peddle as hard as we like but it doesn't work. Do you know why? Because God has a much better plan. The Apostle Paul writes something along these lines in the New Testament book, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. The Lord is the spirit and the Lord's Spirit sets us free so our faces aren't covered like Moses was when he went up the mountain and took the Ten Commandments. No, our faces, we look at God, they show the bright glory of the Lord as His Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord. God has been kind enough to trust us with His Word, that's why we never give up, that's why we don't do shameful things that people have to keep in secret because it's God who commanded the light to shine in the darkness, who has shone in our hearts the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. See what Paul is writing here is that it's the Holy Spirit that sets us free. As we draw close to God and His Spirit fills us more and more and more and we look upon God's glory, we see Him with our spiritual eyes, that glory bounces off us and it reflects off our face and other people see it. It’s as though we were a mirror of God and other people look at the face and they think, "there's something different about that person, there's something, I can't put my finger on it but there's a joy and a peace and a goodness. Oh what has that person got because I want some of it." See that's God's plan, to reflect His glory through us, through our attitudes, through our behaviours, through our countenance, through our words to other people. We gaze on the glory of God, He transforms our heart and our motivation and we end up looking more and more like Jesus. Take all the effort and emotional energy that we would like to spend trying to change ourselves and spend that on being with Jesus in prayer and in reading the Bible and in worshipping Him. That's what makes us look like Jesus. I believe that Churches are full of Christians who think that Christianity is a self help program. Listen to me, it's not. What if we went to Jesus with this prayer? Lord, I have a friend or a family member or a loved one, who needs to know You and I look at myself Lord, in their lives I know that I'm letting myself down. I'm letting You down in this area or that attitude or this road block or that behaviour. I know that somehow that person is looking at me and they're saying, 'well if that's Jesus, I don't want Him'. Lord, show me Your glory. Set me free. The reason I want this Lord is not for me to be perfect, the reason I want this is to shine Your glory into their lives. I want to glorify You with my life, stir my heart, pour Your presence into me every day starting today. Lord, fill me with Your goodness, so full that I can't contain it. Fill me with Your Spirit, a flood tide that will bring a harvest for You. What if we went to God with a prayer like that? Every day Lord change me so that You can use me in that person’s life. Do you think God would miss that or do you think that God would be so overjoyed? Do you think God would ignore it or do you think that He would act? My life may be the only Bible that some of the people around me ever read. It's a sobering thought. Your life may be the only Bible that some of your friends and family and acquaintances will ever read. They know I'm a Christian. Most of them know that you're a Christian. And they look at us and they go, "Well has that person got some stuff that I want? Does it work? Are they real? Have they got something I really want?" We are ambassadors of Christ. That means we've got to look like Jesus to other people. And we can try and do that ourselves. I've got to tell you, there's a whole bunch of energy, a whole bunch of pain, a whole bunch of frustration because it will never, ever, ever work. Or we can pour our energy into our relationship with Jesus and let God's Word set us free. Can I encourage you? God needs to set you free. God needs to change you into His likeness. God means to use you in other people’s lives. That's freedom!
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