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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The Blessing of Joy // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 8
01/15/2025
The Blessing of Joy // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 8
I spent a good chunk of my life looking for happiness, but I never found what I was looking for. Problem with happiness is that it’s linked to our circumstances – can’t be happy if something difficult is happening. Turns out, I wasn’t looking for happiness at all. What I longed for, was joy. It’s just back then, I didn’t realise that, because I didn’t know what joy was. I ask people this question, “what do you want out of life?” And 99% of them will answer, “I just want to be happy”. Why not? After all who wants to be sad all the time? Who wants to live out their lives in a darkness when the light of happiness beckons just around the corner? But you know happiness isn’t always what life dishes up is it? As much as we want to be happy all the time it just doesn’t seem to work out that way. In fact happiness, many times in our lives, can be an elusive quality. And the reason is, pretty much, happiness depends on our circumstances, the things going on around us. I mean we’re not happy when we’re sick are we? We’re not happy when someone’s giving us a hard time. We’re not happy when we’re struggling financially or when someone we love is suffering or whatever it is. There are lots of circumstances where happiness simply can’t co exist with what’s going on in our lives. Would you agree? So as much as it’s something just about everyone aspires to it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Happiness is linked to our circumstances and when we say that we want to be happy what we’re really saying is that we want all of our circumstances to be favourable all of the time. ‘Easy street’, that’s happiness. Well my friend life just isn’t like that is it? And so when we come back to looking at this promise that Jesus made about an abundant life it’s easy to imagine that it’s a sham. It’s an unrealistic promise. The sort the politicians make before an election only to renege once you’ve voted them in. I’m not saying all politician’s promises are like that but you know what I’m saying. In my country at least many of the promises made during an election will never eventuate. And so happiness is a bit like the mirage in the desert, it can be illusory. Jesus said: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. Now surely if I’m going to have an abundant life like Jesus promised here, surely I’d have to be happy, right? Well in unpacking and understanding this promise so far this week we’ve been looking at how the Apostle Paul summed up what the Kingdom of God is all about in our lives. People back then when Jesus and later the disciples were going around talking about God’s Kingdom, people imagined it was something physical, that there was this Roman Empire that was THE kingdom, they’d taken over the whole known world. But there’d been other kingdoms before that. So they were kind of expecting Jesus to come riding in on His shiny white steed with His sword held high, leading a mighty army to boot the Romans out of Israel. That pretty much was what the Kingdom of God meant to them. But Jesus had quite a different take. In fact a completely different take, Luke chapter 17 beginning at verse 20: Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming and He answered, ‘the Kingdom of God isn’t coming with things that can be observed. Nor will they say look, here it is or there it is. For in fact the Kingdom of God is among you. So when it comes to Jesus coming to this earth in order that we can have life and have it abundantly it makes sense to me not to look at it from a human perspective but from the perspective of God’s Kingdom. Which is why we’ve been unpacking Paul’s nutshell of what the Kingdom is all about in our lives; Romans chapter 14, verse 17: The Kingdom of God isn’t about food and drink but about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And so far this week on the program we’ve looked at the first two of those. Righteousness, a right standing with God that we live out in relationship with Him and secondly peace, the sort of peace that Jesus brings, a peace that surpasses all understanding. And as I said yesterday if we stopped and thought about this whole abundant life thing for just a little while and thought, “If I want an abundant life what would be right up there, right at the top of my list, numbers 1, 2 and 3?” I think we’d come up with the same list. Righteousness, a right standing with God; finally the enmity between us and God is gone; finally the threat of judgement is gone; finally we’re where we’re meant to be, back in relationship and right standing with God. Secondly, peace. Is there anyone on this planet who doesn’t want to have peace in every part of their lives? The absence of strife. And thirdly joy. A deep delight that springs out of a relationship with God. A joy that transcends the ups and downs of life. A deep joy that’s there 24/7. Now you know something, I spent the first 36 years of my life looking for happiness. I left no stone unturned in my quest for happiness. Maybe I’ll find it in wealth, maybe it’s the big house, maybe it’s the big expensive car, maybe it’s getting married, maybe it’s having children, maybe it’s status, career, fame, recognition. Winning at everything I set my hand to. It was all about winning for me back then. Believe you me I looked under every rock, I was persistent and other than some fleeting experiences of happiness I never found it. I left no stone unturned. I tried everything but happiness wasn’t something that came to live in my life. I just could never find that. Why? Because unbeknown to me I wasn’t so much yearning for happiness, I was yearning for something deeper, something much more lasting and abiding. What I was after was joy. And joy’s different to happiness in that it doesn’t rely on our circumstances. It doesn’t come from out there. The joy of the Lord comes from within. It’s a well inside us that bubbles up no matter what’s going on, on the outside. Can I tell you? On my darkest days in life I have experienced the joy of the Lord. You can’t do that with happiness. To be happy things out there have to be on the up and up but I’ve experienced great joy right smack bang in the middle of great pain. How? Why? Because it’s a joy that comes from God and that well never runs dry. Let’s listen again to what Paul wrote of the Kingdom of God was all about. Romans chapter 14, verse 17: For the Kingdom of God is not about food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Do you see? Righteousness, peace, joy, they come when we’re immersed in the Holy Spirit. They come from Him not from us and Jesus described how this Spirit of God works through us. John chapter 7 beginning at verse 37: Jesus was standing there, He cried out, ‘let anyone who’s thirsty come to me and let anyone who believes in me drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’. Now He said this about the Spirit which believers in Him were to receive. For as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified. The joy of the Lord which comes from the Spirit of God within us is like that. It bubbles up and then it flows out of the centre of who we are, out of our hearts, out of our bellies like rivers. Not a tiny little stream, not even one modest or large river but rivers of living water. A Nile and a Ganges, and a Mississippi and a Rhine, and an Amazon; rivers of living water. The Holy Spirit with His righteousness and peace and joy flows up out of us like a flood tide of blessing from rivers of living water into the lives of other people when we yield our lives, when we turn them back and live them for God. That’s what the Kingdom of God is and do you know what this overflow sounds like to me? It sounds like life in all its abundance and that’s exactly what Jesus promised.
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The Blessing of Peace // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 7
01/14/2025
The Blessing of Peace // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 7
I don’t think there’s a single person on this planet, who doesn’t want to have peace in their lives. A cessation of conflict and wrangling and fighting. Of course conflict comes in many different forms – the words, is a conflict with God. Turns out that one of the things Jesus wants to bless us with, is peace. We’re looking this week at Jesus’ outrageous promise of an abundant life. Have a listen, John chapter 10 verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. And as we unpack that promise, it’s worth unpacking isn’t it? What I’m keen to do is that we don’t misinterpret it. Because it isn’t something we can roll around in, like a pig in mud, imagining somehow that Jesus promised here to put us on “easy street”. The easiest thing in the world is for us to assume that Jesus wants to bless us just financially or in some other physical way. And of course sometimes He does, but the blessings of the Kingdom of God are far greater, far richer than anything this world has to offer and anyone, anyone who’s ever chased after wealth and fame and fortune will tell you that those things never ever satisfy the deep yearning inside. Am I right? Jesus didn’t come to give us things the way the world does. He came to give us the blessing of the Kingdom of God in our lives, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. That’s the real deal, that’s what He died on that cross to give us, that’s what He rose again to bring us. An abundance of life, a rich life, literally, a super abundant life, life in vivid technicolour. And today, today we’re going to take a look at the blessing of peace. Righteousness, we looked at that yesterday, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Those three in a nutshell are what the Kingdom of God brings into our lives. They are the fountain of blessing. And that little troika is put together by the Apostle Paul in dealing with the controversy over religious rules to do with food and drink that was raging back in the 1st century Church. And in responding to that in his letter to the Romans he’s saying, “Guys, guys, you’ve got a hold of the wrong end of the stick, don’t you get it?” Romans chapter 14, verse 17: The Kingdom of God isn’t about food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. See that’s the context, because in exactly the same way as some people were taking a human worldly perspective on God’s Kingdom over religious rules back then, you and I we can easily take a worldly view of this promise that Jesus made of an abundant life through our consumer oriented 21st century mindset. I mean when you hear the promise of an abundant life what’s the first thing that springs to mind? Enough money to get by, being able to have a few of those luxuries, paying off the credit card, “easy street”; I mean it’s the natural reaction right? But this isn’t what Jesus was saying. As I said last week on the program this promise of an abundant life comes set in the context of a parable of a shepherd and his sheep. And a shepherd and his sheep lived difficult and dangerous lives out there in search for pasture where thieves often came and wild animals came to ravage the flock. Where, sometimes the shepherd had to lay down his life for his sheep. There’s nothing easy street about that little lot is there? But if we stopped and thought about this whole abundant life thing for just a little while and thought, “If I want an abundant life what would be up there? Right up the top of the list. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 on my list of what it means to have a rich and abundant life.” I think we’d come up with exactly the same list as Paul, righteousness, a right standing with God, finally the enmity between us and God is gone. Finally the threat of judgement is gone. Finally, where we’re meant to be back in a relationship with God and right standing with Him; so righteousness. Secondly, peace. Is there anyone among us that doesn’t want peace on every side in our life? The absence of strife. And thirdly, joy; a deep delight that springs out of our relationship with God. A joy that transcends the ups and downs of life. A deep joy that’s there 24/7. So today we’re going to talk about peace and again remember we’re not talking a worldly view of peace here, we’re talking of a Godly view of peace and that’s exactly what Jesus instructed His disciples to do when He gave them His peace. See Jesus was about to be crucified, the disciples knew that, they were in fear for their own lives as well. It was a scary, scary time. They’d been following this amazing Jesus around for three and a half years. His miracles and His teaching and now, all of a sudden, the dark clouds of death hung over their future and Jesus says to them, He says, John chapter 14, verse 27: Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. I don’t give it to you as the world gives, don’t let your hearts be troubled, do not let them be afraid. You see this? Peace not from the world’s perspective, not the way the world gives it to you, Jesus is saying take my peace, my deep inner peace. The security, the safety, that comes from being one of my disciples. The sort of peace that sheep have when they’re safe in the protection of the one true shepherd, the shepherd who’s prepared to lay down his life for his sheep. And the clear thing that Jesus is saying to them is this, “Look my peace isn’t the same as the peace the world offers you. That’s why your hearts shouldn’t be troubled. That’s why you needn’t be afraid.” And as I’ve said previously that promise of an abundant life in John chapter 10, verse 10 comes set in a story of difficult, dangerous existence of a shepherd and his sheep. It comes set not wrapped in cotton wool but in the reality of life and it’s for that reason, the cold hard reality of life that you and I need peace. Without that how can we have an abundant life? How can we? As I look back on my decade and a half of now walking with Jesus, through thick and thin, up and down, dark and light, through some great places and some places that look very much like that valley of the shadow of death that Psalm 23 talks about, His peace is one of the things that I value most about my relationship with Him. A peace that lasts through every situation because it’s His peace, it’s His way, not the world’s peace, the world’s way. Paul the Apostle in Philippians chapter 4 writes about a peace that surpasses all understanding. That guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. I so relate to that because so often this peace from Jesus in a worldly sense it doesn’t make sense. It completely defies logic and surpasses all understanding because I should be afraid in this situation. I should be panicking. I should be running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but instead I have a deep inner peace. Psalm 23 verse 4: Even though I walk through the darkest valley I will fear no evil for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff they comfort me. That’s the peace that Jesus brings. Friend, it is better, better than any bauble, any trinket that this world has to offer. This deep inner peace that Jesus brings. A peace delivered into our very beings by the Holy Spirit Himself and it’s a peace that only comes when first we have a right standing with God through Jesus. That’s why Paul and his list of three things that the Kingdom of God is about kicks off with righteousness first, then peace because peace flows out of our relationship with God when we have a right standing with Him through Jesus. And then, once we have this relationship with God and the peace that comes out of that, the next thing, the icing on the cake almost, is joy. The Joy of the Lord which is our strength.
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The Blessing of Righteousness // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 6
01/13/2025
The Blessing of Righteousness // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 6
My hunch is, whether we like it or not, that we’ve been conditioned into thinking that God’s blessing has something to do with being healthy, wealthy and wise. Hmm – and yet God’s idea of blessing is something entirely different. It begins with the blessing of righteousness. Sounds odd I know – but there’s an abundance of blessing in this thing called “righteousness”. Well last week we kicked off a discussion on the program about the promise Jesus made, an outrageous promise in fact, of an abundant life. Here it is, have a listen, John chapter 10 verse 10, Jesus said: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And I guess the reason it’s so outrageous is that firstly Jesus is saying His purpose in coming to earth and stepping out of heaven into this physical dimension, taking on flesh, becoming a man, dying on the cross, rising again, all that, the reason He did all that was what? That we may have life and have it abundantly. And it is for us because this promise is made in the context of a parable where Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the true shepherd and we are His flock. It’s a beautiful picture with a deep and rich meaning to the agrarian audience to which He said it back in the 1st century. An abundant life. What does that mean though? I had a student ask me that once, when I was lecturing at a Bible college. I was rabbiting on about this abundant life thing as though the idea of an abundant life is completely obvious to everyone, and one of the students, a woman in her sixties, asked me. She said, “What is an abundant life?” You know something, I think that’s a really, really good question. A little while ago we aired a teaching series called ‘Financially Secure Once And For All’. And of course our team here at Christianityworks turned it into a CD and it was featured in one of our newsletters that we send to our supporters. It was all about the fact that God means us not to find our security in money and wealth but in Him however much we may or may not have when in comes to financial wealth. See my great concern is that in this world where the machinery of advertising tells us that the only way we can be happy is to buy this product that they’re pitching to us in this ad. My concern is that many Christians have fallen for that lie. So that’s what that series was all about, “Financially Secure Once And For All”. It wasn’t about how to get enough money to be secure, it wasn’t about how God would pour money out of heaven if we honoured Him, but on how to experience God’s security and safety irrespective of the size of our bank account. Now our team sent an email out to our supporter’s base and I was interested in the response of one man. He came straight back with an incredibly sharp email declaring that he couldn’t support anyone who preaches this prosperity doctrine. You know the false idea that if you believe in God the right way and give lots of money to whoever it is preaching that day, if you do that you’ll be rich. God will make you healthy and wealthy and wise. Big house, big car, great job on “easy street”. Friend, that is a false doctrine. That is a false belief and it’s a false understanding and we should have nothing to do with that because it puts our own wealth at the heart of things rather than God’s glory. And that’s not it, simply not what we’re called to do. Anyhow the point of me telling you this story is that the moment I open my mouth about financial security the man who wrote me that sharp email immediately assumed I was talking about monetary blessing from God. But that was in fact the complete opposite of what I talked about in that series. What I was talking about was having God’s security irrespective of how much or how little money we might have. And I wonder whether it isn’t the obvious thing to fall into, precisely the same wrong assumption when we speak of an abundant life, when we listen to Jesus’ promise that He came to give us an abundant life. That abundance means healthy, wealthy, wise, easy street, all good, hunky dory, tickety boo. And so people look at their lives and think, “Well you know, I don’t fall into that category, I’m not healthy, wealthy and wise. I’m on “struggle street”, not on “easy street“. My life is definitely not all good therefore this promise is either false or it’s just not for me.” Do you see my point? We can be like the man who sent me that sharp email, we judge Jesus wrongly. We judge what He said from our worldly standpoint rather than from a Godly one. Back in the early Church in the 1st century a controversy arose about what foods they could eat and what drinks they could drink. Remember early Christians mostly came out of Judaism with its legal demands about a whole range of things including food and drink. The Apostle Paul was addressing this controversy in a letter to the Roman Church and the crux of what he had to say to them was this, Romans chapter 14, verse 17. He said: For the Kingdom of God is not food nor drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Don’t you love that? The Kingdom of God, boys and girls, stop looking at it from a worldly point of view ’cause it’s not worldly. Because if you look at it from a worldly point of view you’re going to completely miss the point. God’s Kingdom isn’t about physical things, it’s not about food or drink or wealth or anything like that. It’s something that happens inside of you when you lay down your life for Jesus, you lay down your worldly desires, you lay down everything you want for this Jesus who laid down His life for us. It’s about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And today briefly I want to look at the first of those, righteousness, because that’s the heart of an abundant life. Righteousness is a word that’s bandied around lots and lots and lots in Christian circles but what does it actually mean? Well righteousness means a right standing with God. It means the state that we should be in, a condition in which we are acceptable to a Holy perfect God. We’ve all sinned, we’ve all rebelled, we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. That means there is an enmity and hostility between us and God. But the moment we accept Jesus, the forgiveness we have through His sacrifice on that cross, well there’s peace because the debt for our sin which is death has been paid by Jesus and now through our faith in Him and what He’s done God sees us as righteousness. Just as a criminal who’s paid his debt in prison. Once he’s released he’s now right with the law so we are right with God, not because we paid the price but because Jesus did and our trust is in Him. That’s why elsewhere in this letter to the Romans that Paul writes: Therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand. See we’re back where we should be, we are justified, we are made right with God through our faith in Jesus and so we have peace with God through Him. The war’s over. Running away from God is over. Being afraid is over. And then does Jesus say, “okay, well look just now keep on doing all the things you were doing that’s wrong? That’s fine. Keep sinning, I don’t mind.” No. Just as He said to the woman caught in adultery whom the crowds had condemned and wanted to stone to death in Romans chapter 8, verse 11. Jesus said: Neither do I condemn you. Go your way and from now on do not sin again. So we’re forgiven, we’re back in a relationship with God and then God calls us to go and live our lives and stop doing the stuff that caused the problem in the first place. Do you get it? God wants us to turn back to Him not just by saying stuff but by letting Him change our lives, by living them for Him. That’s righteousness right there. It’s something that God gives us as His free gift through Jesus, a right standing with Him and then something that we’re called to live out in our lives. That’s what Jesus came to give us, an abundant life. A life that begins with God’s righteousness given freely to us and that then continues in that righteousness and there’s the blessing. You see because sin has consequences. Sin is the thief that comes to steal and kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life, real life, in all its abundance. Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
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Above and Not Below // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 5
01/10/2025
Above and Not Below // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 5
Life can be a grind, and frankly life can get us down. We all know that. And so our view of what life is, and what it should be, becomes all twisted – inside out and upside down. So it’s time to get things right way up again. It’s time to discover what God has to say about the life He wants for you. This week on the program we’ve kicked off a new series where we’ve been looking at the promise that Jesus made to give us an abundant life. Here it is again in case you missed it earlier in the week. John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. It’s a beautiful promise and it’s one that’s always touched my heart. It’s a promise from Jesus that I take seriously. He came so that you and I could have life and not just have life but have it in all its abundance. Now abundance is an amazing word isn’t it? It means plenty, overflow, a very large quantity of something. But what if I told you that the original Greek word used here for abundance literally means super abundance. More than abundant, over the top abundant, because that’s exactly what it means. That’s Jesus’ promise and yet the promise is made here as a point of comparison and the promise is the second part of the verse, the first part is about something else, it’s about the thief he’s called here in the story: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. And in fact as we’ve seen earlier this week on the program this whole story where Jesus teaches us that He is the good and true shepherd of us, the sheep, is about the authenticity of who Jesus is as that shepherd versus the sham of the impostors. Question is: why did Jesus make this beautiful promise in such a context? Well of course the thief in the story is the devil and the original Greek word for the devil is diabolos which is the word from which we get our English word diabolical. It means a slanderer, a false accuser and elsewhere in the New Testament, in Revelations chapter 12 verse 9, the devil is also called the deceiver; someone who tricks people and leads them astray away from the right path or away from the truth into error. That’s the devil here in this story, a thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And so here Jesus presents us with an alternative, the thief or the true Shepherd, the hireling or the true Shepherd. The people who come into the sheepfold, climbing over the walls or the true Shepherd who comes to the front gate. Now you might say to me, well there’s no real alternative, I don’t want the impostors, I don’t want a thief, I want the real thing, I don’t want someone who steals, kills and destroys, I want Jesus the good Shepherd. I will have the good Shepherd thank you very much, who came to give me a super abundant life. Of course it’s an obvious choice in the light of Jesus’ parable of the good shepherd here. He means for it to be so obvious because it is obvious. When you stop and think about it the problem is we often don’t stop, we often don’t think about it because the devil doesn’t always come to us looking like a thief, you know with a little black beanie on. Quite to the contrary in fact; 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 14 says: That satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Isn’t that true? The whole point of temptation is that it’s seductive. Evil comes to us wrapped in a wrapper that cries out to us, “Open me, come follow me, take me I’m good, I’ll bless you.” The very first deception and temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden was exactly that. Evil was dressed up as having a benefit, that’s why it’s so diabolical, that’s why the devil is a liar and a deceiver. And so we’re seduced into his lies and all of a sudden we’re in the hands of the thief who comes only to steal, kill and destroy. To rob us of the super abundant life that Jesus came to give us because you know what? He came disguising himself as an angel of light. Do you see the power of this parable? Do you see what’s going on here? God wants to bless us, God wants to heap His super abundant blessing into our lives but like any father when his children are rebelling He can’t bless us because the blessing would reward the rebellion. When my children played up sometimes when they were young the tap of dad’s blessing turned off. Sometimes they were punished by removal of a privilege, no internet access for a few months. Why? Was I being mean? No, because I was teaching them right from wrong and the basis of that lesson is that blessing comes when you do right and you lose it when you do wrong. Parents do that because A) they love their children and B) we’re wired to be like that. One of the very worst things we can do and you see it a lot these days is to continue to bless our children when they are doing wrong. I want you to have a listen to one of the best explanations of the link between obedience and blessing that I’ve found in God’s Word. It comes from Deuteronomy chapter 28 beginning at verse 1. Listen carefully to what God says to His people: If you only obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all His commandments that I am commanding you today the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord. Blessed shall be your city and blessed shall be your field, blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed you will be when you come in and blessed you shall be when you go out. The Lord will cause the enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you in seven ways. The Lord will command His blessing upon you in your barns and in all you undertake, He will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as His holy people as He has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they will be afraid of you. The Lord will make you abound in prosperity and the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your livestock, the fruit of your ground in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to you. The Lord will open for you His rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings. You will lend to many nations but you will not borrow. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be only at the top and not at the bottom. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you today by diligently observing them and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today either to the right or to the left following other God’s to serve them. But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all His commands and decrees which I am commanding you today then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall be the city. Cursed shall be your field. And it goes on and lists a whole bunch of curses. Do you see the causal link between obedience and blessing, disobedience and the removal of that blessing just as in any relationship between parent and child? But the thing that strikes me here is the magnitude of the blessing. Verse 2 of Deuteronomy 28: All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord. Don’t you love how the blessings will overtake you? They will be super-abundant just as Jesus said. Verse 13: The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall only be at the top and not the bottom. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you today. Friend, God wants to bless us, super abundantly so that the blessing chases us down the street and overtakes us. Do you get it? But that blessing happens when we are close to the good shepherd, safe in His care. Not when we follow the thief and let him plunder our lives through deception and temptation. Our Dad in heaven truly does want us to be the head and not the tail, to be above and not below. What father wouldn’t want that for his children?
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A Child in the Father's House // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 4
01/09/2025
A Child in the Father's House // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 4
One of the ways that God explains His relationship with us, is that He is our Father, and we are His children. And actually, when you think about it, a father–child relationship is, or at least should be – an incredible blessing. So, if God’s our Father, and we’re His children – shouldn’t that be … a blessing? We’re chatting together this week on the program about living out the abundant life that Jesus promised us. A life overflowing with His grace and mercy, and love and peace, and joy and blessing. By that we don’t always mean abundant finances or complete safety. God has a tendency not to wrap us in cotton wool but to be with us out there in life, in the good times and the bad with His presence, which is what gives us that sense of overflow, that sense of abundance. It’s funny how most of us in our heart of hearts desire a life that’s, well perfect. Blessed in every way, every relationship perfect, finances perfect, home life perfect, our own sense of self-perfect, everything’s perfect. But life just isn’t like that. In fact as you and I think back on our lives thus far chances are that there are very few times, if ever, where we could tick the box in every part of our lives as having been perfect. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And yet somehow we yearn secretly, even subconsciously for this time in our lives when everything’s going to be perfect and the mere fact that it isn’t can be so disappointing to so many people. And yet I come back to the fact that Jesus promised this abundant life – not wrapped away somewhere in cotton wool, but out there in this precarious sometimes threatening place that we call ‘life’. This is in fact is what He said. John chapter 10 beginning at verse 1: Truly I tell you anyone who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, the sheep hear his voice, he calls his own by name and leads them out. When he’s brought out all his own he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger but they’ll run away from him because they don’t know his voice.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they did not understand what He was saying. So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. As we saw yesterday the life of a shepherd and the lives of sheep back there in the 1st century were indeed precarious. The shepherd would take his flock out onto the rocky plateau of Israel in search of pasture. There were many threats, thieves, wild animals and it wasn’t unusual for the shepherd to have to defend his sheep sometimes with his own life. And interestingly in that beautiful prayer that Jesus prayed just before He was crucified, He actually said this about you and me to His Father as well, John chapter 17, verses 12 and 15: While I was with them I protected them in Your name that You have given me. I guarded them and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. I’m not asking You to take them out of the world but I ask You to protect them from the evil one. In other words, “Dad, let’s not take them out of all these situations and wrap them in cotton wool but rather let’s be there with them and protect them from the evil one.” Do you see how different God’s perspective is? His promise is for an abundant life not a perfect one and I have to tell you as I sat and thought about that a lot it makes an enormous amount of sense to me. I’m a father, I have children, I love them dearly. When they were young they lived with my wife Jacqui and me in our house under our care and our protection with our provision as is right. That’s why God gives us children and that’s why He gives children parents. But there comes a time and in fact it starts quite early, where as they grow up we as good parents give them more and more responsibility for themselves. Because one of the main parts of growing up is shifting the responsibility for their care from the parents to the children as they become capable of accepting that responsibility. Not always easy and it’s one of the reasons that teenage years can be so stressful because often teenagers and I know this was true of me as a teenager, they want to behave like children and be treated like adults. In other words they still want their parents to do all the things they ever did for them when they were kids and incapable of doing them back then, whilst at the same time giving them all the freedoms that an adult has. Tension with a capital ‘T’; children in effect want the best of both worlds, the perfect life. Sound familiar? And it’s the same often in our relationship with God. We want Him to fix everything, make everything perfect in our lives whilst at the same time we do things that don’t honour Him and those things, which He calls sin, actually have consequences. And yet He’s the perfect Father, have a listen, Romans chapter 8 beginning at verse 12: So then brothers and sisters we are dead as not to the flesh, to live in accordance to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh you will die. But if by the Spirit you’ll put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, for you didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you’ve received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba Father’, it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If in fact we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. It’s a beautiful passage. One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible because it puts everything into perspective for me. Sometimes in the cut and thrust and hurts of life we lose our heavenly perspective, we lose sight of the fact that God is indeed our Father, in fact Jesus called Him ‘Abba’ which literally means Dad. If we live our lives for Him, if we choose to be led by the Spirit of God rather than by the desires of our flesh then we are children of God. And deep down if we’ll let Him the Spirit of God witnesses to us that we are His children, the children of the living God. That means something. It means what Jesus prayed for you and me back there in the Garden of Gethsemane. It means God’s protection from the evil one rather than being wrapped completely in cotton wool. Do you see the difference? God wants us to be out there in life just as you and I as parents want our children to be out there in life and we’ll help them and protect them where we can but they need to grow up, they need to live their lives and they need to suffer the consequences of the things they do wrong because its the only way that they learn. I for one would hate to be wrapped in cotton wool by God. I want to experience life and all that it’s meant to be and that means sometimes, well sometimes we get hurt but all along God is my Father. Father’s know this, when our children grow up we don’t stop being their father, we don’t stop being there to help and to advise when they need, we don’t stop caring for them and one day they will receive their inheritance from us. Same with our Dad God, we are and always will be His children and His protection is always available to us from the evil one. Can I tell you something? Somewhere in that knowledge, deep within, lies a source of His abundance in my life. He loves me, He wants me to know Him and to honour Him and to be all that He made me to be, to experience every day that He wrote for me in His book even before any of them ever existed. That’s where abundance begins, as a child of the Father who is God who created us and created us to live a life in all its abundance.
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A Super-Abundant Life // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 3
01/08/2025
A Super-Abundant Life // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 3
If there’s one thing we can all agree on about Jesus it’s that He didn’t do anything by half measures. No –– He threw Himself into things and when He said something, He meant it. So – when He promised us an “abundant life” – the words in the original Greek language literally mean – a super–abundant life! Told you – He doesn’t do anything by halves! I don’t think I know a single person who doesn’t want to enjoy their lives. And I guess when we think about it that doesn’t always mean happiness. Happiness is great, it’s great to feel on top of the world but then some of the most satisfying moments in life don’t always involve happiness. You can be exhausted, a complete wreck and yet still experience a deep sense of satisfaction at what you’ve just been through or achieved. Or you can experience a deep sense of contentment in life even if all our circumstances and relationships and finances and all those things aren’t quite what we want them to be. Then we can experience a sense of peace knowing that we’re safe even though we might have some things going on in our lives that might be a threat. Or we can even experience fulfilment at being comfortable with who we are and what we’re able to do with our lives and even more being happy to let go of aspiring to things that perhaps we’ll never be able to do. Do you see my point? Happiness ain’t everything. There are so many other things that go into making a full and rich and abundant life. And it’s that abundance that we’re taking a look at this week on the program. And with good reason, an abundant life is something that Jesus promised to His disciples. For me one of the most fantastic revelations of God and this promise from Jesus of an abundant life is that everything in my life doesn’t have to be going perfectly well for me to be living an abundant life. Now let me say that again because I believe this is incredibly important. Everything in my life doesn’t have to be going perfectly well for me to be living an abundant life. It’s a huge revelation because I don’t think I can remember a single time in my life, maybe a month or two here or there but overall very few times in my life where absolutely everything has been going perfectly. Every relationship, everything to do with my finances, everything to do with my work, everything to do with my hopes and my dreams and my aspirations; Do you know what I mean? There’s always something there to take the shine or the gloss off life. The Apostle Paul found that too, he had a thorn in his flesh. Now we’re not quite sure whether that was a physical or a spiritual ailment. The Holy Spirit in His wisdom chose not to tell us which I think is a good thing too. But have a listen to Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 12 beginning at verse 7. He writes: To keep me from being too elated a thorn was given me in the flesh. A messenger of satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this that it would leave me but He said to me, ‘my grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. You see this from a guy who writes almost half the Books in the New Testament. There’s always something isn’t there? Always some thorn in the flesh, and I wonder if that isn’t just God’s plan. I wonder if everything was always going swimmingly well in my life whether I’d even bother seeking God out. I wonder if everything in my life was perfect whether I’d be of any use to you in these radio programs ’cause much of what I talk about is, in fact pretty much all of it is born out of the struggles and the realities of life, bringing God’s wisdom to bear in our lives. And interestingly this passage where Jesus talks about His promise of giving us an abundant life is set amidst a struggle. Let’s have another look at it in case you missed over the last few days. John chapter 10 beginning at verse 1: Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, anyone who doesn’t enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he’s brought out all his own he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they’ll run away from him because they don’t know the voice of strangers.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they didn’t understand what He was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and bandits but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who isn’t the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.’ See the life of a shepherd was a hard one. There were thieves and robbers and wild animals and the shepherd was called to go out there on the plains and find pasture and protect the sheep with his life. And in fact many a time it did cost the shepherd his life back then. Without the shepherd the life of a sheep was a precarious one. A sheep out there on its own would be a sitting duck to be picked off by a wolf, or stolen, or fall down some ravine. Jesus here is telling a story about life and death struggle. It’s a parable that reaches deep into the realities of your life and mine. It’s a story about a life lived out in a challenging world in which Jesus Himself, through His death and resurrection, becomes our true Shepherd. A Pastor friend of mine told me a story once about ministering in a country area. One of his parishioners was a farmer of sheep and the farmer told him that when he was a young lad he always observed how the sheep would be standing grazing but when his dad would come into the field they often laid down. So he asked his father about that, who told him that sheep will only lie down pretty much when they feel safe and that when the shepherd is close they know that they’re safe which is why they’ll often take the opportunity to lie down at that point. Brings a whole new meaning to Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me by still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley I fear no evil for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I’ll dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. So often an abundant life is not about being taken out of difficult circumstances. It’s why Jesus tells this story out there in the life and death struggle of a shepherd and his sheep. It’s about experiencing the peace and the protection of Jesus, the one true shepherd, right out there in the middle of the difficult circumstances. And the incredible power of that is this. If we choose this sort of an abundant life, the one that Jesus has to offer, not the one the world is dangling under our noses. Not the false one, not the one that the thief is dangling under us, he comes only to steal, kill and destroy. No, if we choose the true authentic shepherd and follow Him and choose the abundance of life that He offers and it doesn’t matter what our circumstances are, good, bad, up, down, positive or negative. It doesn’t matter because even though we may walk through the darkest valley we need fear no evil because He’s with us. People sometimes ask me, “Berni how can you be so up beat in the middle of a trial?” My answer is, “This is how, because I’ve decided, albeit imperfectly a lot of days, to live my abundant life in Jesus, the abundant life that He promised.”
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The Thief and His Plan // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 2
01/07/2025
The Thief and His Plan // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 2
Jesus promised each of his disciples – that’s anyone who believes in Him – an abundant life. Yeah, right!! But in the same breath – in the very same verse in the Bible, he also says that there’s a thief – and all the thief is interested in is to steal, kill and destroy. Well – if Jesus talked about him – this thief – then maybe it’s worth you and me taking a closer look. I was speaking recently with a group of people, it was a Church service on a Sunday morning and I asked them this question, “Is there anybody here in this room today who doesn’t have at least one thing going on in their lives that hurts? One thing they wish wasn’t there, one thing that they want God to heal or to change or to solve or to take away?” If you don’t have at least one such thing in your life raise your hand in the air. There would have been, I’m guessing, over a hundred people in the room. Silence. I cast my eyes around the room, I just allowed the silence to hang there momentarily and not a single hand went up in the air, not one. These were all people who believed in Jesus. These were all people who had heard Jesus say, John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. They all heard Jesus promise them an abundant life. Literally what Jesus says here, the original Greek language, it means a super abundant life and yet everybody had something in their lives that was troubling them and you know what it’s like, your whole body can be healthy but you jam your finger in a door and the excruciating pain in that one finger is all you can think about. The fact that the rest of your life is just fine at that point is pretty much irrelevant; it’s all about that one bit that hurts. It’s true isn’t it? It is so easy to live our lives focusing on that one bit in our lives that hurts; The difficult relationship, the financial pressure, the problem at work, the worry about what other people are thinking about us. It’s pretty much different for each one of us but when we have that one thing, or perhaps even two or three, that ache that we wish would just go away then it consumes us. It robs us of life. Now this promise of Jesus to give us an abundant life comes in the context of a much wider story. So let’s have a listen to what He says. John chapter 10 beginning at verse 1, He said: Truly I tell you anyone who doesn’t enter the sheep fold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gate keeper opens the gate for him and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he’s brought out all his own he goes ahead of them and the sheep will follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger but they’ll run away from him because they do not know the voice of a stranger.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they didn’t understand what He was saying to them So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who isn’t the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.’ This was a very familiar story to those who were listening. They knew the profession of a shepherd was one of honour, one of protecting his sheep. They knew that as a shepherd led his sheep out over the stony plateau of Israel in search of pasture, thieves would often attack to try and steal the sheep. Wild animals would sometimes attack to steal a sheep and eat it for dinner. It was the reality of life for a shepherd. And a true shepherd’s job was to defend his flock. But let’s focus for a moment in this story on the thief. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus is telling a parable here, a parable that’s meant to reach into our lives. And the thief in this story is the enemy, the devil, the tempter, the deceiver he’s referred to elsewhere. The one who dangles glittery baubles under our noses, trinkets and treasures that are so alluring, so seductive they appear to promise so much. Can he get us to wander off? And other times he comes simply to attack us through circumstances, through other people. We see that in Job’s story in the Old Testament, how the devil uses financial collapse, sickness, family breakdown, even so called friends to attack Job. Paul, the Apostle gives us a glimpse into the spiritual realm to tell us what’s going on when we’re under attack from this enemy, this thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy. Ephesians chapter 6 beginning at verse 12 Paul writes: Our struggle isn’t against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. See there’s a spiritual dimension to life and if we ignore that we do so at our peril. There is a devil, he is our enemy and sometimes he comes dressed as an angel of light to deceive us. Other times he sneaks up like a thief or he attacks openly like a wolf. All that is in the Bible and we ignore this, this spiritual dimension of evil at our peril. But look at it with me again if you will at what Jesus says about Himself: O again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you I’m the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and bandits but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I’m the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.’ In summer the shepherds would stay out over night with their flocks. They’d roam further because it was warmer and dotted around the place on the plateau were pens that had been built using dense hedges. So by night the shepherd would lead his sheep into one of these pens but the pens had no gate so he would sleep in the opening, in the gateway. He, in effect, became the gate to keep the sheep in over night safe and sound so none would wander off and to keep the thieves and the wild animals out. He would fight any that came with his shepherd staff and his rod, a kind of club with spikes. He was the gate, he was their safety. He gave them protection and so safety and peace. And that is Jesus in our lives today my friend, make no mistake about it. The thief will come to steal, kill and destroy. To rob us of the abundant life that Jesus has planned. The wild animals will come to tear at our flesh and to corrupt our flesh. And yes we could wander off in our own direction but out there on our own you and I are sitting ducks. The place of safety is with Jesus. The place of safety is close to our shepherd, the true shepherd who laid down His life for us. Think about it, if we’re constantly being ravaged by the devil how can we possibly be having an abundant life? Yep there are going to be struggles in our lives and when they come, when things hurt the place to go is Jesus, the one true shepherd; the one who lays down His life for His sheep. He is meant to be our refuge. He can and He will protect us. What a pity, so many suffer through things alone when all along Jesus is waiting. You see the thief only comes to steal and kill and destroy but Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly.
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The Shepherd and His Flock // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 1
01/06/2025
The Shepherd and His Flock // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 1
When we hear Jesus promising us an abundant life – which is exactly what He does promise us – it’s easy to think “Yeah, right! Must be for someone else.” But actually … it’s not. It’s a promise for everyone who decides to follow Jesus. Question is – how does it work? How can we have an “abundant life”? As we race through life day after day one of the things that I think happens to us is that we somehow get conned or duped into the mantra of the times, ‘the great lie’ I call it. And that great lie goes something like this: If you earn lots of money and you spend it on this and this and this and this and this, this toy, these clothes, that holiday, this dining experience, if you live your life like that, then you’re going to be happy. Now that lie is as painful for the rich as it is for the poor. For the poor, people who simply don’t have much money, many who don’t even have enough food and shelter, they see this dream of wealth and it aches to think that they have so little and so many others have so much. It’s not fair. And for the wealthy this lie is just as much a pain but only different. They’re in a position to chase that dream; the only problem is that it’s like a mirage in the desert. When they get there, this place where they thought they’d arrive at, this place where having earned and spent the money on themselves they should be happy, they discover it’s a mirage, it’s a sham. And so they try again and again and again, many spend their whole lives chasing happiness only to be disappointed at every turn. And before you know it they’re looking back on a wasted life and that is so tragic. So what’s the answer? I think as we head into yet another new year now’s not a bad time to be asking these questions. What’s life all about? Am I going to be happy this year? And so that’s why today we’re kicking off a series of programs that I’ve called ‘An Abundant Life In Jesus’. Because so many of us have spent so much of our lives chasing happiness, me included. That’s what I was looking for and that’s what I could never find. So many of us wish we could be happy and yet we don’t really know what happiness is so we go looking for it in all sorts of places. Jesus promised something outrageous to His disciples, to all those who followed hard after Him. He promised them an abundant life, in fact a super abundant life. Sounds fantastic doesn’t it? Someone once asked me, “Okay but what does that actually mean, an abundant life?” That’s a good question. I mean a super abundant life sounds just perfect but what is it? What does it look like and how can we have it? Well let’s kick off by having a listen to what Jesus actually said. This passage comes from John chapter 10 beginning at verse 1. He said: Very truly I tell you anyone who does not enter the sheep fold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gate keeper opens the gate for him, the sheep hear his voice, he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he’s brought out all his own he goes ahead of them and the sheep will follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they didn’t understand what He was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and bandits but the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the gate, whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd, the shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who isn’t the shepherd and doesn’t own the sheep sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand doesn’t care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. Now that’s a really interesting passage, it’s a beautiful picture; the shepherd and his flock. Back in those days, let me explain, the shepherd normally had a small number of sheep, 50 to 100, and literally he knew each one of them by name. Now sheep, we sometimes think are stupid animals. They’re not, they’re actually quite bright. They’re problem simply is that they’re short sighted and so that’s why he calls them, they hear his voice and they go to him and then he goes ahead of them and they follow on behind him looking for pasture and water and the shepherd keeps them safe. Now being a shepherd was a tradition. It was handed down from father to son. A real shepherd would literally protect his sheep with his life from wild animals and robbers we’ll look at that tomorrow. So there’s the shepherd with his flock wandering the rocky plateau and in winter he’d bring them into the sheep fold in the town or the village which is what Jesus was talking about. He’d take them in and all the shepherds would basically bring their flocks into the same sheepfold. The next morning the shepherd, one by one, would come to the front gate, the real shepherd of each flock and because he had a personal relationship the sheep would know his voice and he would call them and they would go only when their shepherd came. Not with a stranger because they didn’t know the stranger’s voice. They would go with their shepherd. That’s exactly the picture that Jesus paints here. So this is a picture that the people had in their minds in 1st century Israel as Jesus was telling them this story; this winsome picture of the lonely shepherd tending his flock, protecting them with his life. That’s what Jesus was drawing on in this story but did you notice verse 6 of John chapter 10? Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they did not understand what He was saying to them. You and I, we wander through some difficult places in life, we truly do. When we’re young we think we’re invincible, we think huh, we can conquer every mountain, but life soon teaches us that we’re more of a small boat on a great and mighty ocean. And yes Jesus promises us an abundant life. Again we’ll look at what that means over the next couple of days, but look at the context; the context of this abundant life is as one of His sheep in His flock under the safety and the care of the true shepherd. See it’s this picture of safety and protection and of a shepherd who did in fact lay down His life to save us – to save us from the ravages of the devil; to save us from our own sin; to save us from God’s judgement. Storms will come and go, wild animals will come in life to tear at our flesh, thieves will come to kill and destroy, bad things will happen to good people. Is there any one of us who doesn’t have one thing, something in our lives right now that hurts? Something we wish wasn’t there. I mean is there? Jesus never ever, ever promised His disciples a comfortable ride. In fact quite to the contrary, He said to them, “Guys, if they persecuted me they’re certainly going to persecute you.” And at a time when His disciples were afraid, John chapter 16, verse 33. He said: I have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. For in this world you WILL face persecution but take courage I have conquered the world. The promise of an abundant life comes not as a promise to make all our circumstances and all our relationships and all our finances and all our futures rosy, that was never ever His promise. No, the promise of an abundant life comes to us in the context of sheep wandering the plateau with their shepherd in a dangerous place. It comes to us in the context of the realities and the rough and the tumble of life as we live our lives under the protection and the safety and the sacrificial love of this one true shepherd – Jesus: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And because of the world in which we live, that abundant life was purchased for you and me at a price, at a very great price.
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Singing a New Song // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 5
01/03/2025
Singing a New Song // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 5
Sometimes – sometimes God decides to do something radically new in our lives – it’s as though He puts a new song in our hearts. So what do you do with that? When we feel trapped by our circumstances, which happen to so many people, sometimes we need to change something inside. In a difficult relationship, sometimes we have to change our attitude or forgive someone. In our work, sometimes God might be calling us to a whole new thing that can be scary so we need a change of heart; I mean, imagine if God wanted you or me to be a missionary in Timbuktu and didn't give us the heart to do it. When we feel trapped God is a God of new beginnings and when He has a radical new plan for a new beginning, sometimes, just sometimes He puts a new tune in our hearts and a new song on our lips and that's exciting but it can be scary. I feel trapped! Should I stay or go? I had to make that decision a few years ago, I'd spent 17 years building an IT Consulting firm with about 50 people and we worked for hundreds of organisations, I was the heir apparent to run that consulting firm and there was lots of money in it and plenty of interesting work and travel and status and position but I felt like God was putting a new song in my heart, a desire to do something completely new, completely different, a desire to do what I'm doing right now in the ministry of Christianityworks. Today, as I sit in a radio studio, what I say goes to hundreds of stations in over 80 countries around the world and today, looking back on it, it all looks pretty obvious now but I have to say, back then it was far from obvious. I was an IT consultant not a broadcaster, how would I ever get onto just one radio station? But God put a new song in my heart and at those times, you know, it can be unsettling and uncertain and exciting. Do I stay or do I go? Is this just me dreaming this thing up or is it God? Will it succeed or will it fail? Are you with me? Some people, at that time, said to me, "Well you know Berni, God needs people in business too!" And others encouraged me to do it. I had this dream, not to become a missionary in Timbuktu, not to pastor a Church, not to do TV. At the time when I was a young Christian I knew I had an ego the size of a small planet and my prayer was, "God, I want to use this gift of story telling I have but I want them to see you, not me." I didn't know that it was radio but doors began to open in the area of radio broadcasting. We can end up hugely frustrated with the status quo; the job we're in or the situation we're in and we can think, 'is it just me acting up or is it God changing my heart to move me onto something new? Is God putting a new song in my heart?' Can I tell you something? It seems to me whenever God does that, certainly in my life, whenever God has given me something new it's outrageous and it's unconventional and it's so big that unless God’s in it I'm going to fall flat on my face. So for me, I stepped out and I said, "God, if this isn't from you I want it to fall flat on its face." I decided I was prepared to be a fool for God but I just couldn't ignore what I thought He was doing in me and through me and in my life. When God's doing something new sometimes He calls us out of our comfort zones into very uncertain places. Paul the apostle writes in his letter to the Philippians, if you're interested it’s in Philippians, chapter 2, verse 13: God is at work in us, enabling us to both will and to work for His good pleasure. In other words if He wants someone to become a missionary in Timbuktu, first He'll give them a heart to do it. If He wants someone like me to go from lucrative IT consulting to Christian radio broadcasting, first He had to give me a heart to do it because unless it's in my heart I'm not going to be interested. Unless we really want to do something we don't give it our best, it's not a joy whereas for me, doing what I'm doing right now is just such an enormous joy. When God calls us into something new, He's a great God, He gives us a heart for it and it’s unsettling and sometimes it's scary but you just know. God is a God of new beginnings. When we looked at creation, a few days ago we went through Genesis, chapter 1, if you were with us on the program, and creation was so surprising, out of darkness He made light. He made the land, He made the oceans, He put all these weird animals on the planet, He created you and me, even weirder. God is a creative God, God does some amazing things and the apostle Paul picks up on that and he says: If anyone puts their faith in Jesus Christ they are a new creation. Just the way God created a whole new universe, when we put our faith in Jesus we become like a new creation. All the old stuff passes away and everything, everything is new. He takes our skills and our abilities and He uses them in a new way. I met a woman in the UK a couple of years ago called Fran McGuiver and Fran was a woman who didn't have a background in story writing but she just felt to take some of the stories in the Bible and rewrite them as radio scripts in a really fresh, contemporary way, to bring them to life. She was sitting there and she said to me over breakfast, "Berni, I don’t know if I'm doing the right thing." And I just felt to say to her, "Fran, you do what Gods put into your heart." And just now, a couple of years later these scripts are now being recorded and I have to tell you they are just brilliant and I know God is going to do some amazing things with those right around the world. If God is putting a new song in your heart, don't ignore it. Please don't misunderstand me, I was talking with a woman recently and she said, "I don't know if God wants me to stay with my husband. You know this, that, relationship." Women, God is not calling you to leave your husband. Men, God is not calling for you to chase a younger woman. Divorce is difficult and it's painful and sometimes there is violence and abuse involved and sometimes it happens and I'm not condemning anyone but if we're in a difficult marriage, God will work even in that. Will you invite Him into that place? But sometimes in the area of work or ministry, sometimes God puts a new song in our hearts, it can be unsettling but can I ask you something? Don't ignore it just because it's unsettling. God sometimes creates new beginnings right where we are, in that job, in that relationship, in that situation and He does the most amazing things, He does. And I come back to, I just feel to say, if you are in a difficult marriage and you're just not getting through to your wife or to your husband, invite God into that place. Pray and stick in there and hang in there and watch what God will do but God also sometimes creates new beginnings in different places. He calls us into radical new things that aren't obvious, that seem risky. Sure, talk to people. Sure, seek advice. Yes, think things through. Yes, test things to see whether the doors are open but if Gods put a new song into your heart, sing the song at the top of your lungs, follow the dream for Christ’s sake, do the new thing no matter how scary it is. Father, I just pray for anyone today who feels that you have put a new song into their heart. Call them into something fresh and new and surprising. Lord, I just pray that you take the words that we've been talking today and just pour them into their hearts and give them the quiet, still assurance that you are in that place and that you will walk with them through what you've called them to do. Father, we ask that in Jesus Christ name. Amen.
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Dealing with the Birth Pangs // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 4
01/02/2025
Dealing with the Birth Pangs // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 4
Sometimes, when there are good things happening in one part of your life – things start falling apart in another. It’s almost as though when God is birthing something new, there are birth pangs. I don't know if you've noticed but whenever we have changes in our lives, even good changes, they can often feel uncomfortable. I guess that’s because, basically, we're creatures of habit, we become comfortable with situations and relationships even when they're far from ideal. So often we want desperately for something to change, something that’s causing us grief, maybe we cry out, "God, God, help me." So God does and He starts to make things happen and then we go, "Oh, no God, I didn't mean that, no, not that way." Change brings uncertainty, it's kind of like labour pains, a woman in labour knows something wonderful is about to happen but boy those birth pains can still hurt, at least that's what they tell me. It's true, even good change is stressful. Marriage, the whole marriage ceremony and everything that goes with it is stressful and exhausting for a couple and then they enter into marriage and they have to adjust to one another and there's change and there's tension. She does things this way, he does things that way. Jacqui, bless her, when we got married, she started thinking that should could go out and buy my clothes for me. I said, "What are you doing?" Having kids, that’s a huge adjustment, our 26 year old and 24 year old boys are wonderful young men but as anyone who's had kids knows, there are plenty of birth pangs along the way to them becoming wonderful young men, there are tensions and strains and hurts. When you get a new job at work, you're learning new things, meeting new people, trying to remember their names, it's stressful and the hardest thing is when we have to change our attitudes and our behaviours, when we have to sacrifice something we want in order for the good new thing to come into being. Moving house is exhausting and it's not just that, when we get there, there are new territories, new places to put things, adjustments, a settling in period. No matter what the change is, how much we want it, how desperate we are for it; there are always, always labour pains. This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at the God of new beginnings. Life can be same old, same old, same old drudgery can't it? And then there's circumstances and people and relationships and money situations that make it difficult, that really put us under pressure, we feel like those things, like nothing will ever change. People in difficult marriages, people in difficult work situations, people in difficult financial situations, those circumstances look so big that we end up believing that nothing will ever change. The job I used to have, I'd enjoyed it but the people and the politics, what should I do? Should I stay there and make a difference? Should I trust God that He's in there? Or is it my time to go? The woman who listens to this program who rang me and said, "Look, I'm bringing up a teenager, they're so difficult, this kid is driving me completely nuts. God what are you doing?" Marriages, mortgages, credit cards, work loads, situations, do I stay and grit it out or do I change? Come on God, where are you? If you're the God of new beginnings how do I deal with this? The apostle Paul wrote this, he said: If anyone is in Christ Jesus they are a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold all things are new. If anyone is in Christ Jesus they ARE a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold all things are new. It's a powerful thing to know that we can believe in God to work in our lives to create new beginnings. Sometimes it's a new job, other times you stay in the same job but He gives us a new heart or He deals with someone who is being difficult or He opens doors that have been closed or He helps us to work through frustrations but during all of those things there are going to be birth pangs. Paul the apostle writes this, he said: I consider that our present sufferings aren't worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the Sons of God to be revealed because the creation was subjected to frustration, not by it's own choice but by the will of the one subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from it's bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pangs of child birth right up to the present time. In other words Paul is saying, "look, one day we're going to stand before God and it will be fantastic. We believe in God, we believe in Jesus, it will be just awesome. I consider our present sufferings aren't worth comparing to that sort of thing." But he is saying, "right now the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pangs of child birth, right up to the present time." Paul, in a sense, is saying, "it's the nature of the beast that this creation is groaning but one day we'll stand before God and all that will be gone but right now we have birth pangs." Birth pangs are the most awesome thing of all, being with God, the eternal life. Right now it can get so bad that sometimes we don't even know how to pray but even there God knows and the Holy Spirit does it for us, this is what he says: In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness we don't even know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans and words that we just can't express. The point is that in the world we live in, when God is doing something good, birth pangs, they're normal. We think, "God, you're a God of new beginnings and you need to do something good in my life and I want it to happen right now." And we go, "okay, where is it? Now is good God." And then, before it gets better, it gets worse. Maybe you're a woman who is praying for her husband, you're having a difficult relationship with your husband and you start believing that God is a God of new beginnings and God can do things in your husband that you can't do and you start praying and all of a sudden the relationship, instead of getting better, it gets worse. Can I tell you? It happens time and time and time again because there is a devil out there and he doesn't want God to do good things in your life and he will attack. He's the one who brings those birth pangs and I just want to encourage you to say, "It happens all the time. When we're going through birth pangs because of what we've been praying for and asking for, I immediately go, "God is up to something good because my experience tells me that at some point, the new thing, the good thing, the wonderful thing that God is bringing to birth in my life is going to come and the only way it's going to come is by these birth pangs, these things happening in my life." Sometimes the birth pangs go on for years and that’s not unusual but can I tell you? As I look back over the last 15 years of my life, the time I've been walking with God, so many things have happened. So many new beginnings in so many areas of my life but they all took time, they all had some frustrations and adjustments and pain with them. It's the way things are but as we trust God, those new beginnings do come in all sorts of different areas of our lives. When you just want to give up hope because you've been asking God and all you're getting is grief, I just want to encourage you, just see those birth pangs for what they are. They are the heralds of the goodness that God is about to bring. Why is it like that? I don't know but my experience tells me it just is, it happens time and time and time again and I just felt to share that with you today because I know, someone is listening today and you just needed to hear that, you just needed Gods encouragement to keep going. Hang in there, God is a God of new beginnings. If anyone believes in Jesus they are a new creation. Old things are past away and look, wake up, all things are new. Your God is a God of new beginnings and I just encourage you to put your faith in Him.
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Breaking with the Power of the Past // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 3
01/01/2025
Breaking with the Power of the Past // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 3
The past is a funny thing. We can’t change the past – yet it hold back so many people from living today and tomorrow to the full. So, how can you break the power of the past over your life? It's just amazing how things from the past can end up ruining our todays and tomorrow’s. The past is a funny thing because it's gone, we can never turn back time, we can never change what's been done or un-say something we regret saying or un-do something we regret doing. So in one sense we have no control over the past but here's the scary thing, the things of the past end up controlling so many people. The mistakes our parents made can end up being imprinted on our characters, the abuse that some people have suffered, the rejection, the hurts. Those things can limit us, stunt our growth and try as we will we just can't shake them and so they end up ruining our today’s and tomorrow’s. Fortunately though, God is a God of new beginnings. This week, on the program, we're talking about God being the God of new beginnings and some people say, "Well, yeah. What does that mean? My life is my life, it just toddles along and God might as well be a million miles away and He probably is." I've often shared my own stories on this program because I'm talking not from a text book but from a life that God has transformed but today I'd like to share someone else's story, a woman who is caught in the cot with another man, someone who wasn't her husband at a time when that sort of thing carry’s some incredibly severe penalties. John writes about it in chapter 8 of John’s gospel and this is how it goes: Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives. At dawn He appeared again in the Temple courts; where all the people had gathered around Him and He sat down to teach them. The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand up before the group and they said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law of Moses we're commanded to stone such women, now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing Him but Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin let him be the first to throw a stone at her." And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away, one at a time, the older ones first until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up again and said, "Woman, where are they? Has no-one stayed to condemn you?" "No-one sir." She said. "Then neither do I condemn you." Said Jesus, “Go. Go now and leave your life of sin." This is one of the most powerful stories in the New Testament for me because it's effectively God putting Himself between the angry mob and this woman. Now the reason they brought her out here was not because she was caught in adultery, if the issue was adultery you had to say, "Well where was the guy that she was caught in adultery with?" That wasn't it, they brought her out because they were using the question as a trap, they said: Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law of Moses we're commanded to stone such women, what do you say? And the reason this was a trap is because the Jewish Law, the Law of Moses, the Law in the first 5 books of what we call the Old Testament today, said, "Someone caught in adultery should be stoned to death." But in the first century Israel was occupied by the Romans and the Romans wouldn't let them do this so generally people weren't stoned to death. For someone to be killed for something the Roman Governor had to give his approval, so which ever way Jesus answered He was trapped. If He said, "Stone her." Then He was flouting Roman law, if He said, "Don't stone her". Then He was flouting Jewish Law. Either way the religious leaders won, they hated Jesus. Now, just put ourselves for a moment in the woman’s shoes, maybe adultery is a bit of an old fashioned word these days, people seem to do as they please, affairs are almost common, almost acceptable but they tear people and marriages and families apart and one of the things that I do is I never put myself in a place of compromise or temptation. When I'm travelling, normally I take my wife Jacqui with me. You know why? Because my marriage is the most important human relationship that I have but here's this woman who's been caught in the cot, where's the man? Who knows, this woman is just a pawn to trap Jesus but she's a person, she's a real person and this society, this patriarchal society where adultery was an absolute no-no, imagine the sense of shame that she has being dragged here into the Temple courts in front of the crowds, in front of Jesus having been caught in the cot. She knew she'd done wrong and she had an angry Middle Eastern crowd ready to stone her to death, it must have been frightening, shame, incredible shame and the fear of being stoned to death. The past is the past, she couldn't change it and that was her problem, it's the problem that we have today. We've done things in our past that have consequences but we just can't change them. So here's the question, what does God do? Because it was God’s Law that said that if someone was caught in adultery should be stoned to death, God’s own Law. Well God, the Son of God, Jesus, remember these religious leaders are trying to trap Him too, He's in danger too, so what does He do? He places Himself effectively between her and the angry mob, between her and the religious leaders who were plotting against Jesus and plotting to crucify Him and He says to them: If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. He cuts straight into the heart of every person in that mob, He's saying each one of us is somehow in the same boat and interestingly they all start to drift away starting with the older men, the wiser men, they all drift away because they know that He's right. He gives her what? He gives her a new beginning. He doesn't judge her, He doesn't have to but neither does He sweep it under the carpet. It seemed, to her, like an absolutely impossible situation, it would have been but God is the God of new beginnings. Our lives, our circumstances, our relationships, we can have things that seem absolutely impossible. We can have regrets of the past, we can have things that we've done wrong, we can have things that haunt us in our characters and things that we just keep on doing and doing and we can't help ourselves. People criticising us, we know our failures of the past, somehow they grip us like that angry mob. We think of God as a God of judgement and He is but Jesus ended up going to the cross for her, you know why? Because His standing up to the religious leaders like this is what got Him crucified. Jesus ended up going to the cross for me and you too, to pay for those things of the past. 2 Corinthians, 5:17, the apostle Paul writes: If anyone is in Christ Jesus then they are a new creation. Old things have past away and behold all things are new. The demands of justice have been met by Jesus on the cross. The words Christ Jesus literally means, "God's chosen and appointed saviour". To be in Christ Jesus means that we put our trust in Him and if we do that we're a new creation, we have a new beginning, the old things have passed away and behold all things are new. God is the God of new beginnings and the reason that He is, the reason He can be is because He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for you and for me.
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A New Creation - Born Again // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 2
12/31/2024
A New Creation - Born Again // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 2
If God is God then I guess He can do anything – right? Even deal with the most difficult issue or circumstance in our life – right? Question is though – if God really is God – do you actually believe that He can do that in your life? It's just great to be with you again today. Let me ask you, do you ever look around at other people and compare yourself with them? The people at work, the people you know socially? It's so easy to look at others and think, 'Well, they've got a fantastic life. Look at me, look at my marriage or my job or my loneliness or my body or my self esteem.' I love looking at the wonder of God's creation, you know why? Because it reminds me that God is a God of new beginnings. I have a hunch, just a hunch mind you, that if we spent as much energy wrapping our hearts around that little gem as we do comparing ourselves with other people, we'd have just the most amazing life. What do you think? I don't do this very often on this program but I just want to read something that I've always found really powerful. It's the first chapter of the Bible, the first chapter of Genesis and stick with me because it's just such a great read. God is a God of new beginnings and Genesis, chapter 1, is the very first new beginning in all of time, in all of history. Something awesomely, something wonderfully new, have a look: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, "Let there be light," and there was. And God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness and God called the light, 'day' and the darkness He called 'night' and there was evening and there was morning on the first day. And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made an expanse and He separated the water under the expanse from the water above it and so it was, God called the expanse 'the sky' and there was evening and there was morning on the second day. And then God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let the dry ground appear." And it was so. God called the dry ground 'land' and the gathered waters He called 'the seas' and God saw that it was good and then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees of the land that bear fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds." And it was so, the land produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds and God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning on the third day. And God said, "Let there be lights in the great expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve as signs to mark the seasons and the days and the years and let there be lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth." And so it was, God made two great lights, the greater light to go in the day and the lesser light to go in the night. He also made the stars and God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth and to govern the day and the night and to separate light from darkness and God saw it was good, and there was evening and there was morning on the fourth day. And God said, "Let the water team with living creatures, let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." And so God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teams according to their kinds and every winged bird according to it's kind and God saw that it was good and God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the waters and the seas and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning on the fifth day.” And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds. Livestock, creatures that move along the ground, wild animals each according to it's kind." And it was so, God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, all the creatures that live along the ground and God saw that it was good and then God said, "Let us make man. Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground. And so God created man in His own image in the image of God He created him, male and female, He created them and then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over all the fish in the sea and the birds of the air, over every living creature. I give you every seed bearing plant, everything is yours." And God saw what He made and it was very good. It's a great story and right at the beginning there was nothing, God created all this stuff from nothing, things that we take for granted. From darkness He produced light, from chaos He created order, not some boring, boxed up order, no not that. Variety and seasons and oceans and countries and years and days and crazy things that fly and things that swim and things that live on the ground, He put life into the creation. On top of all of that He put you and me, in His image, in the middle of the creation and He said, "It's all yours". Now what does that tell you about God? God is so creative, He produces this universe teaming with life and variety and abundance, an expanse so great we can't even see it or comprehend it and so complex we can't understand it and on top of that He gives it to us. God is a God of new beginnings; radical, huge, intricate, wondrous, surprising, powerful. I love to look at God’s creation, I love to watch the shows on TV about the galaxies or about the animals or the volcanoes or the weather. God is a God of outrageously new beginnings and you might say to me, "Berni, what's that mean to me here and now?" That's a really good question, 'cause our circumstances, the things that trap us they seem so huge and so powerful. If there's a difficulty between husband and wife in a marriage it's like being in prison, they can look at each other and think, 'no-one can ever change this.' Maybe you're someone with a deep sense of fear or inadequacy and it just plagues you all your life and you think, "no-one can ever change me." Maybe you're like me, you've made the same mistakes over and over and over again and you think, "I know I keep making this mistake but no-one can ever change me. I can't fix it." You know what happens? We think that those circumstances are so powerful that we live our lives believing that nothing and no-body can ever or will ever change them, right? Wrong. God is a God of new beginnings, so powerful, so vast, so beautiful, and so abundant that words can't begin to describe them. What do we think? Do we think He can create all of that but He can't help us? The apostle Paul wrote it this way, he said: If anyone has a relationship with Jesus then they are a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold all things are new. Wow. We're going to unpack that in the next couple of days on the program but God’s heart is to make you and me a new creation, to throw the old stuff out and say, "We are new and fresh and we have a life." Father, I pray for anyone who is struggling with the past today, anyone who is struggling with their circumstances today. Anyone who is struggling with their relationships today because your promise Lord God, is that you are a God of new beginnings and when we look at your creation we look at the works of your hand, we see the power and the wonder and the magnitude and the beauty. Lord, We see You and Father we invite you into our lives, especially in those parts of our lives where we need a new beginning. Father, you are the God of new beginnings, come into our lives and give us those new beginnings, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Can I ask you? Do you need a new beginning in your life? Well let me encourage you; believe in the God who sent His Son, the God of new beginnings.
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Same Old, Same Old // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 1
12/30/2024
Same Old, Same Old // God is a God of New Beginnings, Part 1
Day after day, life can just seem like more of the same. Same old, same old. As a result, so many of people end up feeling trapped by their circumstances. But God … is a God of new beginnings. I remember a time in my life when I felt so trapped by my circumstances. In work, I had a good job with lots of variety but somehow it had just run stale. Now I'm fortunate in that I find study and university and all that sort of stuff enjoyable and not too difficult yet somehow I wasn't enjoying learning new things. And I was blessed in that I had a good upbringing yet some of my character traits that I grew up with, intolerance and anger and all that stuff, they were like a straight jacket that I just couldn't get out of. I remember feeling so incredibly trapped, nothing would ever change, what I needed then was a new beginning in my life. Every day we need new beginnings in different areas with different things. Things that once used to be a joy and now they're drudgery, fortunately, God is a God of new beginnings. It's great to be with you on a new series of A Different Perspective and this series, this week is called 'God is a God of New Beginnings'. Now I'm not sure how it works for you but as we trundle through life we can end up feeling it's the same old, same old humdrum, nothing ever changes, on it goes, what's the point? And on top of that so many people, it's incredible, they feel so held back by their past or even the present. Some people went through pretty rough childhoods and tough teenage years and so they have low self esteem - and low self esteem is like, it's like a cancer; it just holds people back from enjoying life and enjoying other people. Some people have even been abused and that affects their relationships later on in life. Sometimes we're held back by a character flaw, for me it was anger, other people experience fear. These things inside of us that we just can't explain and that we just can't do anything about and on top of those things sometimes we have other circumstances, bad relationships in a marriage, in work relationships, with kids, with all sorts, with neighbours. You put all those things together and it's like being in a straight jacket, it's as though we're being robbed and drained of the life that we should actually be living. Does that make sense to you? Am I the only one? I speak to a lot of people and I get this sense that people feel cheated of life and robbed of life and this time of year, I think, is a great time for discovering that God is a God of new beginnings. When we feel as though nothing is ever going to change. Let me let you in on a secret, God is hatching a plan for something new. When we feel it's going to be the same old, same old grind, this month, next month, this year, next year, for the rest of our days, God is planning a new thing because God is a God of new beginnings. King Solomon, King David’s son, was one of the wisest men that ever lived and he came to this point that I've been talking about and he writes about it in the Bible in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1 and it's written really interesting to me to find this sort of cynicism and whinge and grind in the book like the Bible. Let me read it to you, he writes in the form of poetry and this is what he says: "Meaningless, meaningless he cries. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What does a man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun? Generations come, generations go, the earth remains forever. The sun rises and it sets and hurries back to where it rises again. The wind blows to the south, turns to the north, round and round it goes, everything returning on its course.” “All the streams flow into the sea but the sea's never full and to the place where the streams come from, there they return again. All these things are wearisome, more than I can say. The eye never has enough of seeing; the ear is never filled of hearing. What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again; there's nothing new under the sun. Is there anything which one can say, "Look! There is something new?" It was already there long ago, it was there before our time began. No-one remembers the men of old and even those that are yet to come, they won't even be remembered by those who follow." In other words, Solomon’s just standing back as an older man looking at life saying, 'Oh my goodness, what’s the point? Over and over again it goes.' We all go through that and you know what I think? It's really sad to see someone’s life slip away under that yoke, under that burden, under this sense that life is utterly meaningless, the feeling that we're trapped by our past and trapped by our circumstances. Let me ask you a question, in your life how does that play itself out? In your life here and now, how are you being robbed of the present and the future and life itself? What are the things that are taking all your life away from you? For the first 36 years of my life I lived life that way, I was always waiting for the next thing, I was never satisfied. When I was at school I wanted to leave school, when I was at university I couldn't wait to graduate, when I was single I wanted to be married, when I had one good job I wanted the next promotion or the next move or the next job. I was never satisfied, never content, always trapped and trying to escape. Sometimes we blame the past, we blame other people, we blame circumstances but we need to get to a point in life when we say, "That's it, that's enough. I want to live life, a life of real purpose." Today I live such a life, a life of peace, a life of contentment and purpose. I still look forward, that will always be my nature but I enjoy today and what I discovered was that God is a God of new beginnings, beginnings full of contentment and joy and peace. The apostle Paul, wrote a couple of thousand years ago, if you have a Bible you can read it, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 17. He says this: "If anyone is in Christ Jesus they are a new creation. Old things have past away and behold all things are new." We're going to look at that verse over the coming week and unpack it and explore it but for me, if God is God, if He is the God of love that people say He is, then surely, surely He should be involved in my life. Not just 'a pie in the sky when you die' and that's great, the gift of eternal life is wonderful but 'stack on the plate while we wait'? Today, in your life, what area do you need a new beginning in? Because God wants to make each one of us a new creation in Jesus so that all that old garbage and stuff can be washed away and we can look at life and say, "Wow, life is new." Today, where do you need God to come along and breath His life into that place, to turn the same old, same old, same old into something fresh and new? Doesn't always mean ditching what's there, sometimes God just gives us a fresh outlook, He stirs our heart, He fills us with joy and the things that we're doing take on a whole new meaning and sense of excitement. People so often think of God as an old man with a big stick, it's easy to forget that God is dad, a God who wants to bless us. I'm just going to pray for you now: Father, I pray for anyone who is yearning for a new beginning. Lord, you know our hearts, you know our needs, you know where we need new beginnings. Father, I pray that today, right here, right now, you would open up our heart and just breath your truth into us that you are a God of new beginnings and Father, help us to draw close to Jesus. "Anyone who is in Christ Jesus," Your word says, "We are a new creation. Old things have past away and behold all things are new." Father, we need your new beginnings in our lives, give them to us in Jesus name. Amen.
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The Year in Review // Old Story, New Twist, Part 10
12/27/2024
The Year in Review // Old Story, New Twist, Part 10
Here we are in that funny little week between Christmas and New Year. A time for looking back and a time for looking forward. So – looking back on it, how did this year go? It's great that you can join me again today, right here, on A Different Perspective. I always think that this week between Christmas and New Year, it's an interesting week. The big rush leading up to Christmas, well, that's over. Christmas Day is gone and New Year’s Eve is almost upon us. The days are ticking down and another year's over with yet a new one just about to begin. For many of us this week is a week of rest – a time to reflect on the year that's just been. Where did the time go? Here we are at the end of another year, already. If I were to ask you, ‘What sort of a year did you have?’ How would you answer? I mean looking back, really, what sort of year did you have? If you had to sum up your year and compare it to all of the other years you've lived, where would it land on the scale of things? My year, well, it started off for me in India. It was in a dusty, poor village, visiting a school there for the Dalit children, the untouchables. Kids who would never had received an education except for the Christian ministry that gave it to them. Beautiful, wonderful kids and I had a great privilege to baptise fifteen new believers in Jesus right there in the middle of India. The thing that really sticks with me from that trip right at the beginning of this year was standing in the middle of one of the poorest parts of this village. It was dusty. There were little huts. The floors were of dirt. The bathroom was this black little plastic thing wrapped around a few sticks with bucket right in the middle of the village. And when I said, "Where's the toilet?" Well, the answer was, "This". At a certain time of the day, the men would go out and use the fields as a toilet. And at certain times of day, the women would go out and use the fields for toilets. There was an old man there with a crutch and he had sores on his leg. The people were so poor – no water, no health, an incredibly low life expectancy. And I stood there in the middle of this little village trembling, shaking. It was all I could do not to cry at the condition these people lived in. That set the scene for me for the New Year, the context. On a global scale, this year has been a year where millions of children have died of starvation. It's been a year of terrorism, of wars, of bombings – people dying needlessly because of their hatred of others and not just hatred but neglect. While those of us who live in the affluent west, by and large, have plenty, countless others are going without. I wonder how people would feel who lost a loved one this year in a war through terrorism? My heart goes out to them. What I'm talking about here is the whole issue of balance and perspective, millions of children. Imagine being a parent of at least one of the kids that died or the brother or the sister or the aunty or the uncle of just one. Now, multiply that misery by millions – it's just inconceivable; the amount of pain and suffering and hurt and loss. Now, it's one thing to talk about that global scale, that macro, the big geopolitical forces that are out of our control. But the global scale is the sum of seven and a half billion or so individual stories, isn't it? People just like you and me, people who've had a good year or a bad year or maybe an appalling year. So how was your year? On a scale of one to ten, how will you rate this last year for you? The question is: what scale or measure should you use? The first one that we could always use is the scale of pain. If you've suffered the loss of a loved one, if you've suffered some terrible injustice, if you've seen someone die in your life, if you've been retrenched or if your marriage has fallen apart or if your kids have ended up on drugs, if something like that has happened in your life this past year, it doesn't matter how well everything else in your life went, chances are, you'd rate this year as pretty terrible. It's a funny thing. A job could be going well, we can have enough food to eat, we can be healthy but we lose a loved one or a relationship breaks down, just one bad event and grief overwhelms us. I mean, who knew something like some of these bombings in Iraq would be going on? If you knew someone who was killed in a car accident, that sort of really bad event that makes for a terrible, terrible year, doesn't it? But what about if we don't have that really bad event? What if we didn't have one of those, praise God, this year. What measure would you use then to assess how your life has gone this year? It's a funny thing. It's a general level of satisfaction, maybe. We kind of look at our relationships and our family and our work and our finances, some really exciting things may have happened. Maybe we renovated the house or you bought a new car. Then there's the spiritual dimension. We somehow lump all those things together and then we say, 'Well, on a scale of zero to ten, I had a six or I had an eight or I had a two'. Now, you might be thinking, "Berni, why are you looking back?" Well, my hunch is that mostly, we live life day-by-day and we don't really think about it. It just ticks by. The minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, then the years and then it's the end of the year. And all that time when we've been doing what we did just to get by. We shouldered our responsibilities. We went to work, we brought money in, we put food on the table, we kept the house running and then we reacted to situations. Good situations, we reacted with joy. Bad situations, we reacted badly (sometimes) and we lump all of that into a bit of a holiday and entertainment and escape and rest and that's it. That's life, isn't it? This is kind of how it all plugs together. But hang on, where is it all going? What does it all mean really? Is life just slipping away like each little grain of the sand in the hourglass or is our life meant to make a difference? This week on A Different Perspective, I think we need to look back before we can look forward – to take stock, to take inventory. If you've got a piece of paper and if you drew a line down the centre and if on the left hand side, you had a column for all the pluses, all the positives, all the wonderful things. And on the right hand side, you wrote all the negatives, the red side of the ledger, all the bad things that happened. I wonder what that would look like. I wonder whether that wouldn't be a useful exercise for you to do. Tomorrow on the program, we're going to be looking at the things that maybe we would have done differently. So I encourage you to get that bit of paper, to list down the good, the bad and the ugly. And let's have a chat again tomorrow about some of the things that we could have done differently. The Apostle Paul, a few thousand years ago, in one of the letters that he wrote that's recorded in the New Testament called 1 Corinthians. He says this, chapter 7, verse 29. Our time is short. His point is that we really need to make it count. We need to use our time wisely. We need to have a life that makes a difference. I think this funny little week between Christmas and New Year, when we have one eye looking back and one eye looking forward. Isn't it a great time to sit down, to take a blank piece of paper, to draw a line down the centre and have the pluses on one side and the minuses on the other? And just think about the life that you've been living this last twelve months. Just think and reflect upon the year and what's gone. We can't change what's been. We can't go back and undo something that we did or redo something that we would have loved to have done differently. But I will tell you that looking forward – time is short. How long do you have left on this earth? Ask yourself, how long do I have left, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, ten years, fifteen years, twenty, forty years? How many more Christmases? How many more New Years? How many more birthdays? Answer is: we just don't know. Time is short! Your life – the way that you live, the things that you do, the stuff that you spend your energies on – will they count? Will they make a difference? And what measure do you apply to say, "Well, last year was a great year?" My theory is that as each of us reflects on the year that's just been, we'll all discover some blessings that God gave us along the way.
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It's Only Just Begun // Old Story, New Twist, Part 9
12/26/2024
It's Only Just Begun // Old Story, New Twist, Part 9
Next week when Christmas is done and dusted, we’ll be in recovery mode. Out with the old year, in with the new … but, there are some things we need to get sorted in this year that’s fast slipping away, before we can grab hold of next year with both hands. At this time of year, we've all experienced those different emotions at different times so let’s spend a few minutes looking back on the year that's just been. And perhaps a few minutes looking forward at what might be in the coming year. Christmas is such an incredibly special time because it marks a new birth, bringing a new life into this world is singularly the most special and privileged thing we can ever do. Any parent will tell you that, particularly the mother's in our midst, it's just so special. And it's that new birth that I want to revisit with you today because Christmas is a time to remember that in Christ you and I have a new birth, a rebirth if you will. And there are a few people today I know that need to experience that rebirth for themselves because you're wallowing in the regrets of the past. In the regrets perhaps of things that could have been but weren't, in the regrets of the things that shouldn't have been but were. But in Christ, something special happens. It's a new birth and for many, even for those who heard Jesus talk about it, it wasn't an easy thing to get a handle on. See there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi we know that you're a teacher who's come from God for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God'. And Jesus answered him, 'Very truly I tell you that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again. Nicodemus said to him, 'How can you be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?' And Jesus answered, 'Truly, I tell you no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born both of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit.’ ‘Do not be astonished that I say, 'You must be born from above', the wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit’. (John 3: 1-8) See, that new birth is about a new start in life. You've heard the term being born again Christian. Some people roll their eyes when they say it. They use it as a form of derision but Jesus means it for real. Jesus means it as a new start, as a complete rebirth, a fresh start, the slate wiped clean through faith in Him. Every now and then when I've had a really long day, I'm one of these crazy early starters, so in the late afternoon I might have a short nap and a shower to freshen up. And I come out of the bedroom into the living room and I say to my wife, "Ah, I feel like a new man." In a sense that's what Jesus is talking about because our faith in Him doesn't just bring forgiveness, it brings that 'new man' feeling as He wipes away all our sins and all the regrets and all the consequences of the past. See, new birth equals new start equals new life. When you're born again, the old life doesn't matter anymore, it's completely meaningless because your slate has been wiped clean. The Apostle Paul put it this way, he said: If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become as new. (2 Corinthian 5:17) So right at this special time of the year, I believe that God wants to give you a new start by reminding you that if you've accepted Jesus as your Saviour and your Lord, then you are a new creation, completely new. And the result of that, is that everything old is gone. It's completely wiped away which makes it completely irrelevant to you today and to all your tomorrow's. The powerfully operative word in this little verse is the short word 'see'. Lets listen to it again, 2 Corinthians 5:17. If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new. God is imploring you to look at your life through His eyes. SEE! See that the effect of the new birth that you have in Jesus Christ means that EVERYTHING has become new. The past is gone, forgiven and done and dusted. Now, you can look forward to the New Year ahead in a completely new way, completely uninhibited and unconstrained by the failures and the hurts and the losses and the regrets that you have over your past. Completely unaffected by your low self-esteem, completely unaffected by nasty hurtful things that people have said to you and done to you because by the miraculous power of your complete rebirth in Christ through the Holy Spirit – you are a completely new creation. And as a result of that, everything in your life, everything in your world has become new. SEE! Nicodemus found that hard to believe and hard to understand. You and I can find that hard to believe and hard to understand. But your God wants you to live your life as though the slate of your past has been wiped clean. Because you know something? If you believe in Jesus, it has and what lies ahead of you is a completely new life full of exciting God-type possibilities and amazing things that God wants to do to bless you. And to let His blessing flow out through you into this parched land of people who are in desperate need of a Saviour. To Israel, His chosen people, at the end of seventy years in captivity as slaves in Babylon, He said this: ‘For surely I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. When you search for me you'll find me. If you seek me with all your heart I'll let you find me' says the Lord, 'And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I've driven you', says the Lord, 'And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29: 11-14) Do you see? Are you looking? Are you hearing? Do you perceive what God is saying to you through His Word today? God has great plans for you and those plans are about your future. And He has made all provision for you through Jesus, to wipe your slate clean and to restore you and to bless you. And all He needs now is just one thing … He needs for you to take His Word into your heart, to believe it, to act on it as though it's true. Because you know something? It really is. And if you choose to step out into your future, a future that maybe would have been otherwise constrained by regrets and hurts from the past. But if you choose now to step out into your future knowing that the regrets of the past are completely wiped away – completely gone, completely irrelevant – if you choose to believe God and take Him at His Word and believe that you can live your life from this day forward on the basis of what God is saying about you is true, then what you're in fact doing is stepping out into your own rebirth. Christmas is a time of celebration of new life – the life of Jesus who slipped into this world to set captives free, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring Good News to the poor. This Jesus, He came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bind up your broken heart, He came to bring you Good News and this is the Good News that I bring to you today. Today is the beginning of a new life – a life of freedom and a life of joy and a life of power and yes a life of sacrifice. A life that is so much more than any of us could have ever dreamed. This past year is done and dusted and in Christ you can leave behind. This New Year is full of possibilities, full of potential and in Christ, you can step out into it with the confidence of knowing that you'll be playing your small part in Gods mighty plan. Hey, if that's not Good News, tell me what is.
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Silent Night // Old Story, New Twist, Part 8
12/25/2024
Silent Night // Old Story, New Twist, Part 8
Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to have been there on that very first Christmas when Jesus was born into this world? Like … sitting in that field with those shepherds. Just imagine … There's a bunch of guys in the Bible who I envy. Now I know what you're thinking, the tenth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour. (Exodus 20:17) Yeah, we're not supposed to envy or covet anything because it leads to some really bad behaviour. I get that. But hear me out. If there was anyone I could have been with in the Bible, it would have to be those shepherds who were out there watching their flocks by night. We don't quite know what night it was. But you have to gather by what the angel said to them that Jesus had already been born so I prefer to think of it as Christmas night. Only to them, sitting there in the field watching their sheep, it wasn't Christmas night at all. It was just another night at the office doing what shepherds did. It was a mundane part of their lives. They may have been enjoying the evening. They may not have been enjoying the evening. It doesn't matter. They were doing what shepherds did out there on the side of a hill somewhere just outside Bethlehem. The sun had gone down like it goes down every night. And tomorrow morning the sun was going to come up again, like it did every morning and nothing much changed in between. Maybe the moon was out, maybe not. And in the absence of the bright light and the pollution you and I have to put up with these days, the Milky Way was spread across the firmament in all its glory and all was well with the world. That's the picture, that's what was going on. But on that particular night God had a plan to break into this world in the most amazing and spectacular way. In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night and then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'Don't be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.’ ‘This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of clothing and lying in a manger’. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go down to Bethlehem and see this thing that's taken place which the Lord has made known to us'. So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in a manger. When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all that they'd heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 8-20) I often wonder how I would have reacted had I been with those guys on that starry starry night. I wonder how I would react if that happened to me tonight at home or on the way back from work or whatever mundane thing I happened to be doing tonight. Because for me, the idea of a cosmic light show and angels filling the sky and all that jazz, well for me, it's pretty easy to believe because it happened at a nice safe distance of two thousand or so years ago. Because you and I have watched the kids Christmas pantomimes so many times and sung the Christmas carols so many times, it's become part of our psyche that this thing with the shepherds actually happened. We accept it pretty much without thinking. But bring it back to reality and how would we cope if it happened to us here and now or if we'd been back there with the shepherds’ back then sitting in that field on that night. I think I would be petrified like they were to start with. It would be so unexpected, so out of this world, so impossible and yet there they were and it was happening to them and God broke into their world in this startling 'in your face' kind of way. You know something? I believe that that's what God wants to do today in your world and mine. I believe God wants to shake us out of our comfortable little Christmas ritual, our 'business as usual' approach to Christmas and get right in our faces and say, "Don't you realise what this Christmas thing is all about? Today, I'm bringing you good news for unto you a Saviour has been born for you." And the reaction He's looking for out of you and me is the reaction that the shepherds had. Because when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, "Well, what are we going to do? Why don't we go down to Bethlehem and see what has taken place that which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste, they didn't dawdle; they went with haste. They found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. God wants us to come to Jesus for ourselves – to worship Jesus for ourselves, to tell the world what we've seen. Imagine His frustration, His great frustration when He sees people, like you and me, just going through the motions at Christmas time. Imagine how that makes Him feel when on that first Christmas, He gave to you and He gave to me the single most precious gift that has ever been given in all of human history. So how about it? Will you grab onto this Christmas present with both hands? Will you come to Jesus and worship Him? Will you rejoice at what you've seen? Will you tell people what you've seen? Will you let Christmas impact your heart in the most miraculous way? Well, will you or are you just going to do the same old Christmas ritual this year like you've done for the past umpteen years? Because here's the thing, one day Jesus is coming back. One day, Jesus will return to this earth and when that happens it will make the cosmic light show that the shepherds experienced look like a little sideshow, I'm telling you. When Jesus ascended back into heaven this is what happened: So when they'd come together they asked him, 'Lord is this the time when you'll restore the Kingdom of Israel?' And he replied, 'It's not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria and even to the ends of the earth’. When he had said that as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards the heaven suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards the heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1: 6-11) See, that's going to happen one day, just as unexpectedly as the angels appeared before those shepherds, just as unexpectedly as Jesus slipped into the world the first time. One day this Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. One day He will break back into our physical world just as unexpectedly as He did back then. Only this time there will be no mistaking Him, this time He will come just as He left, in amazing glory to gather His own unto Himself. So as yet another Christmas slips by, I'm going to ask you this … are you ready? Because one day Jesus is coming ready or not. And with all my heart, I want to wish you and those whom you love the most radically wonderful Christmas you have ever had.
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No Room at the Inn // Old Story, New Twist, Part 7
12/24/2024
No Room at the Inn // Old Story, New Twist, Part 7
Okay so we all know that bit in the Christmas story, where Mary and Joseph discover there’s no room at the Inn. But what was that like, and what does that have to say to you and me today? Because actually it wasn’t a happy time and it has rather a lot to say today. I remember a few years back, my wife and I flew from Australia to the US, to Chicago, in fact. That's a long flight, about twenty-four hours door to door. We had a room booked at a hotel on the Golden Mile in Chicago because I was speaking at an IT conference there and the conference organisers had set it all up for me. In LA where we had to clear customs, we discovered that they'd lost Jacqui's suitcase (along the way), fantastic. And then when we landed in Chicago, we had to part ways because I had to fly on for a couple of days to Minneapolis, St Paul. So the plan was Jacqui would catch a cab to the Chicago hotel and I would join her in a couple of days time. Now, it was her very first trip to the US of A. She doesn't do a lot of travel so heading to the hotel on her own was just a little bit daunting. So not only is her luggage missing but she has to find her own way to downtown Chicago and when she arrives, get this, she's told, "No, sorry but the hotel is fully booked." "Hang on, there's a conference here and my husband is the keynote speaker and the conference organisers have booked a room and ..." Well, you can imagine her despair, right? She was ready to cry and she's been travelling now for the last twenty-four hours so she's exhausted. She's alone in a foreign country, her luggage is missing and now they tell her there's no room at the hotel. Two hours it took to get it sorted. At one point they found a room but because the booking was in my name and not hers they weren't going to let her have it. Fortunately, the hotel manager got involved and saner heads prevailed. We did, by the way, eventually find her luggage but that's a whole another story. Now, if you have any sort of heart beating inside you, you'll be feeling a bit sorry for poor old Jacqui. A bit like a lost soul in a foreign land, all alone with waves of exhaustion and despair crashing all over her. For her fortunately, it all worked out. But if I now take you back to the old, old story, the first Christmas story, there was a couple who rocked up to Bethlehem for whom things didn't work out so well – Mary and Joseph. They've come down to Bethlehem from their hometown of Nazareth, up north. A few hours by car these days, as we saw yesterday but for them it's been a one to two week journey by foot perhaps with the aid of a beast of burden to carry the full term, very pregnant, almost due Mary but perhaps not. It's a journey that makes our twenty-four hour flight from Sydney to Chicago look like sheer luxury by comparison. They're tired, they're exhausted, they're ready to get to their room and dive into the jacuzzi and relax, but let's pick up their story. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered, Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David. He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there the time came for her to deliver her child and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them at the inn. (Luke 2: 1-6) Much of the nation of Israel was on the move at this time because of this wretched census ordered by the Emperor Augustus. So, there really was a convention in town when they arrived in that small village, as it was back then, the village of Bethlehem. They weren't in downtown Jerusalem there on the Golden Mile but out of town in this hamlet. And frankly there weren't a lot of five-star or even two or three star hotels available, those that were choc-a-block. And so after, presumably, a few hours of schlepping around and discovering there wasn't a room to be had anywhere some kind inn keeper, seeing Mary's condition, offered them a shed out the back which housed animals. Now I don't know, sheep, goats, maybe the odd cow if he was really wealthy. Can you imagine how Mary's heart sank when she entered that stable where she knew she would give birth? After that whole fanfare with the angel and falling pregnant, not the normal way but through the Holy Spirit? Hey, surely God was with her. Surely, God knew what was going on, His Son, the very Son of God is about to be born. "My son too!" Mary is thinking to herself and now I get a stinking stable? Come on you women who have had children put yourself in Mary's shoes, how do you feel? Not all that impressed, right? Your water's break, the pain starts and you lie down on the floor of a stable that's been pooped on and weed on by the assemblage of farm animals watching you give birth. Just fantastic. I don't know what you're expecting of Christmas this year. It's almost upon us and it's supposed to be great. The world hypes it up as being a great celebration, Christians and Churches hype it up as being a great celebration. I don't think that's how it felt for Mary on that day and I know that's not how it feels for a whole bunch of people today. But let me tell you this … God was in that place with Mar. He was watching over her, He was with her and yes He chose a humble, uncomfortable place for His Son – the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, to be born as a man. God often chooses humble, uncomfortable places for His people. It's just His way. But no matter how uncomfortable it may be for you, no matter how God forsaken this place may seem in which you've found yourself, I want to tell you this, God is with you because Jesus on that first Christmas, Jesus came for you. Do you remember what it was that the angel said to Joseph in his dream when he was explaining to him what had gone on with Mary falling pregnant? Matthew 1: 21-23: ‘She will bear a son' said the angel, 'and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins'. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet 'behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call him Emmanuel which means 'God is with us. Jesus is God on the journey with us. Back in Chicago when Jacqui stood negotiating with those difficult hotel employees over the counter, she no doubt felt incredibly alone, lost in a foreign land. Her husband off in another city, completely uncontactable. Perhaps, as you face whatever it is you're facing the same thoughts race through your mind as no doubt went through Mary's when she lay eyes on that crummy, stinking stable for the very first time. Doesn't God get it? How can He let this happen to me? Why doesn't He fix it? And so you're sitting here on this Christmas Eve wondering even what Christmas is all about. If that's you, if that's a bit of what you're feeling right now, then I have just one word for you from the Lord, "Emmanuel". God is with you. You are never alone. And though He may have chosen circumstances for you right now that you may not have chosen for yourself, on this day, on this Holy day, know this … your God is with you and that beautiful wondrous truth, this truth that we are celebrating right now, at this time that we call Christmas, that truth is something that nothing and nobody can take away from you. Your God is with you.
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A Lonely Journey // Old Story, New Twist, Part 6
12/23/2024
A Lonely Journey // Old Story, New Twist, Part 6
Sometimes on the journey of life we find ourselves completely alone. We can even be surrounded by lots of people, and yet still … be alone. If that’s where you’re at this Christmas, what does God have planned for you? Now I know that this is not going to come as any great surprise to you but I have never been pregnant. Something (by the way) that I've often given thanks for because I'm your typical male – the idea of going through childbirth is something I can't comprehend. Which is why, I guess, God didn't leave it up to men to be mother's – wise move God, wise move. Anyway, back to Christmas, I'm trying to imagine what it was like for Mary who was pretty much full term to travel from Nazareth the Bethlehem for the census. We don't think too much about it because these days the drive from A to B would take, umm, two to three hours I'm guessing; maybe four, if you took it slowly and you had a break for lunch along the way. You'd probably do it in a comfortable air-conditioned car although even then, let’s say a three to four-hour car ride wouldn't be particularly the most delightful experience for a woman who was close to full term, would it now? But back then it was a one to two-week journey. Tradition has it … if you believe all the paintings and drawings that Mary rode on the back of a donkey, of course, there's no Biblical evidence for that, we're not told how she got from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But for her sake, I'm hoping she was on a back of a donkey or riding in the back of a cart somewhere rather than walking the whole way because one thing's for certain she wasn't riding in an air-conditioned car. My point is this … we often look back on the old, old Christmas story as though it’s a fable or a pantomime or, I don't know what. It was so long ago and we've heard it so many times that we just have this two-dimensional view of what went on. Yeah, yeah Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, wise men, Bethlehem, manger, yeah all that jazz. And when we look at Christmas that way, it's almost as though we're closing our hearts off to the wonderful real, gritty, here and now things that God’s wanting to speak into our lives. Mary and Joseph didn't have an easy run of it. It was time for a census. The Roman emperor had decreed that it was time to do a people stocktake. And the way they did it back then (before marks sensing, computer readable census forms distributed to each household) was that you had to head back to your ancestral home and for Joseph that meant Bethlehem. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David. He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. (Luke 2: 1-5) See, the Romans were nothing if not efficient administrators. They, in fact, had a huge impact on the distribution of the Gospel after Jesus' resurrection and ascension because of the road and port infrastructure that they'd built and the relatively peaceful and homogenous Roman Empire that dominated the known world at the time. But on this occasion, as far as Mary and Joseph were concerned, they were being a right proper pain in the backside. Quite literally for Mary if she was fortunate enough to have travelled the journey on the back of a donkey. I imagine that if you or I had been Mary or Joseph, we would have had a few choice words and thoughts about the timing of this rotten, lousy census. Why now? What a pain! How inconvenient! Mary is almost full term and she and Jo are travelling with a sea of humanity in all different directions heading for their ancestral homes, in their case that was Bethlehem. Isn't that how it feels when circumstances and events beyond us seem to dictate the course of our lives? Pretty frustrating, isn't it? – inconvenient and sometimes, downright dangerous and hurtful. But this census wasn't just some random event. It wasn't a happen chance thing. As with everything, God was in it because centuries before through the Prophet Micah, He had spoken to His people about their Messiah whom He would send who would be born in, yeah you guessed it, Bethlehem. Let's take a look, Micah 5: 2-3: But you O Bethlehem of Ephratah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth, then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. See, God had a plan. His plan was that Jesus, the bread of life as He later referred to Himself as, would be born in the town of Bethlehem, a word which literally means 'the house of bread'. God’s plan was to speak powerfully to His people through the Words of Micah's prophecy and through the fulfilment of that prophecy in the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. My point is this … events are never random. Events that seem to roll over the top of your plans and your hopes and your dreams even never just happen by chance. Sometimes the most difficult and devastating events are the most powerful moves of God in our lives and through our lives and into the lives of other people around us. Of course, it never feels like it at the time. And rarely (if ever) does God give us the big picture if you will to explain what's going on and what He's up to when He's doing that and letting these things happen to us. But that doesn't change the fact that God's sovereign will is playing out right there and then. Psalm 135 verse 6 says: Whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. So whatever that looks like in your life right now, remember your God is up to something good. I mean really good just as He was with Mary and Joseph even if they didn't have the full picture. I've called this series of messages leading up to Christmas – 'Old Story, New Twist'. I did that for a reason because I know that this Christmas story, far from being some distant archaic tale of which pantomimes are born, is a gritty, real story of the journey of the Creator of the universe into the lives of men and women, into the lives of you and me. And when we look at that old, old story from His perspective (from the vantage point of heaven’s balcony if you will), when we allow God by His Spirit and through His Word to guide us on that journey over the dusty trails that Mary and Joseph trod, we discover a God who is on that same dusty, difficult journey with you and me today. Peter the Apostle in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7 said that we should: Cast all our anxieties on God because he cares for us. So whatever anxieties and discomforts and fears and disappointments you happen to be carrying around on your rocky road towards this Christmas – this God who is above all your circumstances, this God who is in all your circumstances, this God who sent you His Son to lighten your load wants to take your burdens from you. So how about it? Is it time to hand all that stuff over to Him and to get on the journey and head towards Christmas with joy and anticipation and excitement in your heart? Because Jesus came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bring you forgiveness and a future and a certain hope and an eternity with Him. That's what He ushered in on that very first Christmas. And that, I reckon, is something definitely worth celebrating – Christmas.
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A Father's Heart // Old Story, New Twist, Part 5
12/20/2024
A Father's Heart // Old Story, New Twist, Part 5
The other Sunday, the pastor at my church was talking about dying. He made the point that people’s greatest fear is to die alone. I’d never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. So … what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, as it turns out … everything! I know, it's kind of a weird perspective from which to come at the story of Christmas. But hopefully as we chat together, it will start to make sense. Death … dying is pretty much the one taboo subject left in our society. We can talk about pretty much anything else but not dying. And the last thing that you and I really want to think about is dying. But humour me because I want you to put yourself on your deathbed. Hopefully, quite a few years away from now, and imagine how you'll feel. Would you be afraid of dying alone? I'm guessing you would particularly in a hospital room, sterile, white, disinfected, clinical, with tubes coming out of you, those squeaky sounds the nurses shoes make on the floor. The idea of being completely alone at the end is a terrible thought. Now and then, you hear about an elderly person who died all alone in their home and their body wasn't discovered for seven or eight years. That's frightful. Imagine how the end must have come for them. Of course, you don't have to wait to die in order to be alone. So many people are desperately alone, sometimes through circumstances but mostly as a result of their sin. That may sound a bit weird but sin – turning our backs on God and going our own way usher's in death very quickly. That's what God promised Adam and Eve would happen if they ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he forbade them to eat from. The Lord commanded the man, 'you may eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2: 16) The result of that apparent minor transgression? Well, God said to them: I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, 'I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing, in pain shall you bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. And to the man he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you 'you shall not eat of it' cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, you are dust and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3: 15 – 19) The immediate result of that sin was broken relationships, a broken relationship between God and Adam and a broken relationship between Adam and Eve. And broken relationships mean loneliness and strife. So … what was God's solution to that distance that we put between Him and us through our sin? How did He address that? Well, it's simple really. It was a complete no brainer for Him. All He had to do was to follow the longing of His heart and we know what that is because He tells us what it is over and over again in the Old Testament. Let's have a look at just one example, Leviticus 26: 11 – 13, God said: I will place my dwelling in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be slaves no more, I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you to walk upright. The longing of God’s heart is to be close to His people. He's our Father, He loves us, of course, that's the longing of His heart. And yet, through the whole of the Old Testament we see how God's people struggle to honour Him. In fact, the name Israel literally means 'to struggle with God'. They failed, all the time, over and over again. And over and over again, He forgave them. It was this constant merry-go-round and it wasn't working so here was His plan, a plan that, as I said yesterday, wasn't some fall back, it was always His Plan A. Are you ready for it? Here God's plan, John chapter 1 beginning at verse 10. Speaking about Jesus, it says: He was in the world and the world came into being through him yet the world didn't know him. He came to what was his own and his own people didn't accept him but to all who received him, who believed in his name he gave them power to become children of God who were born not out of blood or out of the will of the flesh or of the will of a man but of God and the word became flesh and lived amongst us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and of truth. (John 1: 10-14) The plan was for God to take a giant step towards us even though we'd drifted so far away from Him that we really didn't know Him anymore. This God who had an intimate personal relationship back then in the beginning with Adam and Eve, the Word (that's Jesus), the Word became flesh and lived amongst us. That's what we celebrate at Christmas But can I give you the literal meaning of that verse because when you have that, it makes a lot more sense. It literally says that Jesus became flesh and tabernacled amongst us, set up His home amongst us, it's the language of the Exodus where God's presence travelled on the forty-year journey through the wilderness with His people in that tent, in that tabernacle. Jesus coming to this planet is Jesus stepping out and coming close to you to travel on your journey with you on your exodus. That's what makes this Christmas thing so amazing – to set you free, to make sure that you are never alone. Not through the problems of this life, not through the fractured relationships and the enmity that exists in this world through our sin, not through that time where we come to the end of this life and not for the rest of eternity. Christmas is Jesus coming close, Christmas is God following the desire of His heart to be close to you and me by sending His Son to be on our journey with us. Are you getting this? Is this touching your heart as I tell you this age old story with a new twist? That new twist is that Jesus came for you. Jesus came to be on your journey. Jesus came to bring you comfort to bind up your broken heart, to bring release from captivity of your sin, to be on this journey every step of the way. And what a terrible price He paid for that so that we could see His glory and know Him and experience a one on one intimacy with Him. Now let me bring you back to your death-bed … what if, instead of being terribly alone on your deathbed you experience the very presence of Jesus right there with you on your journey with His love and His forgiveness and His grace and His peace and His mercy? What if instead of being terribly alone, you come to know as each second ticks by on that clock, you are drawing closer and closer to that time that you will see that Jesus face to face? I don't care what bad things have happened to you in your life. I don't care how lost and alone you may feel. It doesn't matter because Jesus is in this place with you and He will never leave you and never forsake you because on that starry starry night in Bethlehem, He came for you. He came to say, "I love you", He came to suffer and die for you. He came to rise again and give you a completely new life with your slate wiped clean. He came to set you free. He came to bring you peace. He came to be with you for every minute of every day for the rest of eternity. That's Christmas. That's what God was doing by sending us His Son. That's what we're celebrating or at least, what we're pretending to celebrate over this coming week. Do you get it? Jesus came for you and if you have nothing else to celebrate this Christmas then celebrate that. It's all you need to make your Christmas the best one ever. And remember, I'm praying for you that this message, this incredibly Good News of Jesus, will light up your heart with a joy unspeakable.
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Christmas is a Crazy Idea // Old Story, New Twist, Part 4
12/19/2024
Christmas is a Crazy Idea // Old Story, New Twist, Part 4
I don't know if you’ve ever thought of this, but on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea! I mean, what exactly was God thinking by sending His Son to become a man – and to be born in some drafty, smelly shed out the back of Bethlehem. Yeah, absolutely, on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea. I mean stand back and think about it … God's God, He created the whole universe. Okay, He's Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one, something that's not that easy to wrap your mind around. But let's just leave that to one side for the moment. God is God. God creates everything. We read about it in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. It's pretty straightforward description of what He did and it was amazing. And the crowning glory of all His creation is humanity – you and me, male and female. And the very last thing that He does before He rests to enjoy His handiwork of creation is that He hands the whole thing over to us. God said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind and it was so and God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind, everything that creeps along the ground of every kind and God saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make humanity in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humanity in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ God said, 'See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to every thing that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life I have given every green plant for food' and so it was. God saw everything that He'd made and indeed it was very good and there was evening and there was morning of the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 26-31) So far, so good. Adam and Eve go and enjoy all of this amazing creation but God does one thing, just one thing that is so crazy, inexplicable. The Lord commanded the man, 'you may freely eat of every tree of the garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16) Well, you know the rest. They couldn't help themselves, Adam and Eve, they just had to try to be like God. They ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the rest as they say is history. Sin entered the world, sickness entered the world and just as God had promised them death entered the world. Life became hard. That's something you and I can attest to – life is hard and all because God had to forbid them that one tree and they just had to try it anyway. Could it be all of your misery and mine hangs on just that one crummy apple? For Pete's sake, that's nuts! And then as humanity spirals ever downward, as we become ever more debauched and depraved, after that moment God mounts a rescue mission – He sends Jesus to save us. What's that about? Why didn't He just give them access to every last tree? Why did He have to hold that one tree back from them and why did they have to blow it for the rest of us and after all that, why did God mount that rescue mission and send Jesus? It defies human logic until you realise that love and logic have nothing more in common than their first two letters. Love isn't logical. Have a listen to this: But the free gift is not like the trespass for if the many died through one man's trespass, Adams, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift and the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin for the judgement following the one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If because of the one man's sin death has exercised dominion through that one much more surely will those who receive the abundance of the grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man's trespasses lead to condemnation for all so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. But the law came in with the result that the trespass multiplied but when sin increased grace abounded all the more. So just as sin exercised dominion in death so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Romans 5: 12-21) There you have it. There you have the reason that God did what He did. If you love someone you give them free will, right? He gave Adam a free will by excluding that one tree and Adam chose against God and so sin, with all its consequences, entered the world for you and me. Now, before you think to yourself, "I am going to punch Adam in the nose when I see him in heaven." Ask yourself, if nobody in all of history before you had sin and ultimately you were living in that garden, would you have resisted the temptation? So sin entered the world through one man and forgiveness came though one man as well, Jesus. God sent Him into this world as that little babe we remember each year around this time so that we could be forgiven. And notice how that 'grace' word comes in. Forgiven by the free, unmerited favour of God so that we could know what? God’s love. What greater expression of love is there than to forgive someone who doesn't deserve it? I guess only one, to do it and to take his or her punishment on their behalf, to give your life to suffer in order to purchase their forgiveness and their freedom. To step out of heaven into this hurly burly of a sinful world and be punished even though you'd never done anything wrong. And this is not as some Plan B because Plan A didn't work. This was always Gods Plan A. God always knew Adam would blow it. He always knew that you and I would blow it. None of that was ever a surprise to Him and yet out of His great love, He gave us a free will to accept or reject Him. And out of His great love, He came to purchase us back from death by offering up His Son as His sense of justice demanded – to take all the fall for you and for me, to pay the price, to die the death. Now, I know you have a lot going on in these days leading up to Christmas – those last-minute presents to buy, the things to clear off your desk perhaps before you have a few days off, the turkey to buy, the decoration to get up, all that stuff. Now I know that you may not have a lot of time to think about this Christmas stuff but at the heart of Christmas lies a Father's love. The heart of Christmas in the most unhygienic, feed trough called a manger, in that even more unhygienic stable filled with animals, right where that child was born and lay and cried and gurgled – is a love so sublime that there are not enough words to describe it. There are no words ever invented that can really explain a love so great. So as you hurtle towards yet another chaotic Christmas, let me say to you quietly, kindly, gently, "Take a moment to wrap your heart around that love. Just let that love touch you deep inside and change you and change your life and change your world." After all, what do you have to lose?
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The Realities of Life // Old Story, New Twist, Part 3
12/18/2024
The Realities of Life // Old Story, New Twist, Part 3
One of the problems that many people have is reconciling the supposed wonder and joy of Christmas, with the humdrum realities of their lives. How … how do you do that? How do you take this Christmas message and make it real in your life? There is something incredibly powerful about 'business as usual'. If you think about how your life has played itself out, so far, I suspect that it's been ninety-nine percent humdrum and about half a percent of wonderful mountain top joy and another half a percent of tragedy and loss. Sure, some people seem to have better lives than others. Some are born rich, some are born poor and very sadly for some people life is one long tragedy. I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all that away for those people who find themselves in that boat. But I just can't and yet for most of us, most of our lives are occupied by the normal every day, business as usual, monotony which consumes most of our time, most of our attention and most of our focus. Am I right? But beneath that monotony there is always, always, always a sneaking suspicion that there must be more. You've had that feeling, right? This sense that something is oppressing you, something is didling you out of the sort of life that you think you should be living. There are in fact very few people on planet earth today that don't have that feeling. I used to have it but I don't have it anymore. I've always been someone who's tried to get out there and live life to the full. And all along, as hard as I tried, something was missing, things weren't quite right and I couldn't put my finger on it. I want to wind the clock back to what was going on in the history of Israel around when Jesus was born. Not just the history of the nation but the lives of the ordinary people like you and me. In fact there's a particular bunch of guys I want to focus on because they, to me, exemplify this 'business as usual' but something was not quite right in their world. What am I yabbering on about here? I'm talking, of course, about the shepherds who were out watching their flocks by night. Now, no doubt you've sung the Christmas carol many times and heard their story many times. By the way, the fact that they were out there watching their flocks by night makes it pretty certain that Jesus wasn't born in December, Israel's winter. Average December maximums of fifteen degrees Celsius or around sixty degrees Fahrenheit and of course nights were quite a bit cooler. So in winter they generally brought their sheep into town where there was a communal pen where they were cared for overnight. So even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it probably didn't happen then on the first Christmas. Anyhow, here were these guys living out their 'business as usual' tending their flocks by night but they weren't living as free men, they were living as men in an occupied country. The Romans of course had occupied and ruled most of the known world back then. And in fact, the Romans had been the rulers for the last sixty or seventy years in Israel. Now, in the overall history of Israel that's pretty short but for those shepherds it was all that they could remember. The Romans were tough task masters and what made it even harder for the Israelites is that they knew they were God’s chosen people. They knew they were meant to be free and so they expected, kind of, sort of, maybe one day for God to send them a King – a Messiah, as He was called back then, God’s anointed King – in order to boot the Romans out and restore the kingdom of Israel, to set God’s people free. After all, God had done it before. He'd set them free from captivity in Egypt. He'd set them free from captivity in Babylon. He'd set them free from the Seleucid Empire through the Maccabean Revolt only a century and a half before. That was their simplistic understanding of what should be going on. So there they were, business as usual. But something wasn't quite right, they were oppressed and that simply wasn't the way it should have been. They were being robbed of the freedom, the life that they knew they were entitled to as God’s chosen people. Does that sound vaguely familiar to you? Does that sound like anyone that you know? Now, people back then were kind of expecting this Messiah to come. But when you and I used this term 'Messiah' we think of Jesus, right? That's not who they were thinking about at all. They were thinking more about a strong warrior king, someone like King David of old who could muster an army, defeat the Romans and set the people free. After all, isn't that what God promised to David years before? 2 Samuel 7: 12 and 13, He said to David: When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So in effect, they were looking in the wrong direction for a saviour because they misinterpreted what God was on about. They thought they were going to get another King David. Again a bit like, in fact a lot like people today, that's what was going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people like those 'business as usual' shepherds back then and in many respects it's what’s going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people today. People are looking for someone or something to set things right. They know that life is not all it should be so they turn to money or career or reputation or luxury or holidays or friends, you name it. They turn to it expecting ‘it’ to make things better but it never does. People have been looking in the wrong direction for a Saviour for thousands of years just like those shepherds and then God breaks into the world with such power and with such might and in such a surprising way that we can't even begin to imagine what He's up to. In that region were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'don't be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2: 8-14) This Messiah, this Saviour, He wasn't what they expected Him to be – He still isn't what we expect Him to be. What are you expecting Jesus to be? As we roll inexorably towards Christmas, yet again, what are you expecting to discover or are you so busy looking in a different direction that you're going to miss this amazing surprise in Jesus? Or are you running away as I was for many years because like the shepherds I was kind of afraid? This idea of God breaking into history by becoming one of us is too startling and too incomprehensible to begin to make sense. Just listen with me quietly to what the angel went on to say to those startled, frightened, 'business as usual', confused shepherds. This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. And so ... When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, 'let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made known to us'. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and a child lying in a manger. When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 15 – 20) Seems to me that you and I, like the shepherds, have a choice. We can continue to get on with business as usual, stay in our field and ignore Jesus. Or, we can go and check Him out for ourselves. The only question that I'd ask is this; so how well has your 'business as usual' worked out for you so far?
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The Prophecies of Old // Old Story, New Twist, Part 2
12/17/2024
The Prophecies of Old // Old Story, New Twist, Part 2
You know that first Christmas … it didn’t just happen. It wasn’t like God hadn’t told His people that He was going to send them a Saviour. It’s just that … well, they were so focussed on the here and now, they really hadn’t stopped to consider the big picture. I guess when it comes to this whole Christmas thing; we see it from where we sit. And for most of us, our perspective (our take on Christmas) comes through the ritual that surrounds it – a ritual that we've acted out year after year for as long as we can remember. Sure, it's changed a bit. When we were kids it was all about the excitement of presents. But you know the deal, you know all the things that you do in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you know how Christmas Day is going to pan out. You know the carols you're going to sing and the food that you're going to eat and the people you're going to celebrate Christmas with. If it's at all possible, this exciting celebration of Christmas has become something of a routine for you. A bit of a contradiction but it's true for most of us, life is full of contradictions right? When it comes to Christmas we kind of narrow our view, we lower our gaze and focus on the well-worn familiar path of the Christmas ritual. Whatever that looks like for each one of us, we narrow our perspective and like Pavlov's dogs we get on with that part of life and in many respects, that's how it was on that very first Christmas two thousand odd years ago. Although it wasn't called Christmas back then. In fact, the first record of there being some celebration of Christmas doesn't appear until 354 AD, three and a half centuries after the birth of Jesus. And of course many of the modern-day traditions of Christmas that we celebrate on December 25th – for instance, eating turkey, having a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, presents, tinsel, lights, all of those are much, much more recent. In fact, the Christmas ritual that you and I take for granted today, as though it's been around forever, is little more than a hundred years old, it's a bit of a surprise, isn't it? But let's wind the clock back even further to that first Christmas. People by and large were just going on with their daily business. The big news in town was of course the census. The Romans had ordered a stock take of all the people and in the absence of the technology we use today, the way you did it back then was to go back to your ancestral home. And in the case of Joseph and therefore Mary, his embarrassingly pregnant betrothed, that meant going back to Bethlehem. The inns were full, the shepherds were out doing what shepherds did, tending their flocks in the field by night. Other than the disruption of the census, it was pretty much business as usual. And then wham, the light show in the skies in front of these shepherds. God broke into that 'business as usual' in a spectacular way. You know what, I'm praying for this Christmas, God is going to break into your 'business as usual' in a spectacular way too. All these people were just living their lives, just like we do, head down, doing stuff that they did day after day when all along God had promised a Saviour. There are quite a number of prophecies in what we now call the Old Testament (the Scriptures to the Jewish people) of the coming of a Saviour and principle among them is that He would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5: 2-5: But you O Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall live secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be the one of peace. The prophecy of the coming of the Saviour in great power in this tiny humble little village of Bethlehem and by the way the word Bethlehem means literally 'the house of bread'. Remember how Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life’. How appropriate that He should be born in Bethlehem – the house of bread. And then there was the prophecy that He would be born to a virgin, now that's pretty outrageous when you think about it, Isaiah chapter 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look the virgin woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel which means 'God is with us. And that is, of course, exactly what happened. There are quite a few more prophecies about the birth of Jesus that were given centuries before that He fulfilled – His lineage, the slaughter of the infants by Herrod, His need to flee to Egypt. The bottom line was that there were plenty of signs, plenty of prophecies, plenty of predictions. Okay they were cryptic. I mean God revealed His Son in mystery and wonder. We always try to analyse God and put Him in a box. We try and figure out how He operates and then make a bunch of rules about Him. But you can't do that with God. He does startling, creative, outrageous things like sending His Son, Jesus as the son of a carpenter in humble circumstances in some shed out the back of Bethlehem. But the picture was always there, the big plan was always there. God had given some predictions about what was going to happen even as way back as His promise to Abraham. Right back there in the first Book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, God said to him, "Through you all nations shall be blessed" pointing forward to Jesus. But the people were just chugging along, business as usual and it was difficult (if not, impossible) for many of them to see, to perceive, to understand. Not all of them had the light show like the shepherds and the wise men. As I look at the world today, it seems to me that still today most are asleep to what God did back then and what God is doing now. The only difference is that we know the whole story, we know what was going on and how it ends. So as this Christmas approaches, you find yourself asleep to the wonder of what God is doing then let me say to you with all love and with all care, "Wake up. Don't be asleep through yet another Christmas." The wonder and the power of what God did back then, the doors that He opened for you through the coming of Jesus, the joy of what He brings to you today, the unspeakable glory that He opens up through His Son for you to spend eternity with Him, why would you want to sleep through that? Why would you want to be blind to that? Those prophecies of old which is the faintest hint of what was to come. But now we know, now we can see the sheer wonder that is Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy and full of acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen. (1 Timothy 1: 15-17) Man, why would you want to ignore that, to sleep through that, to replace it with trite Christmas rituals that don't come anywhere close to what that's all about? Why would you do that? Because, well, that's just what people do, that's how it goes. It's Christmas again so let's roll out the Christmas tree and the tinsel and the lights and play it again Sam. That's not what Christmas was meant to be. That's not what God the Father had in His great and mighty heart as He gazed down upon the birth of His Son in that horrible dirty little stable. It never ceases to amaze me how readily we're prepared to accept cheap imposters when the real thing, the real deal is available to each one of us. Christmas, what will it mean to you this year, hmm?
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The Problem of Christmas // Old Story, New Twist, Part 1
12/16/2024
The Problem of Christmas // Old Story, New Twist, Part 1
Well … here we are again. It’s December. It’s almost the end of another year … and it’s almost Christmas time. Again! Happens year after year. Christmas. Question is … what do you make of it? What do you do with it? It’s an age-old problem. I don't know if you've ever thought of this but Christmas is a real problem for guys like me, preachers I mean. Year after year, we have to crank out yet another Christmas series. And for the first few years, that's pretty easy but then after a while you start thinking to yourself, "Well, how am I going to put a new twist on Christmas this year?" Last year, I approached it from this perspective, the year before from that perspective, the year before that from ... well, you get the picture. There are only so many different perspectives on Christmas. Well, we've all been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Yeah, so it's Christmas again, so what? If you live in the Northern Hemisphere it’s an excuse for a few days off. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere as I do, it's probably the summer holidays that you're looking forward to more than Christmas itself. A chance for a decent break, a bit of a much-needed R and R and sure Christmas is part of that but the Christmas bit can be a bit of a hassle. Buying presents, figuring out who has Christmas lunch with whom and then perhaps scooting off to Christmas dinner with another part of your family. Kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents – it all gets complicated. And then there's the fact not everybody in the family gets on. You know Christmas day is one of the peak times of the year for domestic violence. Even if it doesn't get that bad you know there are going to be clashes or you're going to have to smile sweetly at someone that you don't really like or you just know that so and so is going to have too much to drink again this year. Those are the burdens that many people carry into Christmas, it's just the reality of life. So as things turn out, Christmas isn't just a problem for preachers like me who have to dream up something fresh and new each year, it's a problem for many, many people. I heard someone say once, a Bible believing Christian she was, "I hate Christmas, I wish we could just skip over it." It's pretty sad but it's the reality for many people even those who actually believe in Jesus. So Christmas gets something of a bad rap, I wonder how many people who are out there who would just love to skip Christmas. I wonder? Well, as you look ahead to the next ten days or so in the run up to Christmas, I wonder how you're feeling about it all, exhausted, frustrated, anxious, stressed. What are the emotions that generally accompany this thing we call Christmas in your heart in your life? What are you feeling? Is Christmas a problem for you? Can I be honest here? I struggle with the kids pantomime version of Christmas. I struggle with the whole Carols by Candlelight phenomenon around Christmas where people get together in parks and sing Christmas carols as though they believe them, when most of the entertainers up on the stage and on our television screens don't have the remotest faith that Jesus is actually the Son of God. It's like we wrap this whole Christmas in tinsel and lights and tie a neat bow around it. And we make it out to be this happy time, when the truth is, for many people, well, they struggle with Christmas. Now I don't mean to be a Christmas Grinch here. Personally, I love singing Christmas carols because they mean something to me but what I really want to know is why don't we sing Christmas carols all year round? Why don't we celebrate the coming of Jesus all year round? I remember hosting a Christmas in July service at our Church some years back. It's a bit of a phenomenon down under as many restaurants put on Christmas dinners in the middle of winter when it's cold and at the service we actually sung Christmas carols. I can't tell you the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me how weird it was singing Silent Night in the middle of July. Yeah, we wrap a whole bunch of rituals up in a nice neat package in December and we call it Christmas. And it's all supposed to be sweetness and light and yet how much of it really, really, really speaks into our hearts about the wonder of what God did on that first Christmas? What I want to do today is to unsettle you, to drag you out of your Christmas ritual comfort zone and ask you: Why do you do what you do at Christmas time? Why are you racing around buying presents for people who don't really need anything? Why do you put tinsel and Christmas decorations around your house and maybe even a Christmas wreath on your front door? What are the candles and the Christmas tree and presents and all that food really about? What do you do it for? If you stripped away all that packaging and paraphernalia what would Christmas actually be for you? In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'don't be afraid, for see I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord." "This will be a sign for you, you'll find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger' and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours. (Luke 2: 8-14) So if you took the packaging and the paraphernalia and the ritual and the racing around away, is that what Christmas would mean to you? Would you in your heart shout out, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven. Glory, glory, glory. Hallelujah?' Because if not, don't you think you just might be wasting your time with all this Christmas nonsense that you go through each year? All this pressure you put yourself under, all these presents you buy and the money you spend and the decorations you put up and the food that you stuff yourself with – is that what Christmas is all about? Or in your heart, is it about the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God to be the Saviour of this world? The biggest Christmas gift of all history – the Son of God given to all humanity, given to you and given to me. So let me ask you, what is your Christmas all about? It's something I've thought a lot about over the last few years, maybe that's what you do as you get a little bit older. You start to reflect on some of the things that you've done over and over again without thinking too much and you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" So why are you doing this? In your life, in your family, in your situation, in your home, in your place, in your community, why are you doing this thing that we call Christmas? What does it mean to you? What does it benefit you? What lasting difference does it really make to you? And when you come to December 25th, do you wake up in the morning with this overwhelming sense of joy in your heart that unto you a Saviour is born? Or do you lie there and wonder, why am I doing this again and how's the day going to pan out? I want to challenge you today, that if you're going to actually celebrate Christmas and that word 'celebrate' is one that I use rather loosely around this time of year to describe a whole bunch of different things. If you want to do that again this year, is it going to be worth it or not? Because this whole crazy idea that God came up with to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born into that stinky draughty stable, into a stinking hurting world, is meant to mean something to you and me. It's meant to touch our hearts deep, deep inside somewhere. And unless it does, then to be perfectly frank about it, this thing in your life that you call Christmas is a complete waste of time. Completely!
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Living in Hope // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 10
12/13/2024
Living in Hope // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 10
Well, at some point in our lives, eventually, we come to the realisation that the idea, the promise of overnight success that the world’s been dangling under our noses is an empty promise. It happens to all of us, eventually. And at that point, what we need is hope. Not a vague, uncertain hope, but a rock–solid, absolutely certain hope. Maybe that's what having a mid life crisis is all about, coming to the realisation that you're not going to have the overnight success that you've been chasing all your life. At some point, maybe it's in your forties or your fifties, you realise you're not the ‘bees knees’, you're not going to set the world on fire and for some it happens early, for some it happens later but that youthful exuberance that we once had, that idealism that sprang forth so naturally, that flame that burned inside us to change the world, it's quenched, it's snuffed out. It's a terrible realisation because for many it's the death of hope, for many where there was once meaning now there's only meaninglessness. King Solomon was one of the richest and wisest men to ever live. Towards the end of his life he said this, Ecclesiastes chapter 1 beginning at verse 2: Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! Everything is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, a generation comes but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, hurries to the place where it rises again. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north and round and round goes the wind on it circuits the wind returns. All streams run into the sea but the sea is never full, to the place where streams flow where they continue to flow. All things are wearisome, more than one can express. The eye is never satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing, what has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done. There's nothing new under the sun, is there a thing of which it can be said, “see this is new”? It has already been in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered nor will there be a remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them. It's a pretty sad conclusion for a rich, wealthy, powerful, wise man to come to. After all I've done, after all I've had none of it means anything. That's the stuff of mid life crisis, that's the stuff that drives people over the edge. All those years we've been sacrificing our lives for what? An ideal, an idea, an image of success that turned out to be as allusive as a mirage in the desert. What am I living for? What am I working so hard for? They're the questions we end up asking ourselves when we've wasted half our lives, perhaps more, on the altar of success. It was that stuff, as a very successful man in my mid thirties, it was precisely this that drove me to the brink of suicide. Not everyone, thankfully, gets to that point but you'll be amazed at how many people actually think about it. Why? Because they've lost hope, because the world's promise of overnight success turned out to be a rotten stinking lie. We talked yesterday about humility, the transformative power of having a humble heart. Well today I'd like to chat with you briefly about another word that begins with 'h', hope. The sort of hope that you need in your heart when things quite haven't worked out the way you planned them to. When hope is lost, when the future seems to have gone AWOL it's in that very place that God has something for you which goes beyond, way beyond anything that you and I could have ever imagined. Hope, real, certain, rock solid hope, writes the Apostle Paul to the Church in Rome, chapter 15 verse 13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul had, by this time, been through many trials in his life, in his ministry for Jesus across the known world. He'd suffered a lot, things hadn't gone the way he expected them to. He wrote this letter to the Romans in Corinth while he was on his third missionary journey. By this time he'd been on the road proclaiming Jesus for a good many years. He'd been beaten, locked up, threatened with death, he's had people ride against him, drive him out of town, plot his assassination. He wanted to go here and there but his plans were blocked, sometimes by God, sometimes by the devil and sometimes by people. Things hadn't always gone the way he'd planned and he knew he was probably going to be locked up when he headed down to Jerusalem and yet Paul talks here in Romans chapter 15 verse 13 about the God of Hope. A God who will fill you with all joy and all peace, not just a bit of joy now and then, not just the occasional fleeting moment of peace but all joy and all peace, the sort of joy and the sort of peace that Paul exhibited during his times of trial, the sort of joy and the sort of peace that came to him by the power of the Holy Spirit. And his prayer for the Romans is that they would abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, do you notice this abundance language here? Abound in hope, overflow with hope and all this comes through believing. Let's read it again so that it all comes together, Romans chapter 15 verse 13: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and all peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. In believing, in believing in what exactly? He's talking about believing in Jesus. For so much of my life I hoped for success and I hoped for wealth and all that stuff, that's what led me to the brink and it was in that place that Jesus met me, it was in that place that I discovered this God who loved me so much that He sent His Son to die for me, to pay the price of my sin, of my rebellion so that I, I could live for eternity with Him. Can you or I see eternity yet? No we can't, Romans chapter 8 verses 23 and 24: For in hope we were saved, now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what is not seen we wait for it in patience. And now that my hope is in Jesus God's given me the patience to wait for His promise, His promise of eternal life, His promise of sharing in His glory forever and ever and when Paul, from amidst his trials writes about being filled with all joy and all peace and abounding in hope and in believing, that's something I totally get because that's exactly how it is. All those years I was chasing the shiny promises of the world that led me, in the end, towards death when all along the real answer was Jesus, the real answer is Jesus. The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah wrote this, Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 7: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. Who or what have you placed your trust in? Who or what do you hope in? Success? Then you're going to be disappointed in Jesus? Then you'll be filled with a hope that abounds in you, that overflows out of you but in believing brings all joy and all peace. I'm so conscious that so many people are listening today around the world who haven't yet placed their hope in Jesus. So if you want to do that then please pray this prayer with me right now, don't leave it one more minute. Father God Today I've heard about Jesus, about the One who loves me so much that He came and died and paid the price of my rebellion against you, the one who rose again to give me a life, an eternal life with you. And today I want to put all my trust and all my hope in Jesus, in Him alone. Please forgive me for all my sins, please take me just as I am, please fill me with your Holy Spirit so that by His power I might be filled with all joy and all peace and abound in the certain hope of your blessings here in this world and eternity with you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
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Developing a Humble Heart // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 9
12/12/2024
Developing a Humble Heart // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 9
When you think about it, pride and impatience are two sides of the one coin. Maybe that’s why so many people are in such a hurry to become an overnight success. Problem is, our plan isn’t always God’s plan, and impatience leads to an enormous amount of frustration. If you've been able to join me over this last couple of weeks you'll know that we're talking about this crazy notion that we can become an overnight success. Success is a seductive concept and time and time again we're told in the media, in the advertising industry, even in the sitcoms we watch that you can be whatever you want to be and you can do whatever you want to do. And in a world where things become oh so instant somebody has dropped this notion on our heads that we can have success and we can have it now. Just think about how the world has changed, I remember when I was a boy we didn't have a phone in our house, we just didn't. If my parents wanted to make a phone call they had to wander down the street to use the public phone but then again most of their friends didn't have any phones in their houses either so what was the point? Just think about the implications of that, how do you arrange to go out with your friends? Well you did it weeks in advance and it was something special that you planned and you didn't go very often. It also meant, by default, that your friends mostly consisted of people with whom you had regular contact, your neighbours, the parents of the children your kids went to school with perhaps or work colleagues. But no communication is instant, most people have a mobile phone in their pocket or in their handbag. SMS instant, phone call instant, email instant. In fact many a day before 7.00 am I've been on Skype to one of my colleagues in Africa or America, space and time are no longer boundaries, pretty much any piece of information you need is in the palm of your hand. If I need a statistic or a fact for one of these messages I just ‘Google’ it and bingo there it is in a fraction of a second. You can see then how over the last few decades our mentality has shifted from having to wait for things back then to having them instantly today. Combine that with this idea that you can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do and can you see then how easy it is for you and for me to imagine that somehow we truly are at the centre of the universe. That's a notion that breeds pride, unhealthy pride and that unhealthy pride demands to be satisfied instantly. Like I said pride and impatience are two sides of the one coin and that's why I believe so many people are so frustrated with their lives today because when all is said and done the world doesn't think of us at the centre of the universe, the world doesn't dance to our tune, the theory, the view we have of ourselves is a false one, it's out of touch with reality and so our expectations of how things should be are completely out of sync with how things really are. “I want to be an overnight success but it's just not working out for me.'” I think there's many a person who understands that level of constant frustration in their lives. Is that a frustration you would like to be set free from perhaps? Is that something that has been grinding away at you, this constant sense that things aren't moving quickly enough for you, in your direction according to your plans to make you feel good? Well, God has a solution for you and that solution has a name, its called humility. Let's head to the dictionary to try first to understand what humility really is. I quote: “The quality of having a modest or low view of one’s self importance.” And then the example that my dictionary gives me is this: “He needs humility to accept there may be a better way.” Pretty good definition and you can see how completely opposed the quality of humility is to the world view that so many people have developed with themselves on top, themselves at the centre with the rest of the world, God included, dancing to their tune. 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 5. In the same way you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders and all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud but He gives grace to the humble. The idea of younger people accepting authority from their elders these days in many cultures and communities has gone straight out the window and those where traditional family values still dominate are seeing them being eroded when affluence and western culture starts to bite. I love how the Apostle Peter puts it there, “you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another.” Can I tell you the people I really, really like being around are the humble ones. Just recently I caught up for lunch with one of my heroes, Phil Littlejohn. Phil was the Pastor at the first Church I ever attended after becoming a Christian. I remember him saying once in one of his sermons years ago that humility is strength under control, it's not about being a doormat or having low self-esteem or being a weakling, no humility is simply ditching this notion that ‘I am the centre of the universe’, that ‘I am on top of the heap’ and when you meet people who have humility you want to be around them don't you? I know so many smart, competent, strong people who yet are humble and Phil is one of those. Listen to what Jesus had to say on this subject, Matthew chapter 18 verses 1 to 4: At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child whom he put among them and said, “truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” In fact Jesus, the Son of God, the creator of the universe said this of Himself on the subject of humility, Matthew chapter 11 verse 28: “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus said it Himself that He is humble of heart, how do we know that? Not just by what He said but by what He did, Philippians chapter 2 beginning at verse 5: Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, though He was in the form of God, didn't regard equality with God as something to be exploited but He emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness and being found in human form He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus humbled Himself by dying on a cross for you and me and what God is calling us to do is to be like Him, to let the same mind be in us that was in Jesus, to look first to the interest of others, to, like Jesus, come to serve not be served and when we do that God will exalt us for He opposes the proud but He exalts the humble. That right there is one of the most powerful spiritual principles that you'll ever encounter. So if you're frustrated, if the world isn't dancing to your tune, if the success you're after isn't quite as instant and as overnight as you want it to be then here's the answer, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, resign as the centre of the universe, serve, care about others before yourself and God will exalt you, God will promote you in due time. Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ.
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Character Building Exercises // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 8
12/11/2024
Character Building Exercises // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 8
As a theoretical concept, we all believe in character–building. It’s a good idea. It’s a good thing. Sure! But as a practical exercise, character building, almost always hurts. And when it’s us that’s hurting, character building doesn’t seem like such a good idea. You know something; if I never hear the term 'character building' again it will be too soon. Let me tell you why. When I was a young man between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one I spent four years training to be an officer in the Australian army at the Royal Military College Duntroon, it's the Australian version of America's West Point and Britain's Sandhurst. Now sounds just a tad glamorous doesn't it? And certainly that's how the recruiting brochures portrayed it. Those four years though were without a doubt, the four toughest years of my life. Over seven and a half thousand young men applied, a hundred and forty seven were accepted and only sixty one of us graduated, it's a pretty severe attrition rate and the reason was that it was brutally difficult. We all studied a university degree while undertaking military training, it was a punishing seven day a week schedule, intellectually, physically and emotionally punishing and each time we were going through the next incredibly difficult thing, the next nine mile run with full pack and rifle, the next survival exercise, climbing over steep mountains without any food.The next drill sergeant screaming in our face, some of them would mutter under their breath 'character building', everyone else would just snigger grimly. My point is character building is always painful and difficult. As I said yesterday on the program you don't have your character developed while you are sitting on the beach on a nice holiday sipping a Pina colada, your character is only ever tested and refined and developed through the difficult times and thinking back to those brutal four years of Duntroon everything we went through was about developing our character so if we were ever called upon we would have the capacity to lead soldiers into war, into battle with bullets flying and bombs going off. Each one of those exercises were truly character building exercises to weed out those who couldn't make it and to develop those who could and that's the business that God is in, developing our character, yours and mine through deliberately planned trials. Some people find that a tad confronting but that's exactly what the Bible teaches us, Romans chapter 5 verses 1 to 5: Therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that we also boast in our suffering because we know that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope never disappoints us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Now that's a very interesting passage, it starts off by declaring the good news of Jesus, that we're saved by faith, that in Jesus we've obtained the grace that brings us peace with God and we're right to boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God, man that's really good news. And then comes the segway from God's grace to our suffering and not only that but we also boast in our suffering. Can I ask you something? How often have you boasted in your suffering? When was the last time you boasted to your family or to your friends about the suffering that you were going through right at that minute? It's almost as though the Apostle Paul who is writing this letter to the Church in Rome, is truly boasting in his suffering which actually he does over and over again in the various letters that he wrote that are now part of the New Testament, the Bible, Gods very own Word. mSo why does he boast in his suffering? Well to him it's absolutely obvious, it's because he knows that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and that hope doesn't disappoint us because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us. Paul knew that through his suffering God was developing his character and when God develops your character it invariably hurts, especially at the beginning. I can't tell you the pain that I remember from those days at Duntroon, they say you can't remember pain well perhaps they have never been through military training. Every muscle in my body ached, I was so tired I wanted to drop and then we'd march another fifty miles through the mountains without food or sleep. I tell you I wouldn't do it again for ten million dollars, that's how hard it was. It's interesting every now and then, a few of us, old classmates get together and we have dinner and we remember the good old days and just generally have a good time and in each of those guys, older and greyer and many of them somewhat pudgier than they were back as young men, I see men of character, a depth of character I can see in each one of them. You can't put a price on that. See God is interested in your heart, He's interested in building your character and that's a really blessed thing. Character building exercises, each one planned specifically for you, each one designed, hand crafted to develop you into the person that God made you to be. When Samuel was sent to choose the next king of Israel who turned out to be King David but who back then was just a teenager, God said to Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 16 verse 7; Do not look on his outward appearance or on the height of his stature because I've rejected him for the Lord sees not as a man sees, man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. And in each fiery trial, each character building exercise that you go through that's what God is interested in, God's interested in your heart. So there's the theory lesson if you will but now it's time to apply it to your life. What character building exercises has God have you in the middle of just at the moment? Is it a temptation that's testing you, is it a relationship that is causing you pain, is it something you've been longing for and God seems to be delaying His answer? What is it in your life at the moment? The one thing that's causing you grief, pain and distress because it's that one thing that I believe God wants you to apply His Word to today. To take that Scripture from Romans chapter 5 verses 1 to 5 and to apply it to your trial. I'm going to read it again in a minute and as I do let the words sink into your trial, your pain, your distress, your longing, your disappointment because as you do God is going to breathe His Holy Spirit into you, as you do God is going to strengthen your weak knees, He's going to put resolve in your heart, He's going to breathe meaning into your suffering and in doing all of that I believe He is going to develop your character and move you closer to being all He created you to be. Are you ready? Here it is, God speaking directly into your suffering through His Word, Romans chapter 5 verses 1 to 5: Since you have been justified by faith you now have peace with God through Jesus Christ through whom you have obtained access to this grace in which you now stand and you can boast in your hope of sharing the glory of God. But not only that you should also boast in your suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and that hope is never going to disappoint you because Gods love has been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit who has been given to you. May the Word of God transform you today and may you be filled with the resolve to honour God through your trials and to serve others with His love until Jesus comes again.
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Learning Patience the Hard Way // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 7
12/10/2024
Learning Patience the Hard Way // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 7
You’ve heard that saying, haven’t you – Dear God, give me patience … NOW! It’d be really, really nice if we could learn patience instantly. In fact it’d be even better if we didn’t need to learn it at all. But sadly, when it comes to setbacks and delays, trials and temptations, there’s really only one way to learn patience … and that’s the hard way. To be honest with you patience is perhaps the hardest lesson that I have had to learn since giving my life to Jesus a good many years ago now, THE hardest lesson! I'm just not a patient kind of guy, I think quickly, I act quickly, I even walk quickly, yeah I'm one of those people. Of course there's an upside to having that sort of personality type, the upside is that I get a lot done, the upside is that if you need someone to crash through some brick walls then I'm your man and yes we need some people in the mix who are like that but the downside is that I can be very impatient. Impatient with circumstances, with people and with God and when God gets someone like me to deal with then you can bet your bottom dollar that He is going to give me some extra tuition in this whole area of patience, hallelujah, thank you Jesus. You see I don't get why the guy driving in the car in front of me sensing that the light is going to change in just a few seconds doesn't put his foot down just that little bit so that he and I can both cross over the white line before the light turns orange. Now I'm not asking him to speed, I just want him to think about my time that he's wasting and just nudge the accelerator pedal just that little bit. And when he doesn't do that I simply don't get that. And what I really, really, really, really want to do is to express my displeasure by slamming down on the horn long and loud and there are many times, irrespective of the makeup of our personalities, when we don't get why God has to delay things or if it's not Him delaying them why He doesn't just crash through it for us and make it happen, whatever 'it' happens to be. And can I tell you? The most difficult time to be impatient is when you're hurting, when you're experiencing pain, I mean even I have learned to be patient when I'm not in pain. All I have to do is give up on the plans that I had for the time that from my perspective is now going to waste because of whatever delay I happen to be facing. It's not that easy, it still isn't easy but I can learn that. What's really hard though is to be patient when you're suffering in a difficult relationship perhaps or under a difficult boss at work or through ill health. I mean ill health is really tough because when you're in real physical pain compounded by mental anguish patience, well it ain't that easy to come by. So let me ask you exactly what is patience? Well my dictionary tells me that it's 'the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious'. That's a pretty good definition don't you think, patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems or suffering with becoming annoyed or anxious. You see this quality of patience, this issue of depth of character is not something we seem to place all that much value on in a world that expects overnight success and instant gratification but you and I know that it's really, really important because when the chips are down, when things are stacked against us, when our plans are thwarted, when we're suffering pain or loss, unless we have the capacity to tolerate those without becoming annoyed or anxious then we're going to become, well annoyed or anxious or even worse. We start behaving badly, we start doing stupid things, we start hurting other people, damaging relationships and pretty much ruining our lives. You've been there, you've been there, I've been there so how do we get patience, how do we learn patience when we're in that caldron of delay and suffering? I want to share with you today a Scripture that is jam-packed full of incredible wisdom. These three verses punch way above their weight, are you ready? Psalm 37 verses 7 to 9: Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices, refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret, it leads only to evil for the wicked shall be cut off but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. Do you want to know how to get patience? Well there it is. First be still, stop flapping around like a chicken with its head cut off, stop complaining, stop sobbing, stop carrying on, just shut up for a minute and be still and wait patiently for God. The original Hebrew word for waiting used there literally talks of a woman in labour, suffering the pain but waiting, pushing, believing that the child is about to be born. It's a great picture isn't it, for what we're going through when we're suffering? So stop screaming, stop yelling, wait without fretting. Stop looking at all those evil people over there who seem to be prospering and forget your anger and your desire to take vengeance because if you spend your time thinking about revenge, if you keep fretting over your dilemma it's going to only lead you to evil, you're going to do something bad or stupid because here's the promise; those who wait, a different word used here now for 'wait' in verse 9, it means to wait expectantly on the Lord, to expect Him to do something good. The promise is that those who wait expectantly on God, expecting Him to act will, WILL inherit the land, the Promised Land, the promises of God. I told you these few verses punch way above their weight. Grab a Bible and spend some time in them, think about them, pray about them and then start living them, Psalm 37 verses 7 to 9. When we're suffering, when we're delayed, when things have gone awry, thrashing around, complaining, behaving badly, exacting revenge, none of those things are going to do you any good, they're only going to lead you to evil and God cuts the wicked off. But choosing in that difficult place instead to wait expectantly on God, to put your trust in Him, even though you are going through great pains that is the one thing that will help you lay hold of Gods promises. Let me tell you, God is going to keep you there and God is going to bring you back to that place again and again and again until you learn that lesson because He wants you to trust Him through every difficult circumstance. I've never heard someone come back from a three-week luxury holiday and say, “man, you know, God really grew my character, God really developed my stamina and endurance over that holiday.” Maybe God gave you a much needed rest, a much needed refreshment over the holiday but your character is only developed in the heat of the battle, your character is only refined and made pure and strong in the furnace of life. And God isn't doing this in order to be sadistic, your pain hurts Him as much as it hurts you because He loves you, He feels your pain more acutely than you might have ever had imagined. No He's doing this for a purpose, see He's wanting to give you something so precious that He's prepared to let you suffer for it. Here it is Hebrews chapter 12 verses 11 and 12: Look discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed. The peaceful fruit of righteousness – Because when we start living in the righteousness, the goodness, the right way of living rather than the wrong way of living, when we learn these hard lessons and start living in wisdom that we discover through those fiery trials, we develop a peaceful fruit in our lives, the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Think about it, when we've developed the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious what we have in those times instead is peace. That's what God wants to give you - peace.
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Setbacks and Delays // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 6
12/09/2024
Setbacks and Delays // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 6
That’s it, I’ve had it. I only ever try to do the right thing, and each and every time God puts obstacles in my road! … Have you ever thought that? Sure you have. So have I. That’s why today, we’re going to take a close look at those seemingly God–ordained setbacks and delays. There's something about kicking off a new week, it's a small version of kicking off a new year I guess, that sense of anticipation, the idea that, well maybe this week things will be different. And yet for many it's the same old same old, same old drudgery, the same old difficult people and difficult circumstances, seemingly going nowhere. It's not that life is all that bad it's just that you had these plans of doing this or achieving that or being there or whatever it is and none of those things seem to be happening. I can't tell you the number of times that I've had plans to do this good thing for God or that good thing for God only to have those plans thwarted. And you know the really amazing thing people often say to me “wow Berni, your ministry is so successful” as though somehow success is a relevant measure of what God's doing. And these days when that happens I stop and I don't know what to say. Well I do know what to say but I think to myself “what's the point?” What I really want to say to this person who looks at this ministry of Christianityworks that produces these radio messages and thinks of it as some overnight success, where were you when the ministry almost folded at least a dozen times? Where were you when nobody could be paid a salary because there was no income coming in? Where were you during those incredibly difficult times when we kept slogging away and slogging away and we just weren't moving forward? Oh and by the way let me tell you about the challenges and the trials that we're facing right now. Hello? It seems the further we are away from the reality of something, the more that we are on the outside rather than on the inside of something, the more likely we are to look at the good bits, yeah we'll take the good bits any day while completely ignoring the challenges and the problems and the delays and the setbacks. And the more often we do that the more likely we are to develop this completely unrealistic expectation that whatever we set our hands to should be an overnight success. You're getting the point right? As I sit here now chatting with you I can tell you that there are challenges that I'm facing, challenges so big that unless God shows up we're going to fail. That's often the reality and yet we behave as though that's something abnormal because we've been conditioned to believe in this crazy notion of overnight success. Last week, if you were able to join me, we spent some time on the road with Moses over his rather long one hundred and twenty year life. Forty years living as Pharaoh’s son affectively, in wealth and luxury in Egypt, then because he had to flee for his life another forty years tending a flock of sheep way out beyond the wilderness. So that takes him to age eighty when God finally called Moses to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt and then after a pretty spectacular departure through the Red Sea, another forty years leading a grumbling complaining people through that very same wilderness only to die just before being able to lead them into the Promised Land. Have a listen to what Moses had to say to God about the whole affair of leading the people of Israel through the wilderness through these forty years, Numbers chapter 11 verses 10 to 15: Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families all at the entrances of their tents. Then the Lord became very angry and Moses was displeased so Moses said to the Lord, “why have you treated your servants so badly? Why have I not found favour in your sight that you lay the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive this people, did I give birth to them that you should say to me carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a suckling child to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where am I going to get meat to give to these people for they came weeping to me and they say “give us meat to eat?” I'm not able to carry all these people alone for they're too heavy for me. If this is the way you're going to treat me put me to death at once. If I have found favour in your sight and do not let me see my misery. Yeah, obviously Moses was having a whole lot of fun along the journey right? Not so much. And yet when someone mentions the name of Moses these days we think of this great leader, one of the A list characters of the Bible without ever giving much thought to the coal face realities of the setbacks and the delays and the challenges and the frustrations that Moses faced, lots of them for very long periods of time. So when these setbacks, delays, difficulties, trials hit us we act all surprised as though something is wrong, as though if we were truly in Gods will it would be all plain sailing and a smooth ride, no bumps or twists or turns but that is, quite simply, not how God operates. So just in case you're going through one of those difficult times and just in case you're acting all surprised have a listen to this word from God to you today, 1 Peter chapter 4 verses 12 and 13: Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you as though something strange were happening to you but rejoice in so far as you are sharing Christ's sufferings so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when His glory is revealed. Think about it, God didn't even spare His own Son from fiery trials, from being misunderstood, from being rejected by the religious establishment, from the crowds that had followed Him, amazed at the power of His words and His miracles, from those crowds turning on Him and in the end shouting “crucify Him!” Setbacks, delays, trials, temptations, inexplicable as they may be at the time, are a normal part of following Jesus, they just are and the sooner we get that the better things are going to be. From when I received a clear distinctive calling from God one afternoon when I was ironing of all things, to go out and tell people about Jesus like I am now, until I finally got to the starting line, until I finally got to do what I'm doing now, was eight years, eight years! You know what, that's a long time when you're raring and ready to go. And along the way, as God has called Christianityworks to minister into this country and into that country and we've stepped out not knowing how we were going to resource that can I tell you? Each and every time we've stepped out into new continents and countries there have been setbacks, there have been delays, there's been opposition, things not going the way we'd hoped, things happening much more slowly than we'd hoped and yet one by one things always seemed to fall into place. Because God is faithful, He's there, in fact He went ahead of us just like He went ahead of Moses. It's just that worldly success was never part of His plan. He almost always works like that. I mean look at the Apostle Paul who faced so many trials and setbacks and delays and beatings and shipwrecks, it goes on and on, this is what he says about all those things, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 to 18:Ó We don't lose heart even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slightly momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal way to glory beyond all measure because we look not on what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary but what cannot be seen is eternal. And that is exactly the sort of attitude, the sort of faith, the sort of perseverance, the sort of victory that God is wanting to build in you and me as He sets before us His preordained, His anointed setbacks and delays for us to walk into.
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The Final Hurdle // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 5
12/06/2024
The Final Hurdle // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 5
I don't know how you imagine your life will turn out, whether you’ll achieve your life’s purpose or not, but often times, and you see this very much of people in the Bible, God puts dreams in their hearts, He puts a call on their lives, but they don’t get to see end game. That, to some, can be somewhat disconcerting. If we approach life on the basis that it's all about us, that we are at the centre of the universe and everything else has to revolve around us then it's a disappointing notion to think that we may not get to see all that God has planned to do and to achieve through us. And there are plenty of people who have that perspective; the world is full of 'I'm at the centre of the universe' kind of people. Sadly Churches are also full of those sorts of people. I'm on Facebook as you may know and I saw something the other day that really, REALLY annoyed me. A prominent Christian posted a graphic that said this, “Lord I thank you in advance for my financial overflow”. Really? So I posted this as a response, “Lord I thank you that you died for me even without the clothes on your back and Lord I thank you in advance you have called me to take up my cross and follow you no matter where you should lead or how much it may cost me even if it should cost me my all”. Two entirely different perspectives on our faith. One says that it's all about me, the other says it's all about Jesus. Now I'm not here to tell you that I live my perspective out every day, I, like you, are a sinner and I, like you, make plenty of mistakes but the question is “what's your fundamental perspective, how do you look at this world, with you at the centre or with Jesus at the centre?” Because if it's you at the centre you are going to be horrified to find out that you won't get to see all the plans that Gods purpose to work out involving you. But if you see your world with Christ at the centre then the fact that you won't get to see it all, be involved in it all, get the kudos for it all will be an absolute delight. Overnight success. As we've seen in this series so far in the story of Moses there's pretty much no such thing. Moses spent forty years in privilege in Pharaoh's house, forty years alone in the wilderness tending sheep and then another forty years leading God's grumbling, complaining, faithless people through the wilderness. And if you read the pithy account recorded many years later in the Book of Hebrews you could easily, easily come to the conclusion that Moses was an overnight success. A bit like Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way. Let's have a look, Hebrews chapter 11 verses 24 to 29: By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking ahead to the reward. By faith he left Egypt unafraid of the king’s anger for he persevered as though he saw Him who was invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood so that the destroyer of the first born would not touch the firstborn of Israel and by faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. Not half bad. When you stand back at a distance like that it seems that Moses was a great success and yet Moses failed God and so he never did get to enter the Promised Land, he didn't get to complete the mission and lead the people across the Jordon into the Promised Land, he didn't get to see the promise of God fulfilled in his life. Have a listen, Numbers chapter 20 verses 1 to 13: The Israelites, the whole congregation came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month and people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation so they gathered together against Moses, against Aaron. The people quarrelled with Moses and said, “would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord. Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates and there is no water to drink”. Then Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of the meeting. They fell on their faces and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Take the staff and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus shall you bring water out of the rock for them, thus shall you provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.” So Moses took the staff from before the Lord as He had commanded him to do, Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock and he said to them, "listen you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff and water came out abundantly and the congregation and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron “because you did not trust in me to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I've given them.” These are the waters of Meribah where the people of Israel quarrelled with the Lord and by which he showed his holiness. It's pretty harsh! I mean you read the account in the Book of Hebrews and Moses was this amazing man of faith really yet because of this one small failure, a lapse in his faith, God kills him off before entering the Promised Land. But listen up, it wasn't about Moses, it was about God. Imagine if Moses had been the one to both lead Israel out of Egypt and then forty years later lead them into the Promised Land. The people, God’s people would have ended up worshipping Moses instead of God and God doesn't share His glory with any man. Moses, as great a leader as he was, as much faith and courage as he had, it wasn't about Moses, it was always about Gods plan which went way beyond the wilderness, way beyond the Promised Land through the cross of Christ down to you and me. Moses, like everyone else, just had a small part to play in a much bigger plan. God is playing the long game – get it? So what does that mean for you and me as we set about laying aside our dreams of becoming an overnight success and step out and start to follow God? What does that actually mean? Well, simply this. Our part, the part that God's given us to play is going to be challenging, it's going to have setbacks, there will be times when we have failures, there'll be times when we experience triumphs but no matter how well suited we are to the part that God's given us to play the point is that we are 'bit' players with our bit to do and that's it. And when you think about it that's exciting. The ripple effect of what Moses did, well it's reached several thousand years down through history and across the globe today into your life and my life. It's the ripple effect that's exciting. I had someone ask me 'how do you know what the impact of your radio programs are? What quantitative measure do you have to tell me what you're doing is worthwhile?' The answer is there is no quantitative measure. Do I know that millions of people are listening around the world? Yes I do and I hear the odd story of the terrorist who stopped killing people, the woman who was pulled back from the brink of suicide, the eleven year old boy whose parents were going through a painful divorce and who met Jesus through these programs. And I thank God for giving me a small part to play in people's lives and I pray, I pray for the ripple effect through them in the lives of others. I pray that the former terrorist will lead many more people to Christ, that the woman who was pulled back from suicide will bless her daughter with her love, that the young boy who met Jesus through these programs will be given a powerful part to play in God’s plan. That's the ripple effect. God’s playing a long game and if you're on team Jesus then the joy, the delight is to play your part in that long game for His glory. A
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The Difficult Job // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 4
12/05/2024
The Difficult Job // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 4
The thing about the dreams that God puts on our hearts is that their execution is much, much, much more difficult than their conception. It’s easy to sit on the sofa and dream about something great that God is going to do through us, but getting out there and actually living the dream, well, that’s another thing altogether. Dreams, ideas, hopes, plans, they're all wonderful things. The thing that makes them so exciting is that they don't have a downside. I can sit on a sofa all day, day after day, dreaming about the great things I'm going to do, the great things that God could do through me and you know the best thing about those dreams, they never face any opposition. There are no obstacles when you're dreaming because your dreams can go wherever you want them to go although I know that when I was dreaming about doing what I'm doing now, those dreams were a bit scary because they were so ridiculously big. I mean if I told anybody what I felt God was calling me to, to share this good news of Jesus with millions of people, given who I was then and the mess my life was in back then they'd all of thought I was delusional. Once you actually step out of the dream and you start living the dream or calling or motivation or whatever label you'd like to put on it, the first thing that happens is that you run into opposition and opposition it seems comes at you from every direction, all at once, the moment you step over the starting line. We all want to become an overnight success, we do, it's always part of the dream to fly first class from A to B by the most direct quickest possible route without any turbulence along the way. Hmm, but God isn't so much into overnight success, God wants to grow your faith, my faith by teaching us to play the long game by taking us on a circuitous wilderness journey along the way. That's how He grows our character, that's how He knocks the rough edges off, that's how He breathes humility and gentleness into our heart, that's how He builds courage into our DNA as we experience first-hand God's faithfulness day after day after day. As we've joined Moses on this journey this past week we've seen how God gave him a heart for the misery of his fellow Hebrews, how that heart disrupted his life and popped him alone in the wilderness for forty years and how difficult it was for him finally, after all that time, to follow God's call to confront Pharaoh and lead the chosen people out of Egypt back to the Promised Land. None of those stages is easy. Following God's call on our lives, living out the dreams that He's placed on our hearts, those things are never easy but once you get going, once you're on the road surely though things must get easier right? Well, not for Moses, let's pick up the story, he's been to Pharaoh and he's given him God's message "let my people go". Nine times Pharaoh said no and nine times God sent plagues upon Egypt until finally after God struck down the firstborn of all in Egypt Pharaoh relented and the Israelites fled. But no sooner were they on the road than Pharaoh decided to chase them and destroy them – perfect, just perfect God! Exodus chapter 14 verses 10 to 12: And as Pharaoh drew nearer the Israelites looked back and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord, they said to Moses 'was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, leave us alone and let us serve the Egyptian's for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. Remember I said to you that the opposition seems to come from all directions, poor old Moses, eighty years old. Now he has Pharaoh's great army pursuing him from behind and in front of him he has a grumbling, complaining rabble. Some call from God, some road to success. Excuse me God but could we just call it all off at this point, please? That's what most of us end up saying to God isn't it? And yet God stepped in because Moses had done what he could do so God now did what only He could do, Exodus chapter 14 verses 19 and 20: The angel of God who is going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It became between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel and so the cloud was there with the darkness and it lit up the night. One did not come near to the other all night. See there it is, that spiritual principle again, God expects us to do the things we can do and He expects us to leave to Him the things that only He can do. That's exactly what happened here in the wilderness at the beginning of the Exodus. God showed up, God was faithful, God guided them, God intervened and then God put Himself between Israel and her enemies. And listen, that's always what God does. He takes us to the edge, He puts us deliberately between a rock and a hard place so that unless He shows up we'll fail and then He shows up. It's happened so many times in my life and you see it so many times over the next forty years as Moses leads this grumbling, complaining, faithless nation of Israel through the wilderness towards the Promised Land. God always shows up to deliver, God always shows up to guide, to feed, to protect and to deal with the grumblers and complainers. The one thing you and I do not want to be on our exodus is a faithless grumbler and complainer, remember it was only an eleven day journey from Egypt to the outskirts of the Promised Land but because of their lack of faith and their complaining it took them forty years and then because of their lack of faith all but two of the million or so Israelites who originally left Egypt under the staff of Moses, perished in the wilderness. Only two of the originals, Joshua and Caleb as well as the next generation ended up crossing over into the Promised Land. There's a lesson in that I have to tell you, as you read the rest of the Book of Exodus you see how many times the Israelites turned their backs on God, worshipping idols, not believing Gods promises, turning on Moses, in fact so much so that God was going to wipe them all out until Moses fell on his face and intervened for them. Do you really want to follow God's call on your life? Do you really want to live the dream that He wove into your DNA before time began? Then forget the idea of overnight success and get ready for your exodus. It wasn't easy, it was a long, long, long road for Moses and yet God worked mightily in him and through him to achieve His purposes, God’s purposes, not Moses’ purposes. Do you think that Moses would have planned it this way? No way. Forty years? Another forty years in the wilderness this time with a grumbling, complaining, ungrateful people under his charge. Overnight success? Forget it, it's hard work, it's about difficult times in the wilderness, it's about opposition from all directions, from inside your own camp and from the enemy outside your camp, it's always how God works, He achieves His perfect will through imperfect people in imperfect places.
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