A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Most of us want to be safe and comfortable. In fact, some people make that the central purpose of their lives. But you know what I've noticed? Whenever God calls me to do something for Him, my safety and my comfort seem to be the last thing on His mind. Hey, it's great to be with you again on this Friday. Almost the weekend. We've been chatting this week about faith, not in a theoretical sense but in a "rubber hits the road" sense because faith is that thing that we need to get through the things that we, on our own, can't handle. Faith is what we need to move that great big obstacle that's blocking our way, when it's way too big for us to climb over or crash through or get around. Faith is what we need to overcome that one nagging sin in our lives that keeps on coming back to rob us of the joy and the peace that Jesus came to give us. And faith is what we need to go and do the difficult things that God sometimes calls us to do, the inconvenient things, the uncomfortable things, the things we'd just rather not do thank you very much Lord. Well that's the sort of faith we're going to chat about today, uncomfortable faith because no one ever had an impact in this world by playing it safe right? When Jesus calls us into a place to make a difference in someone's life it's so often because that persons life is in a bit of a mess and it's going to hurt us to have to be in that place with that person. When Jesus calls us out of our nice, safe, comfortable existence to go and do something for Him I can guarantee you it's not always going to be convenient and it's not always going to feel comfortable, that requires faith. People sometimes ask me, "Berni why is it that even though I believe in Jesus, I don't know, somehow it doesn't feel real? There's no passion, there's no fire, there's no excitement." And my response is always the same. I ask them two questions. Question one: How much time do you spend quietly each day alone with Jesus with the door closed and your Bible opened? And question two: What are you doing with your faith? How are you living it out? Now question one is really important because, unless we're spending time alone with Jesus each day, growing in a dynamic relationship with Him, well, shazam, shazam, there's not going to be a relationship. But today, I want to take a moment to focus on the second question, what are you doing with your faith? And when I meet someone who has that vague unsettled feeling about their faith, this sense that there should be something more, there should be power, there should be impact, I can almost guarantee you that in effect they're a spiritual couch potato. And by that I mean they're not really living out their faith, they're not getting out there and making a difference in this world, taking risks, putting it all on the line for Jesus and just like someone who spends their whole life sitting on the sofa channel surfing cable TV, drinking sweet soft drinks and eating chips, that person's going to end up feeling lethargic. Well, the Christian who isn't exercising their faith is going to feel precisely the same. You don't believe me? That's exactly what the Bible tells us, James chapter 2, verse 26: For just as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is also dead. So as we come to look at faith again today we're going to do that from a different perspective, from the perspective of Abraham. A man who was called out of the comfort of his ancestral home in Ur which is around about where modern day Baghdad is today, have a listen, Hebrews chapter 11 beginning at verse 8: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance and he set out not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land that he'd been promised as in a foreign land living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received the power of procreation even though he was too old and Sarah herself was barren because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person and this one as good as dead descendants were born, as many as the stars of heaven, as innumerable as the grains of sand by the sea shore. Now maybe you remember the story, Abraham is the father of the nation of Israel. He and his wife Sarah were in their mid seventies and childless, a source of great anguish and shame because they equated God's blessing with having lots of children and having your own land to live on. And so what's God's solution? To promise Abraham and Sarah many, many, many descendants if only they'll leave their ancestral home behind and go out on a journey through the wilderness, through all sorts of strange and weird and wonderful places, only God knows where. A familiar story I suppose and yet what we often miss is the context. Let me say that again, by definition God's blessing in that time and in that culture, in fact, you see it over and over and over again in the Old Testament, is that blessing equals: 1. Lots and lots of children 2. Your own land. If you had both of those then you were considered to be blessed by God. The more children you had and the more land you had the more, quite obviously, God was in the business of blessing you. But if you didn't have them then you were considered to be cursed of God, obviously you'd done something wrong, obviously you must have been a bad person. That was the thinking. Now Abraham was a wealthy man, he had lots of flocks of animals which meant he had lots of land. So when God called him out of that onto his journey with a promise of a new land, a promised land and lots of children, do you see what God was asking him to do? God was in fact asking Abraham to give up the one half of the blessing that he already had in the can. The one half of the blessing that he already had which was the land in order to get some new land somewhere he didn't know and also a lot of descendants. And what made this so crazy was that he and his wife, Sarah, were in their seventies. I mean Sarah was way past her child bearing age. Abraham and Sarah had to let go of the bit of the blessing that they had in order to step out in faith in order to receive the next blessing. My friend that is so often how God works. So long as we think our lives are about being comfortable and safe. No risk, no need for faith, no need to rely on God for food or shelter or provision or protection and so long as we make our comfort and our safety the priority, friend our faith is going to be dead. God's main aim isn't to make you and me comfortable, His main aim is to grow our character by making us part of His plan to touch a lost and hurting world with His love. Gods plan isn't that we have some huge superannuation or pension fund so that we can spend our retirement indulging in our senses in food and travel and luxury. His plan is to use us to reach out to our neighbour with His grace and His mercy. And so the solution for the spiritual couch potato, the answer to get rid of that lethargy and bring in a new vigour and anticipation to our faith, it's always the same. The one who would live a vibrant exciting faith, a life where there's power, when the power of God is manifested before their very eyes is the one who goes to God and please Lord show me where you want me to go and what you want me to do, what sacrifices you want me to make, what risks you want me to take so that the name of Jesus would be lifted up in this world? O Lord wherever you call me, whatever it costs me I want to go. Give me the courage, fill me with your Spirit, show me where and how and when I can lose my life for you dear Jesus in order that I might find it. Start praying prayers like that my friend and I guarantee God won't take long to answer you, I guarantee that before you know it you'll be in a place where you see Gods power in your life because frankly without it you'll be in trouble.

Most of us like to watch the news, or listen to it on the radio, or read the newspaper. But really, there's precious little good news these days. It all seems to be bad news, especially for the poor. But Jesus said that He had good news for the poor. So what did He mean? One of the little rituals that I love to perform every night is to watch the evening news on television. It's just, I don't know, my way of unwinding for the day and I guess it's my way of finding out what's been going on at home and around the world. But have you noticed whether you watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio or read it in the newspaper, there's actually precious little good news. Generally the news starts with the biggest conflict or natural disaster or court case or murder or car accident and it just goes down hill from there. In fact when they drop in the odd piece of good news we say, "What have they run out of news tonight?" But we do need good news too. In fact truth be known we desperately want good news. Good news about ourselves, our lives, who we are, but where do you get that? Have you ever wondered, this whole Jesus story, this whole Jesus thing, if its true why did Jesus, the Son of God, step out of heaven, become a little baby, become a boy, become a teenager, become a man, wander around for three and a half years preaching all sorts of stuff, healing people and then allow himself to be killed on a cross and rise again? Why did He do that? I had an email recently from someone who visited our website www.christianityworks.com and she said, "Look, Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed I mean they're really all the same, just pick one and get on with it." The big difference between Jesus and all those other guys is that firstly, Jesus made a unique claim. Jesus said, "I AM God." The other's pointed somewhere else, Jesus didn't, Jesus said, "you're looking at Him, I've arrived!" And the second difference is, that Jesus said, "Look being a Christ follower, being a Christian, believing in Me is not about working hard and becoming a better person so that you become acceptable to God." Effectively, that's what all the other religions say. Jesus said, "No, no, here look at Me, I'm going the cross to die for you so that you can be forgiven, I'll pay for your sins, I'll fulfil the righteous requirements of God's law and I will pay. And all you need do is believe in me and I will help you to have a new life, and yes new life is about change, new life is about regeneration, new life is about getting rid of the rubbish, but it's not the starting point. The starting point is the grace of God on the cross of Christ." But is it authentic, I mean why did He come? Is there something real here and now that's going to make a difference? Gospel, the word gospel literally means "the good news" – is it? Jesus was born in Bethlehem; He fled as a little baby with His parents to Egypt because they tried to kill Him. Then He moved to Nazareth in Galilee which is kind of "Hicksville" and at age thirty Jesus began His public ministry. One of the very first times that He spoke publicly He got up in a Synagogue in His own home town in Nazareth of Galilee, and He quoted something that the prophet Isaiah had written a long time before. He read this from the scrolls in the synagogue. He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recover sight for the blind and to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Now effectively by reading this, what He was saying to all those Jews who were sitting in that synagogue and very clearly and very unmistakably was, "I am the Messiah, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and God has sent me to do these things. Why have I come? To preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Now there's an opportunity in that for you and for me. And so this week we're going to be looking at those five reasons, those five promises that Jesus made about why He came. Then you can make your own mind up about this Jesus, do those reasons make it worth while for me to just live my whole life for God? And today we're looking at the first of those which is, good news for the poor. The poor literally were lonely and afflicted in the first century as in many places in the world today there was no social welfare in Israel. I've a vivid recollection of going to San Francisco and seeing a black man with blood streaming down his head begging outside the McDonald's store and he looked at us and he said, "Just because I'm black doesn't mean I'm a bum." And in India I remember seeing a woman begging and she had a little baby strapped to her, the shop keeper where she was begging came out and chased her away with a stick and beat her across the back. Two thirds of this world live in literal poverty, yet many wealthy people are still poor. You may have heard me use this quote before but it says it all for me, by a columnist called Bernhard Levin in the UK. He says, "Our world is full of people who have all the material blessings and comforts they desire, together with non-material blessings like a happy family and yet they lead lives of quiet and sometimes noisy desperation. Understanding nothing but the fact that there's a hole inside them, and however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motor cars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it, it aches." He's putting his finger there on that silent desperation in so many lives. Well does that mean Jesus only came for losers? No! Jesus is speaking into a reality; a reality that Bernhard Levin here identifies is so wide-spread even in the wealthiest of societies. We have that materialistic façade but deep down the inner us, the inner you and me, there's a deep sense of poverty. We're made in God's image and that hole inside us is a hole that only God can fill. And when we look at ourselves when that hole is empty, that first century picture of the beggar, the one that's destitute of wealth and influence and position and power and honour, is so perfect. I mean today's mantra is "you can have everything", but it doesn't ring true does it? Inside we still feel poor, I mean people can have people around them and yet feel so desperately alone and empty. And Jesus, the very first reason that He lists when he first gets up to speak in His public ministry, the very first reason He lists which is the reason why He came, was to bring good news to the poor, to speak directly into that reality – and boy that hits the mark! He's not talking about harsh rules and judgement, he's talking about good news, a gospel, profoundly good news. The good news that says that the God who created us wants to have a relationship with us, the God that says, "I will be your God and you will be my people and I will walk among you." The good news of a God who wants that so much that He sent His Son, not just to tell us but to die for us, to pay the price so we can be reconciled back into a relationship with Him. The good news that God knows, the good news that the one person who can fill it has been anointed to come and bring that to us, Jesus Christ. We have a choice, the people who listen to that, they actually rejected Jesus, they drove him out of the synagogue, that was his own home town, and they rejected him. We can do that or we can accept from Him the good news of a life in relationship with God – not just here on earth but for all eternity. It's up to us really!

Believe it or not, God has this edgy, amazing plan to change us on the inside through His love and mercy and grace ... and then for that to work its way to the outside – in what we say and do. That's the plan. I love meeting people where what I see is what I get. The person that I see on the outside is the person who they are on the inside even, you know, if they're a bit abrasive on the outside at least you know what you're getting. It's the people who pretend to be one thing to your face and then they go around behind your back and tell other people what they really think, they're the ones I feel really uncomfortable with. There's a certain hypocrisy about being one thing on the outside and another thing entirely on the inside and you know something I think it's the same with our spirituality too. Telling God one thing in our hearts and then doing another thing with our hands, well it just doesn't sit well. Jesus was only really tough on two things, a lack of faith and religious hypocrisy and you know something, fair enough too. We're talking this week about the fact that what's happening on the outside needs to match what's happening on the inside. You know if we are living one thing in our hearts and another thing out there in public where people can see us, it just doesn't work, you know there's a disconnect, a mismatch and we can't live that out forever. If inside we worship God in our hearts, "God I lay down my life for you, I bow down, I delight in you, I love you, I worship you", but then on the outside we don't live that out, well this incongruity, this mis-match, it's called hypocrisy. What you see is not what you get. Over this week we've seen that worship begins in the heart, it's like a man and a woman falling in love and marrying and they go through ups and downs and there are good days and bad days but you know something, in my heart my wife Jacqui is always there, I love her no matter what today brings and it's the same in our relationship with God, worship begins in the heart. We saw the other day the story of Mary and Martha where Jesus came to their house and Martha was so busy racing around doing stuff she missed out on what Jesus was saying and doing, whereas Mary, her sister, just sat at His feet and listened and soaked it all in and worshipped Him. We can just run around doing stuff and doing stuff and doing stuff for God but you know if we keep doing that we end up dry and its hard work and we lose heart for the Lord. But the reverse is also true. I mean, people go to Church on Sunday and they worship God and they sing all those wonderful songs but then, if that's all we do, if we never actually get out and serve God, well that's not going to work either or if we go and tear someone's head off at work on Monday morning. You see this incongruity between what's happening on the inside and what we do on the outside? Its adulterous, it's professing one thing and doing another and eventually we have to resolve this conflict, eventually we have to say, "well which one is it going to be? Is it going to be what I want to do in my heart and what I'm saying to God there or is it going to be how I'm living my life? I ultimately have to resolve this." So either we bring our lives into line with what's happening in our hearts or we abandon what's been going on in our hearts, in worshipping God and we go with the desires of the flesh. It's as simple as that; it's one or the other. The apostle Paul knew that and he wrote it really well in Romans, chapter 12, verse 1. This is what he says: Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters because of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your act of spiritual worship. Now let's just unpack that for a minute or two. He begins with therefore and therefore always points back to something else and in this case he's pointing back to the first 11 chapters of the Book of Romans which is all about God's goodness in coming to rescue us through Jesus Christ. You know if you are ever in any doubt that you can be forgiven by God and that God loves you and that God wants to change your life, if you ever doubt that, do me a favour, pick up a Bible and read the first 11 chapters of the Book of Romans and that's the stuff that causes our heart to get on fire for God, that's the stuff that causes us to worship Him, it's the heart stuff. So Paul's saying here because of what He's done in your heart, because of that mercy that you've received deep in your heart, because of that, offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Here Paul is saying because of what's happened in your heart, translate that into action. Now living sacrifices, well what a gruesome picture, I mean it's definitely not a good marketing spin, these people used to sacrifice animals on altars. These people used to watch the Romans crucify men and women but they knew what sacrifice was all about. And you know when we decide to follow Jesus, it's a sacrifice. There are things we have to let go, there are things that we know are stupid and wrong and bad and not good for us and it can be so hard letting them go but because of what's happened in your heart - let them go. Live your life as a sacrifice to Him. Now get the next bit, I love this, "... because this is your spiritual act of worship". During this week we've been looking at the fact that there are two sorts of worship talked about in the New Testament. One is about bowing down, it's the sort of worship that people do on Sundays, you know, the Greek word is "prokduneo", it means to prostrate yourself to bow down but that's not the word that's used here. The word that's used here is "latreuo". In some translations it will come up not as worship but as service and"latreuo" is the word from which we get the English word lateral which means outwards and the concept is, worship through what we do. Worship and service come together here, two concepts in the one word. This is where the rubber hits the road, the "proskuneo", the prostrating worship is the worship of the heart, the "latreuo" worship, the lateral worship, the doing worship. The living worship is when I treat someone kindly and gently that really deserves to have their head ripped off today for what they just did to me. Paul's saying that's spiritual worship. When I deal honestly and fairly with someone that I could have ripped off, that's spiritual worship. Paul is talking here about bringing our lives into line with our hearts, dying to all those things that we'd rather do that we know aren't from God, sacrificing and it's hard and it's tough and the road to follow Jesus always is. It's dying to self and living to Christ. This, Paul's says, is worship, not just off on some separate Sunday morning sacred zone, worshipping God with our hearts and our lives, clean hands and pure hearts. What begins in our hearts as worshipping God is meant to work its way out into our lives in what we say and what we do and how we live. A life that worships God is a beautiful thing, it's not proud or arrogant, it's humble yet strong, it's gentle yet confident. Almost a contradiction but it is such a beautiful thing to meet someone who just shines the nature of God from their very lives. When we worship God with our hearts and our hands it changes us to look more and more like Jesus. I want to encourage you today to think and pray about this whole worship thing. Worship has to begin in the heart, bowing down,"proskuneo" type worship and it needs to be reflected in what we do with our hands and that's hard, it's going to cost us. Bowing down and letting it work its way out through our lives is what worship is meant to be so that people can taste the sweet fruit of our worship. Worship is not just about singing songs; worship is a way of life.

Sometimes what we do on the outside reflects what's happening on the inside. Other times, we try to hide what's happening on the inside by behaving differently on the outside. And in the long run – that just doesn't work. Something we love to do, it comes pretty naturally, is to have a disconnect between our spirituality or our faith on the one hand and our lives on the other. Maybe we go to Church on a Sunday, that sacred zone over there, you know you go there and you sing songs and you worship God. "Oh God, you're so wonderful, I love you so much, I exalt you above all. Lord, I worship you and I praise you", all that stuff. Brilliant, it's great but then on Monday morning we go back to work, the same old, same old. Back in the groove. If you're a Mum maybe you have to rush to get the kids off to school and then head out to work. Dad, you're on the train or in the car, on the bus doing the commute. Or maybe you're unemployed or retired or whatever, sitting at home alone and that thing we call worship that happened over there on Sunday morning seems a million miles away, somehow it's not connected to the realities of life. It was great while it lasted but now it's back to earth with a thud. Have you ever felt like that? It's like you have a disconnect between faith over in this little box and life over in that box. Worship's something that happens over here in the sacred zone but when you get back to the real world, well it's hard you know, it's tough, there's a grind, there are pressures, there are issues, people make compromises. You're not alone; I mean in the West many Christ followers experience that. The sense that their faith and their worship and their prayer and all that stuff is in one box and life is in a completely separate box. Now in the East, in Asia and places like Africa, peoples upbringing and culture, well the spirituality's a lot more connected with life but wherever or whatever, it's important that we understand what worship is all about. It's not something we put in a box and take out on Sundays; worship is a way of life. That's the name of this week's series. When we understand what worship is in God's heart then all of a sudden life and spirituality become inseparable. Just the last couple of days we began to look at the fact that the New Testament talks about two different forms of worship. One verse where both of these forms of worship appear is Luke chapter 4 verse 8. Grab your Bible if you have one, have a look. Jesus had been led by the Holy Spirit out into the desert, He's been there starving and fasting for the last 40 days so He's weak and He's at a low point and the devil comes to tempt Him. In fact, next year we're going to be doing a whole series on this wilderness passage but just today, I just want to look at this second temptation where the devil comes to tempt Jesus with a grand delusion: The devil led Jesus up to a high place to show Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and he said to Jesus, "I will give you all their authority and splendour because it's been given to me and I can give it to anyone I want. So if you would just worship me it will all be yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.'" Here's a standard temptation of the devil. I believe in the devil because Jesus does. A lot of people don't believe in the devil today, well I'm sorry, Jesus clearly does and so do I. And here is a standard temptation. He shows us the world and says, "Look at this wonderful world that I have control of," and frankly you don't have to look very far to see what an enormous influence the devil in fact has. And the devil says, 'What are you doing out in this wilderness for God? Why are you starving? Why is this so tough? Look, just come and worship me and all this can be yours.' Yeah right! Listen to what the devil says to Jesus: So if you worship me it will all be yours. Now this word 'worship' is the first, I guess dimensional type of worship. The Greek word is 'proskuneo' and it's a word from which we get the word prostrate. So to prostrate ourselves, to bow down, to kiss someone's hand, to fall down on our knees and face to worship. It's the sort of worship people do on Sunday mornings in Church. Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 28 talks about worshipping God with awe and reverence. It's a heart worship, its expressing our allegiance and gratefulness and awe and reverence and wonder of God by singing songs of worship and the devils saying to Jesus, "Now, bow down to me as you would to God" but look at Jesus' reply. Jesus answered: It is written, 'worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone. Jesus is quoting the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 13. There are two verbs in what He says, worship and serve. Now that word worship the Lord your God is the same word as the devil just used "prokuneo", to bow down but then the second verb, this doing word, is the Greek word "latreuo". It's the word from which we get lateral or outwards. This word is used a number of times in the New Testament and it is variously translated as serve or worship. To"latreuo" is to render religious service or homage, to worship, to perform sacred services, to offer gifts, to worship God and the observance of rights for worship. You see,"latreuo" is outward worship, its worship through doing and serving. For Jesus, the answer went beyond simply bowing down to God or the devil as the devil wanted Him to, it included serving God. What we do in our hearts AND what we do with our hands, inside and outside. Jesus said it again when someone asked Him, "what's the most important commandment he said": Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. You see, strength is what we do with our heart on the inside, with our strength on the outside. You know something; if what we do and believe on the inside isn't reflected in how we live on the outside, what we believe on the inside will die. We can't pray one thing and do one thing on Sunday morning singing songs to God and worshipping Him and then not serve Him by living that faith out in life. For God worship is a holistic thing. For God worship is what happens in our hearts and what we do with our hands. In James chapter 2, verse 26, read it. It says: Faith without works is dead. If we're going to exalt God in our hearts but not in our lives by the way we think and act and treat other people, it's just never going to work. Some people struggle to see the relevance of their faith in life. And can I suggest the reason is because they've got worship over here in a little box that they open once a week and that we haven't come to grips with the fact that worshipping isn't just what we do in our hearts, it's not just the songs we sing. When we live out that faith, when we sacrifice the things we want for the things that Jesus wants and it hurts some days, that is worshipping God. Psalm 24, verse 7 talks about having clean hands and a pure heart. In fact this linking of inside worship and outside worship,"prokuneo" worship which is bowing down and"latreuo" worship which is serving happens over and over and over again in God's word. God just doesn't want us to worship Him once a week; God wants us to live a life that is worship to Him.

Some people are so busy doing stuff, they don't have time for relationships. Other people are so relationship-focused that they never actually get anything done. So, which one is better? Most of us understand the concept of smelling roses. We're so busy, so flat out running around doing stuff that we don't take the time to smell the roses, to stop and pause and wonder and think and enjoy God's creation. How many husbands take the time to woo their wives? How many fathers these days take the time to go to their son's football game or their daughters dance concert? How many people take the time just to slow down and spend some quality time with God? Praying, reading, resting, letting the imagination roam, coming to grips with the wonder that is Jesus Christ. Well, when was the last time you took time to smell the roses? We're talking today about making worship a way of life. Not just some ritual or a few songs that people sing on Sunday mornings. Worship isn't a ritual; worship isn't some thing that we do with incense and incantation, that's not what it's about. Worshipping God is about having a relationship. It's something that begins in the heart, a desire to be with Him, a desire to bow down our whole lives to Him, a besottedness where you just want to see God and to experience Him and to hear Him and worship. Worshipping God through Jesus Christ is about sacrifice. It's always about sacrifice because when we bow down to worship God, we've got to get ourselves off our own little tin pot thrones and I don't know how it was for you but for much of my life I was worshipping me, I was my own little God. Worship is about sacrifice and there are two aspects. There's what happens in our hearts and then how it's reflected in our lives. We're going to talk about that in a whole bunch more detail over the next few days but it's about connecting our faith with our day to day life realities. I just want to introduce you today to two women from the Bible, Mary and Martha. If you've got a Bible grab it, you can look at it in Luke, chapter 10, verse 38. Here's the story: Jesus and His disciples were on their way and He came to a village where there was this woman called Martha and she opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lords feet listening to what He said but Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made, (I mean she was having the Son of God visiting). And she came to Him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me." "Martha, Martha." The Lord answered, "You're worried and upset about so many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it won't be taken away from her." I don't know what your life looks like but mine has more things in it than I have time to get through. Our ministry here at Christianityworks for me is not just about writing and producing radio programs, there's all sorts of things. There's out seeing radio stations, producing material to go with messages, administration, fund raising, managing staff, lots of things. Not to mention home and the family and Church and friends and rest and relaxation and the danger for me and many other people is that we get so busy with the urgent things we don't have time for the important things. And the important things that we tend to squeeze out of our schedule are relationships, spending time with people (that's why so many marriages fall apart) and spending time at the feet of Jesus (that's why so many people end up drifting away from God). We delude ourselves, "Well, well, you know, I'm busy out there serving God. That's what God wants from me, that's the most important thing, if I don't do what I'm doing the worlds going to cave in." Now don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we should become spiritual coach potatoes but have a listen to what happens here in this story. Martha is rushing around and cleaning and cooking and doing all that stuff, I mean after all they have guests, the Son of God has arrived on their doorstep. Her sister Mary is sitting at Jesus feet, listening, her heart being moved, being changed and strengthened and encouraged. She's worshipping Jesus. And Martha goes, "well that's not fair, she should be helping me," and what does Jesus answer, "Well absolutely! Mary, get off your backside, stop being so lazy and go and help." No, that's not where Jesus is coming from at all. He says: Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about so many things but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what's better and it won't be taken away from her. One thing! What is that one thing? It's a relationship with Jesus. One thing! To worship the Lord your God. You go to the Ten Commandments what's the first commandment? Just worship God and no-one else. When someone asked Jesus, "What's the most important commandment?" Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. You end up sometimes in life running around in ever decreasing circles just like Martha. I don't know what Martha was cooking that day but I bet you it wasn't kind of a sausage sizzle, I bet she didn't just throw a few snags on the barbeque and get a bread roll and some tomato ketchup. No, my hunch is she was doing some "bigger than Ben Hur" cordon bleu thing because Jesus, the Son of God had walked through her front door. We complicate things so much, a lot of people don't have other people over because they couldn't be bothered with all the effort of preparing and cooking and stuff. What's wrong with throwing a few sausages on the barbecue? You see, we make things so complicated and then we end up running around and we're worried and we're upset about so many things and the more we focus on those things and problems, the worse they become and like Martha, we blame Mary, we blame someone else. We end up buried in a mountain of problems and hurts and issues and exhaustion and uncertainties and insecurities. I wonder whether maybe you relate to some of that, I know I can fall into this trap myself and that's why we're spending some time talking about worship because worship has real impact. In my life at the moment there are pressures and issues that have to be addressed, all sorts of stuff and it doesn't go away. Walking with Jesus isn't entering into some super spiritual zone where every one of life's problems evaporates. In the middle of that, this morning, I had some time of prayer. I went through a few of the psalms, songs of praise and worship and I just spent some time at Jesus' feet, thanking Him and praising Him and worshipping Him because, you know amidst the pressures and concerns there are so many good things going on too. We end up focusing on all the bad things and we forget to thank God for the good things. You know, something happens when we spend time doing that, it's better than just running around doing stuff. We have to do things too but pausing for a time, resting at Jesus' feet, hearing Him speak, adoring Him, telling Him how much we love Him, worshipping Him changes our lives.

Love is something that begins in the heart. So is hatred. In fact, just about everything we say and do on the outside, begins with what's happening on the inside. The same holds true for – worship. One of the things that we all kind of know is that the great achievements that we have on the outside all start on the inside. Somewhere deep in her heart a little girl dreams of being a great athlete. She nurtures that dream. Every morning she's up at 4.00 am to go to training, day after day, month after month, year after year. It's that thing that's been going on in her heart that sustains her; it drives her to achieve her very best even when the odds are stacked against her. Everything that happens on the outside, everything we do and say begins on the inside. It has its genesis in our hearts. It's true in every aspect of our lives, work and family and social and spiritual. The heart is an important place. You know one of the most common things talked about right throughout the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, over 540 times is the heart. Several times Jesus made the point that who we are on the outside is a reflection of what's going on in our hearts. Matthew, chapter 12, verse 34: For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. And again in Matthew, chapter15, verse 18: But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart and these make us unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man unclean. You see for me, here's the biggest danger in thinking about worship. "Well, I go to Church most Sundays, we sing songs therefore I worship then I go home." It's kind of like saying, "Well I live in the same house and I sleep in the same bed as my wife" or maybe your husband, "I peck them on the cheek each morning before I go to work. Once a week I make sure I tell them "Love Ya" therefore I love my wife or I love my husband." See how crazy that is? My wife is not interested in ritual, she wants to know, does my husband love me with all his heart? And secondly, do I see that love reflected in what he says and how he responds to me? That's why Jesus, when He was asked the most important commandments said: Love the Lord your God with all your HEART, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. It turns out that worship is something that begins in the heart, it lives there first and foremost but then it's meant to be reflected in our lives. If we just 'do' worship once a week that's a sham. I've been there, I've been standing in a Church on Sunday morning singing the songs with my mind wandering off somewhere else, that's not worshipping God anymore than a quick peck on my wife's cheek is loving her. Worship is something that comes from the heart; King David knew that, listen to what he writes in psalm 24:  The earth is the Lords and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and He established it on the waters. Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in this holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. You see, David is saying here "God is above all and if I want to ascend to the hill of the Lord", what he meant there is going to the temple and worship God, "I need to have clean hands and a pure heart, a heart and a life that declare that I put Jesus first". Again in psalm 27, David writes this: One thing do I ask of the Lord, this is what I will seek: That I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon His beauty and to seek Him in His temple..." "...My heart says of you, seek His face and your face Lord will I seek. You see, what's going on here for David is that something is happening in his heart. Can I tell you? It's the truth, just quietly between you and me, don't tell anyone else. I am besotted with my wife, like I adore her, I just worship the ground she walks on, you know I just love her. It's a thing that starts and lives, day after day, in my heart. Some days we're both tired, some days, just quietly I'm grumpy. Some days she's a bit scratchy but the thing in my heart just never goes away and that's how it is for worship for me. There's something about God in my heart that overwhelms me. Like David, my heart says: Seek his face and your face Lord, will I seek." "This one thing shall I ask, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. There's this thing of the heart, a desire, a besottedness, an overwhelming urge just to be with God where He is. I was recently travelling with the ministry for almost two weeks and the ministry that God has me involved in here at Christianityworks is such a blessing and such a delight and I get to meet so many people but can I tell you? Each time I have to leave my wife it's an incredible sacrifice. You see, I love her; I want to be with her. When we go out together, more often than not, we're wandering down the street or through the shopping mall, hand in hand. It's a closeness, there's a desire, there's a "want to be together". Sometimes you know I go along to functions, you know a dinner or something like that and I watch other married couples, many of them don't ever sit next to each other at the dinner, you know something; we always do because we're close and that in a sense is what's going on in David's heart for God. He's saying, "God, I just want to be close to you. I just want to dwell in your house all the days of my life and gaze on your beauty and seek you in your temple. My heart says of you seek His face and your face Lord, I will seek." There it is, there's the heart of worship, a holy desire for God Himself. Not what God can do, not all the blessings, just God Himself. What about you? What does worship mean to you? You know, I went for a long time and I thought worship was just going along on Sunday morning and singing a few songs and coming home again but if that's how I treated my wife our marriage would fall apart. If that's how I treat God, if I say, "Worship is just some ritual, some sham, it doesn't matter, there's nothing going on in my heart", how can you expect to have a vital, dynamic, exciting, besotted relationship with God. Sometimes we get dry and we feel like we've wandered off and we feel like we don't have that desire, we all go there some days, stick with me during this week because we're going to, we're going to get together and look at what it means in our lives to worship God.

It turns out that we all worship something. Success. Money. God – whoever that might be. There's invariably something that dominates the way we feel, think and live. I'm not much into religion per se, you know the whole structured ritual thing but one of the great spiritual concepts that sometimes gets tagged with religious baggage is this idea of worship. Well when you hear the word worship, what does it mean to you? People who don't have any particular faith in God might see it as something that religious people might do in Churches or temples, maybe candles and incense or chanting and ritual, something that happens, well over there somewhere, not something that I do. A Christian might say, "Well, worships what we do on Sunday morning at Church before the sermon. We sing songs, that's our worship time." What about you? What would you say that worship is? My hunch is that the notion of worship from where God sits is so much broader than any narrow view that people might have about it. Not some religious ritual, not just some musical event but something much more. It is great to be with you again and we're doing a small series this week just talking about worship as being a way of life. You know, when we worship someone or something we put it above all other things. We pay homage to it, in fact it directs our lives. We will sacrifice other things, even those that are very dear to us for the sake of the thing or the person that we worship. We all worship something you know, I used to worship money and success and recognition. These were the things that made my whole life go round. My life was centred and ordered around those things, I sacrificed my health, my family, my rest, everything for these things that I worshipped and actually, when I look back, I was really worshipping myself. We can all look at our lives and ask, "What's at the centre of my life? Who or what do I worship?" We'll know the answer to that question when we look at the sacrifices we make and ask ourselves, really and truly, "Who or what am I making the sacrifices for? What's at the centre of my life? Is it my career? Is it my family? Is it earning more money and having a bigger house?" Honestly ask ourselves, "What is at the centre of my life?" And to figure it out we just have to look at the sacrifices we make and that's who or what we're actually worshipping. We all have lots of, I guess, elements or rooms in our lives, obviously we need to make some sacrifices sometimes. Being a parent, by definition, is about making sacrifices for our children. Sometimes, to be sure, we have to make sacrifices for our jobs or careers but day after day, month after month, is there one thing that keeps rising above all of those others in terms of sacrifice? If there is, chances are that's the one that we're worshipping. The notion that sacrifice is an essential part of worship is not something new. The very first time that the word worship is mentioned in the Bible is the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was a man that God called out of his comfort zone and Abraham went on a long journey and he was an old man, it took a long time but God promised Abraham that he would have many descendants. Well Abraham and his wife Sarah were really old and they still didn't have a single child to their name. They never thought that it would happen, that they would have an heir but this was God's promise. And ultimately, after a quarter of a century, when they were really old, God gave them a son called Isaac. You can imagine, this kid grows up and Abraham and Sarah had been waiting like a lifetime to have this child, they would dote on Isaac, they would just adore him and what God saw was that Abraham was putting Isaac before God Himself and so God went to Abraham and said, "I want you to sacrifice Isaac, you know like on an altar like they sacrifice animals." What an incredibly painful thing and on that morning when they journeyed out to that place where Abraham felt called to sacrifice his son, Abraham said to his servant, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Imagine the tussle that was going on in Abrahams heart, "who is first in my life? Is it God or my son?" You see, we can think we're worshipping God but then you go and look at your life and you ask some hard questions. How do I spend all of my time, my money, my energy, my passions, my dreams? And like Abraham we might get a real shock, let's read on: Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed in on his son, Isaac and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on Isaac spoke up and said to his father, "Father?" "Yes my son?" Abraham replied, "The fire and the wood are here" Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" And Abraham answered, "God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son." And the two of them went on together. When they reached the place that God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took a knife to slay his son but the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven and said, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. "Do not lay a hand on this boy. Do not do anything to him because now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." What God was doing here was testing Abraham's heart. Abraham, who do you worship? Who do you put first in your life God or your son? Now we might think this is just a bit extreme but I have to tell you, when I had to stop worshipping myself, you know give up this whole career and wealth and recognition thing, can I tell you? That was not an easy thing to let go of. When God comes along and finally tugs on our hearts and says, "do you realise you're worshipping something else?" It's almost impossible to admit let alone let go but at the end of this both God and Abraham knew the answer to the question, who do you put first in your life? The angel of the Lord said to Abraham, 'Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your only son'. Can I ask you quietly yet deliberately? Who or what do you worship? When it comes to the crunch, the one thing on this earth that is most important to you, would you be prepared to lay it down for the Lord your God? All our hopes, our dreams, our future, our life, our career – everything! Is God exalted above all other things in our lives? Because worshipping God is about adopting a God above all position in every part of our lives. Singing songs of worship is great but do we bow our lives down to God before anything or anyone else? In our hearts, do we truly worship God? Worship is about a whole bunch more than some religious rituals or just singing songs. The crunch question is, do we worship God with our lives?

If only.  If only she'd want to hold my hand still.  If only she'd touch my cheek like she used to.  It's funny how as we get busier in life, we become less and less intimate in our marriage. Here's a cold, hard, statistic – depending of course in which country you live in. Somewhere between 30 and 45% of all marriages end in divorce. In California the registry of births, deaths and marriages is now known as the registry of births, deaths, marriages and divorces. Is it because people don't set out wanting to love one another? No! Is it because 30 to 45% of people are so horrible you can't possibly live with them? No! Is it because people don't want to grow old together? No! So what exactly is going on here? My hunch is that one of the biggest issues that leads to divorce is that we just don't learn how to speak a love language that our wives or our husbands, as the case may be, can understand. This week on A Different Perspective we've been just stepping through Gary Chapman's fantastic book called, "The Five Love Languages". Last week we went through a series called Having the Marriage you were Meant to Have, because you know something, I believe that marriage is the most amazing gift from God. Jesus said: For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined with his wife and the two shall become one flesh, they are no longer two but one flesh. Jesus was talking about a blessing of intimacy and companionship, of life long relationship. Okay, marriage isn't for everyone. Being single or being widowed or being divorced are perfectly reasonable places to be. I'm not saying that everybody has to get married, but most people do. Last week in that series, "Having the Marriage you were Meant to Have", we laid the foundation stones and if you missed those programs you can listen to them again on our website, www.christianityworks.com this week we're going through the nitty gritty, the real life stuff. What it means for us to communicate our love in marriage. We're different, husbands and wives, in fact we're all different, and we all speak love and receive love in a slightly different way. That book I was talking about, The Five Love Languages talks about five. Words of Affirmation, the fact that some people the primary way they receive love is through words of encouragement. Other people for them its Quality Time, for them its just having that time to focus on one another's husband and wife exclusively with no other distractions, and just talk and be together. For other people they experience love mostly through Receiving Gifts, it's just that a gift is a tangible expression of a persons love. And for others it's Acts of Service, some people just love serving and those people love to receive love by being served. And finally today another one, a primary language of love is Physical Touch. Each one of us has one or two of those which predominately we would say is the way that we would like to be loved. Do we want the others too? Sure we do, but there are one or two for each one of us that we say, "You know something, if my wife doesn't affirm me and encourage me I don't feel loved, or if my husband doesn't give me the odd gift or little bunch of flowers or something I don't feel loved". For me without a shadow of a doubt my primary love language is physical touch. We all need physical touch, it's part of our nurture, I mean, its development as children. You've probably seen the experiments with primates where they isolated the young chimp at the beginning of its life and it receives no touch. And that chimp grows up to be incredibly maladjusted and violent and can't live in a social context with other chimps. Sadly, we see that in people too who haven't received that nurture that you get uniquely from being touched by your parents and family. But I'm not talking about the general needs, I'm not talking about sex even. I'm talking about the specific need that some people have for a primary love language of touch. The gentle touch that says uniquely, "I love you." Now it's hard for me to come to grips with the fact that my primary love language is physical touch. I grew up being a hard nosed businessman and I'm definitely not your touchy, touchy, kissy, kissy, sort of person. You know how some people meet you and they want to give you a big kiss and a hug. And my godmother used to do that when I was a kid, God bless her, and she'd leave this big thing of lipstick on my cheek. And I can remember thinking, "Oh yuck! That is not me." And yet when it comes to my wife Jacqui whose primary love languages are acts of service and quality time, she can do those things to me until she's blue in the face, but unless she holds my hand or strokes my cheek or puts herself close to me I simply don't feel loved. Why? I don't know, it's just the way that God made me. And people who know me in ministry or in business would say, "You've got to be kidding, Berni, touch, no, no way!" It's not always self evident. In fact a lot of people, especially men, probably wouldn't even be aware that their primary love language, the way that they really want to experience love, is through the medium of physical touch. If you're someone who doesn't feel loved, ask yourself this question, "How much difference would it make if your wife or your husband, whatever the case maybe, touched you more often?" You might be surprised at the answer. There's a beautiful picture in Mark's Gospel Chapter 1 verse 40, if you have a Bible, of a man who was a leper. Now in the first century lepers suffered social isolation. They couldn't go near people who didn't have leprosy. If someone who didn't have leprosy came close to them within 60 or 70 feet they had to yell out "Unclean! Unclean!" They couldn't go to the synagogue with the other people, they couldn't even live in the city walls with the other people, they had to live on the rubbish dump outside the city walls. And this leper comes to Jesus and says "Lord, lord, if you are willing you can make me clean," because he'd seen Jesus heal other people. And Mark records it this way, he says: Jesus was moved with compassion and He reached out and He touched the leper, and He said, 'I am willing, be made clean.' Isn't that awesome! The law forbade lepers from touching people who weren't lepers, and when this leper comes to Jesus and asks for healing, the compassion in Jesus' heart causes him to reach out and to touch the untouchable. What do you think that communicated to the leper? Maybe the lepers primary love language was touch, I don't know, we will never know that. But what an awesome picture of God the Son reaching out and touching the untouchable. If God can touch the leper, if God can do that, why is it that if we have a wife or a husband who wants to receive touch, what is it in us that doesn't do that? It costs nothing to touch yet it so beautifully expresses love in a marriage, the intimacy, the kindness the gentleness of physical touch. This week we've looked at five different languages of love, words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Can I encourage you to figure out which one or two of those are your primary love language and your soul mate's primary love language and then the two of you sit down and talk about it, explore it. What is it that each of you need? You know we so often don't talk about that in a marriage. We get angry with each other, we get frustrated with each other but we don't talk about it. And when you figure out that your wife or your husband has a different way of receiving love from you let me tell you its going to be unnatural to give love that way. So it has to be planned, it has to be deliberate, it has to be learned, it has to be sacrificial. It'll be hard some days and it'll be inconvenient some days but the fruit of loving your wife or your husband in the way that they want and they need is the most wonderful blessing from God in marriage.

She's flat out running the kids around, cleaning, cooking, all the stuff she thinks she should do. And he's just lonely. She never has time for me. He never helps me! This week on A Different Perspective we're taking a bit of a look at what it means to communicate our love for one another in the context of marriage. You know I believe that marriage is just one of the most amazing gifts that God can bless us with, but sometimes husbands and wives get so frustrated because they don't know how to love one another. And that is just so frustrating because you're doing your best. You think to yourself, "Man, I couldn't possibly be trying any harder to love my husband, or love my wife and yet they say they don't feel like I love them." And so often it's because we're speaking our love to them in one language but they need to hear it in another. So this week we're working our way through the fantastic book by Gary Chapman, it's so insightful, it's called The Five Love Languages and today, today we'll be looking at the fourth of those, Acts of Service. Jesus was visiting two sisters Mary and Martha. Now these young women were really quite different from one another. If you'd like to read the story you can, it's in Luke's Gospel, Chapter 10 beginning at verse 38. Jesus comes into their home and Martha, well Martha is working flat out, she's cleaning the house and cooking the dinner and doing all the things you need to do when you have a guest come into your home. Mary her sister, on the other hand, Mary sits at Jesus' feet and listens to what he has to say, she's glued, she's riveted and Martha gets pretty frustrated, she says to Jesus, "Don't you care that Mary's just sitting there and leaving all the work to me?" Now that's fascinating because then you see a conflict between two sisters. Mary obviously loves spending quality time; she's sitting there with Jesus and she's doting on what he's saying. Mary's primary love language is probably spending quality time with someone. On the other hand Martha, Martha's gifting clearly is in Acts of Service. She's just one of those people who like to do all the busy things and to serve people. Some people are just hard wired doers, they jump up, they help, they cook, they cater, they clean, at home, with friends, at church, at the club, whatever they do, they express their love by serving them. Now we should all serve. Jesus said it himself, "I've come to serve, not to be served" right. But Mary and Martha are clearly wired differently, somehow in their DNA, deep in their character, in their persona, they're quite different and that's life, we're all different. This week so far, we've looked at three primary love languages, that is, that we all receive love in slightly different ways, for some people it's Words of Affirmation, they experience love when their husband or their wife encourages them and says, "you look fantastic, that was a great meal, thank you so much for doing that for me". The second is Quality Time; it's what we see in Mary, some people experience love most when they and their spouse simply spend exclusive time with each other and focus exclusively on one other, and that quality time is how they drink in one another's love. The third one, which we looked at yesterday, is Receiving Gifts. And each one of us has maybe one of the five that we're looking at this week, which is the main way that we receive love. Today we're looking at Acts of Service, and the picture of Mary and Martha is a great one. But imagine if they were Max and Martha, imagine if they were husband and wife. And Martha is your hard wired acts of service type. For her to love is to serve, for her to love is to cook and to clean, for her to love is to do stuff. But Max, Max is your gentle type, he's one that loves to spend time together. He doesn't care if the dishes don't get done. "We'll do that later, let's just spend some time together now that the kids are in bed and we'll do the dishes later." You can see how the chips would fly. Martha on the one hand would resent the fact that he doesn't do anything. He doesn't love me because he doesn't do stuff, he doesn't clean up the kitchen, he doesn't wash up, he doesn't sweep up, why doesn't love me? And Max would say, "you know Martha never sits down, she never stops, she's always doing and rushing, she never has time for me." It doesn't matter how much Martha does for Max and it doesn't matter how much time Max spends with Martha, neither of them will feel loved, neither of them will feel fulfilled in their marriage relationship. They can do what they do until they're blue in the face but the other one will still feel unloved. Let's get a revelation! That's because they're doing and giving the type of love that they need, instead of the type of love that the other one needs. Hello are we listening? This is so blindingly, glimpsingly obvious isn't it? But we all naturally get this thing wrong. We all naturally try and give the type of love that we want to receive. Natural! Martha gives love by serving; she wants to receive love by serving. Max gives love by sharing quality time; he wants to receive love by sharing quality time. And if they both just give the sort of love that they want to receive, they will be like ships passing in the night and they will never connect. My wife Jacqui is hard-wired for Acts of Service, that's her primary love language and her secondary one is Quality Time. Those are the two that are most important to her, they speak love to her. So in order to do that I have to serve her. Now, Berni is not your acts of service type of person so what do I do? I have to learn, I actually have to learn. So there are a few things that I've done just in the context and I'm going to share these things with you because your context's different. If you're married to someone who is an acts of service person and you're not, you're going to have to figure out your own. You're going to have to figure out what works in your family and in your relationship. Here are some of the things that I've done. I thought right early on in our marriage, I could see that Jacqui is someone who serves and I thought, "How can I regularly serve her in a way that matters?" And you may have heard me say this before, so every night when we go to bed, I bring Jacqui a cup of tea in bed every night, very, very rarely we don't do that. I make a cup of tea for her, I serve her. And in the mornings I get up very early. I work generally about 6 o'clock in the morning, I'll go down the stairs, I'll make her a cup of tea and bring it up to her in bed, and she is woken up with a cup of tea in the morning. Now am I saying that Berni is a fantastic guy? No, I'm not. All I'm saying is that that is one way that I have discovered, that twice a day (at least twice a day) Jacqui is served by me, and you know something? I delight in doing that. That's from me to her, and no one else can share that, and she is served. Jacqui ends up doing most of the cooking in our family because I work very long hours. But I love cooking. I love getting in the kitchen. And so once a week I try and get in there and cook her a really nice meal, something she would never think of cooking herself. It's fun for me and she's being served. And every now and then I try and look at something and think, she needs a hand with this, or I can help here, or I can do this and pitch in, and help her unexpectedly. And those things are practical expressions of love that speak to her in a language she understands. Now in this society of house working kids and house working Mums and changing role of men, it's not easy to come to grips with this whole service thing. But are you married to someone who's like this? It's time to look at what they do. Are they super critical of people who don't help in practical ways, maybe this is a person who receives love through acts of service? Specific, regular and unexpected acts of service are what we need to do for a husband or wife like that, in order to say I love you. God wants us to love one another, God wants marriage to be the most amazing blessing. But we have to learn what it is that blesses the soul mate that God has given us.

That Neil Diamond song "You Don't Send me Flowers Anymore" says it all in some marriages.  What happened to those unexpected gifts?  What happened to the love? This week on A Different Perspective we're taking a look at how to express our heartfelt commitment to our soul mates, our wives, or our husbands as the case may be. Imagine; boy meets girl, she only speaks Swahili, he only speaks Japanese, they get married but they still can't speak one another's languages, what sort of a marriage are they going to have? Well there are two options; they either decide to learn one another's languages or things are going to fall apart because unless they learn to communicate, the frustration and the isolation would just tear them apart. That's how it is with different languages and love. Gary Chapman's written a great book called The Five Love Languages, the last couple of days we've looked at the first two of those, Words of Affirmation and Quality Time, today we're going to look at the third, Receiving Gifts. Anthropologists are a funny lot, they love to study human patterns of behaviour across different cultures, and in fact right down through history. And they look for common themes and patterns of behaviour. One of the most basic, one that appears in every culture is the notion that love is about giving. My hunch is that in the garden of Eden Adam used to go out looking for flowers for Eve and pick them, and give them to her, no doubt, and we know for a fact that she loved picking fruit for him to eat! Well I guess no one's perfect! So over the last few days we've looked at the first few languages of love that Chapman talks about in his book, The Five Love Languages. The first was Words of Affirmation. Some people's primary way of experiencing love is through words that other people say to them that affirm them. So a man who needs words of affirmation will need his wife to say, "Darling you look great in that suit. Darling, thank you so much for doing that." And a woman who needs words of affirmation will need exactly the same thing from her husband. The second of those was Quality Time. It's a happy buzz phrase isn't it? But quality time is more than just sitting in front of the box and just being in a safe space together. Quality time is focusing our attention exclusively on one another, and there are some people whose primary way of receiving love is through the knowledge that their husband or wife spends quality time with them. The third one, which is the one that we're going to look at today, is Receiving Gifts. Now a gift, I used to think, "Well how can someone experience love by receiving gifts, isn't that kind of tacky and cheap and materialistic?" Truly that's what I used to think. But when you think about it, a gift is something tangible. You can hold it in your hand, you can look at it and say "he loves me", or "wow she loves me" and you'll look at it again, and again, and again. It's a tangible tactile physical expression of the giving part about love, that thing that anthropologists discover is common to every culture that they've analysed. It's a symbol of a thought. We've heard the saying, "it's the thought that counts." It's not the actual gift, it's not how much it cost, it's the fact that the gift represents something and it represents love, or friendship, or whatever. So this visual symbol of love is more important to some people than it is to other people. Let me tell you about Berni. A gift to me will fail to express your love or your friendship to me precisely 100% of the time. If I never receive another gift in my life it'll be too soon. If nobody ever remembers my birthday again in my life it'll be too soon. When we were first married, Jacqui and I, Jacqui thought, "Ah I'll go and buy my husband a tie, or clothes, or aftershave," and I was absolutely horrified. I buy my own ties, I buy my own clothes, I buy my own aftershave. And Mum, my last birthday, she said "Berni what would you like for your birthday?" And I said "Truly Mum, give the money to charity, I just don't want a gift". So actually she gave a donation to the ministry of Christianityworks. For me gifts simply don't say I love you. Yet Melissa, our daughter, it's one of her two primary languages of love. Gifts are really important to her. When I went to India last year, she loves silver, and so I saw an Indian silver necklace and earrings, and I bought that for her. And at night time my wife Jacqui and I go for walks and we walked past this store that has this beautiful silver beaten jewellery and I'm always thinking and planning, "now I wonder which one of those I can get for Melissa's birthday". And just recently, last Christmas, one of the things that teenagers in her age group in her culture, all want, is they want an iPod, right, that's what's happening amongst young people today, she's 15. And so we saved up our money and bought her an iPod Nano. And on the back, if you buy them online on the Internet, they'll actually inscribe whatever you ask them to inscribe, machine inscribed, beautifully done. And so we had it inscribed on there 'Melissa Dymet loved, cherished and adored'. And that spoke volumes to her because receiving gifts is one of her primary love languages. The other morning I was out for a walk and she'd gone the bus stop waiting for her school bus and the frangipani's were out,(they're my favourite flower, they smell so nice) and I thought "you know when I come around the corner I bet you she's still at the bus stop". So I picked up just one frangipani flower that had fallen down and I walked up to her at the bus stop and I said, "Here, this is for you". Just the one flower. Well, her face just lit up because receiving gifts is one of her primary languages of love. King Solomon, in Proverbs Chapter 18 verse 16, way, way back when King Solomon was alive he wrote this A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great. You see gifts to people for whom receiving gifts is their primary love language, gifts open the door into their hearts. Things are just things to me. Possessions are just servants they're nothing more. I'm not sentimental about those things. But I'll tell you one gift, the one physical thing that I possess that I prize above all things is my wedding ring because it's a symbol of my wife's love for me. And I could be starving and have no money, I still would not sell this wedding ring. So even for the most hardened anti-gift person I have my price, you know what I mean? Now when I used to think that gifts and giving were a bit superficial and a bit materialistic. Actually the symbolism of the gift is how some people experience and receive love. Have you ever heard a wife say, "He never brings me flowers anymore." Now think about it, flowers die in a few days but they are a symbol of romantic love. Gifts can be purchased, gifts can be found, gifts can be made. "Oh but I'm not a gift giver." Congratulations, welcome to marriage. This is a lesson of love; we need to learn to give love in a way that our husband or wife can accept love. And if your soul mate receives love through the receiving of gifts, it is time for you to make a list of all the things that seem to push their buttons and we don't have to wait for special occasions. We don't have to wait for birthdays, or Christmases, or anniversaries because for someone who receives gifts as love, just the little things, just the little frangipani flower that you pick up on the spur of the moment that you find on the street, can say I love you. And when you receive a gift from such a person, like my daughter Melissa did a painting at school and she brought it home and she gave it to me, that gift, that painting has pride and place in my study because when she gives me a gift she is saying something that goes beyond what I may interpret the gift to be. We do all the other things, we can work, provide, clean, cook, make love, everything but if you're soul mate's primary love language is receiving gifts and you don't give them gifts, they will feel like their marriage is dead.

He thinks he's doing a great job working hard, paying down the mortgage.  But all she sees is that he never has time for her.  He's working flat out, she's feeling unloved and it's all heading downhill fast. This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at how to communicate love between husband and wife. Actually you can apply it to any loving relationship. So often a wife and a husband well, they want to love one another but they just don't know how. It turns out that all to often they're talking different languages. He gives her flowers but all she wants is his attention; she want to spend time with him when he's dying inside because all he wants her to do is to stroke his cheek. These things are so deep; they're so buried in our DNA that it even hurts to talk about these needs sometimes. That's why this week we're stepping our way through Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages. Because it's not enough for us to want to love our wives or our husbands, we need to know how, and today we're looking at Quality Time as the second of those five love languages. Time poor is the trendy expression at the moment. Time poor takes busy and elevates it to, "wow you're important because you're time poor." There are so many things, you know. There's work, and there's entertainment, there's housework, there's shopping and there's spending and there's traveling and there's the kids. And a lot of it, as we've looked at it on previous programs of A Different Perspective is about accumulating stuff. But stuff doesn't make us happy. We can go on a flash holiday and get there and still not be happy, you can spend as much money as you like on stuff, but it still wont make us happy because its relationships that bring us that satisfaction: relationship with God, relationship with husband and wife, relationship with family, relationship with friends. And these days it seems that just keeping our heads above water takes 99% of our time, and the other 1% we're so exhausted we've got no time for relationships, we've got no time to give anything. We're looking through that great book, and would encourage you to buy the book and read it because it is a really good book, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The five love languages that he lists are: words of affirmation, which we looked at yesterday; quality time, which we're about to look at today; receiving gifts, which we'll look at tomorrow; acts of service, the next day; and finally on Friday, physical touch. And it turns out that for each one of us, one or maybe two of those are our primary love languages. In other words we need our wife or our husband, as the case may be, to speak their love into our lives using these languages. If my primary language is physical touch, which it is, then receiving gifts just never works for me. Or words of affirmation, I tell you I don't need them much, I need my wife to stroke my face and say "I love you" and that's how I experience her love, by and large. Sure we need all of those things, but we're coming down to what's the primary way in which each one of us experiences love, takes it in. Now when we look today at quality time. Quality time is not about being in the same place together. You can be in the same place with your husband or wife but not have quality time because quality time speaks about attention. It speaks about focus. A woman can be just yearning to have that undivided attention of her husband and he thinks "Ah I'll buy her some roses, that'll do it!" As though some how quality time and roses are equivalent. They are not to someone whose primary way of assimilating love is by spending quality time with her husband. I'll let you in on a secret. I am not naturally good at quality time. It is not my primary love language, it is not what I do naturally. I'm a doer, I do stuff, I work hard then I rest, I'm a typical male specimen. I love to withdraw into myself and think and watch sport on television. Time is something that's there to be managed, I have a diary, I have a to do list. The first hint, early in our marriage where I knew something wasn't quite right, was when Jacqui sent "Don't you ever dare put me into your diary, I never want to see in your diary 'appointment with wife'!" I thought, "Why not, it seems perfectly logical to me, I have to manage my time. I put my wife in there at 4 o'clock to have a cup of coffee with her." It didn't work for Jacqui, turns out that quality time is one of her two primary love languages, acts of service is the other, we'll talk about that another day. And for her it means exactly what I just talked about, it means focus, it means conversation, it means attention. And unless she receives my undivided attention she doesn't feel loved. Can you see the explosive potential of this, I am outcome oriented, I'm your classic time poor guy who does lots of stuff, and this guy meets this girl who just wants to spend time with him, and his answer is to schedule the time in his diary!! How do I know if my soul mate needs quality time? How do I know if he or she is someone who really understands my love when I spend quality time with them? Let me ask you, have they ever said to you, "you never spend any time with me, you're always talking on the phone to other people but not to me." Chances are that person needs your quality time in order to experience your love. Email, mobile phones, we're so connected and available to other people our soul mates miss out. So I've had to learn, it's not been a natural thing for me, I've had to say "I married my Jacqui and she needs this and so I have to learn to do this for her." And here are some of the things that I've come up with. I tend to start pretty early in the morning. I love getting up at 4 o'clock, maybe 5 o'clock at the latest and I start working. And then about 7.30 in the morning when our daughter heads off to school I try and stop, I cant always do it, but I try and stop for 15 minutes, 20 minutes and we have our morning cup of coffee together, and we have a chat. I'm a morning person, I do my best work in the morning. I love preparing messages and radio programs early in the morning because my mind is sharp at that time. But if I just get up and work and work and work Jacqui doesn't see me until maybe 4 or 5 in the afternoon. The other thing we do is in the evening, generally after dinner, we go for a walk for half an hour. We hold hands and maybe we talk and maybe we don't but we just share that time together. We love renovating and so we're always talking about ideas and planning and doing this and doing that. It's fun, it's our hobby if you like, is renovating houses. And so we enjoy doing it that's something that we do together, its quality time. And Friday evenings once or twice a month we find a cheap restaurant somewhere and we just go and have a cheap little meal together. They're just the things, the very practical things that Berni has had to think about and say, "well Berni, you know you're not natural at spending quality time with people, so here are the things that you've go to learn." Its not easy, its not perfect but its what my wife needs and what she deserves. And sometimes I make mistakes and sometimes things fall through the cracks, none of us is perfect, but the point is I've had to learn. And we all have to learn when we're married to someone who experiences love differently to us. We're always so focused on getting what we need and what we want, the real issue in marriage is figuring what our soul mates needs are, and delighting in meeting those, it's a sacrifice. What about your life, what about your marriage? Do you have a spouse who needs words of affirmation, do you have a spouse who needs quality time? What are yours and your soul mate's primary love language? To me it is such an exciting thing to explore and to dream and to plan how we can give to our husband or our wife the love that he or she so desperately wants and so richly deserves.

Mark Twain once said "I can live for two months on a good compliment".  It's true, when people affirm us and encourage us – it somehow builds us up on the inside. Another new week. You know last week on A Different Perspective we went on a bit of a journey to look at how we can have the kind of marriage that we were meant to have. I guess we looked at some of the really important foundation stones to a great marriage and if you missed those programs I'll let you know at the end of this program how you can listen to them again. This week we're going to build on those foundations by looking at how to speak the language of love to our wives or our husbands, a language that they can actually understand. A man, by the name of Gary Chapman has written a book, it's a great book called The Five Love Languages, in which he points out that too often husband and wife are actually speaking different love languages without even realising they're doing it. That leads to hurt and frustration and anger and a sense that "Oh, my husband doesn't love me, or my wife doesn't love me." So what are the five love languages, and why are they important? Well in his book Gary Chapman says there are five different basic languages of love and these are the five that he lists: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. So the first one again is words of affirmation, affirming each other through what we say. The second one is spending quality time together, isn't that a happening phrase! The third one is receiving gifts, the forth, acts of service, the fifth, physical touch. Think about it, we all need all of those things in a loving relationship, after all what would quality time between a husband and wife be without some encouraging words or physical touch. But it turns out that for most of us there are one or two out of those five that are the primary ways in which we perceive that our soul mate is expressing love to us. Me, I'm odd because I'm not really a touchy feely person yet physical touch is my primary love language. (we'll talk about that in a few days time) But if my wife Jacqui doesn't touch me all day, I don't feel loved, and she can say "I love you" as many times as she likes but it doesn't feel like it to me unless she touches me. For Jacqui its acts of service, that's who she is, she's hard wired that way. She loves serving other people, that's how she naturally expresses her love. Now imagine we don't ever realise that, imagine we get married and we live our lives and we never realise that about each other. How do you think the marriage would go? How do you think it would pan out over the years? Well the answer is, not so well, because if my primary love language is touch then the natural thing that I will do is to express my love that way to my wife, but if her primary love language is acts of service, if I all I ever do is express my love by touching her and never serving her, the chances are she'll never feel as though I'm saying I love her. And it's the same with me, if she thinks she can express her love to me just by serving me, because that's what she does naturally, she's great at it, she does it with me, she does it with all sorts of people, everyone she meets. She's just a person who loves to serve. But if she thinks that she can express all of her love that way to me and not understand that what I really need is that touch which says "I love you," in my language, she's never going to say I love you in a language that I can understand. So it's important, not only to understand what is it that I need my partner to say to me or do to me, so that I experience their love in a way that makes sense to me, but more important than that is to understand our spouses language and to learn to express our love in a way that they can receive it. You know something, that's not easy, and some days it doesn't feel natural. And over the course of this week we're going to look at those different love languages, starting today with words of affirmation, and I guess just share some practical insights and tips and stuff that I've experienced along the way. And my heart is that as we do that God will speak His grace and His love into your life, into your marriage. And if you're not married, maybe you know someone who needs to hear these things and you can share with them the good news that marriage is a blessing from God. Marriage was God's idea in the first place, it's supposed to be wonderful. Not perfect everyday, not easy everyday, but it's supposed to be a wonderful union and experience between husband and wife. Well let's begin today with words of affirmation. King Solomon, one of the Kings of Israel, way back in the book of Proverbs in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. He wrote this, he said, The tongue has the power of life and death, reckless words are like a sword but the tongue of the wise brings healing. We do say that sticks and stones might break our bones but names will never hurt us, but that's not true. What people say to us either builds us up and encourages us or it tears us down and breaks us. Mark Twain once said "I can live for two months on a good compliment." We know what he is saying; he's saying the same thing as Solomon. What people say to one another actually matters an awful lot. Now Solomon and Mark Twain are saying, well, stuff that we already know. Verbal compliments or words that affirm someone are a powerful communicator of love, and in fact children growing up, particularly teenagers, if they don't receive those words of encouragement, it undermines their sense of identity and security. But here's the thing, words of affirmation cost nothing to give, but they reflect what's going on inside in our hearts. Jesus said "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." And for someone whose primary language of love is words of affirmation, when they hear us affirming them that says 'this person loves me'. The words aren't the important thing its what the words represent. They represent what's going on in our hearts. The person whose primary love language is words of affirmation needs to know in our hearts that we love them and they receive that love through the words. "Gee you look great in that dress." "Darling I know you're working hard, you know I really appreciate it." "Sweetheart that was a great dinner." "Thanks so much for picking up the kids." "You've got such a great sense of humour; I love it when we laugh together." Not rocket science is it, none of that? You don't have to have a PhD in Psychology to figure out that those words are good words. Just forget about the main love language for the moment, every marriage needs those words because the message is "I genuinely appreciate you." And you know something when we do that we get benefits back. That's not why we do it, but those words bear fruit in our relationship. Is my wife or my husband one of those people whose primary love language is words of affirmation? Well, have you every heard them say, "You don't appreciate me, you never say thank you, you take me for granted?" Those are cries of love from someone who needs affirmation. Listen, answer. The Apostle Paul in Ephesians, Chapter 4 verse 29, wrote this, he said, Don't let evil talk come out of your mouth but only words that build up other people so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Words of affirmation cost nothing, they're free. Why is it that we let them go in our marriage? Why is it that we forget to say, "That was wonderful, you're wonderful, I love you." "That was a fantastic meal." "You look fabulous." They're one of the greatest love gifts that we can ever give. They cost nothing, but to someone whose primary love language is words of affirmation they mean everything.

How often have we all tried to change something in our lives – something on the outside – only to discover that the problem goes far deeper than that.  It's a problem on the inside. It's just great to catch up with you again today with a different perspective on life. The soul is something that seems to get quite a lot of attention these days. Body and soul, soul food, resting the soul, soul journey. They are all phrases that get bandied around. Different people try to find rest for their souls in different ways; creating peaceful rooms in their homes, playing relaxing music; shutting out the noise and the clamour and the stress of the world out there. Now that's all well and good, but what if all that noise and the clamour and the stress, what if that stuff doesn't live out there. What if it's actually a problem deep inside? Then maybe it's time, time to spring clean our souls. This week on A Different Perspective, I know it's not spring, I know you don't have to write and let us know it's not spring, but I thought that at the beginning of the year it would be wonderful to talk about spring cleaning our lives. Looking forward to the year and saying, "What is some of the rubbish I can leave behind?" And over the week so far we have looked at spring cleaning where we live, our home, our finances and getting those right. Spring cleaning our priorities and getting some balance back in our lives. Spring cleaning our relationships we looked at yesterday and getting rid of some of the poisonous people in our lives; dealing with some of the difficult issues and hanging around with some of the people worth hanging around. But they are all on the outside. Today I would like to finish up with looking at the inside the soul, the deep, the deep part of us. The danger is that we focus just on the things on the outside, the externalities. Now they do have an impact. A messy house is going to be depressing. Debt is going to put a weight on our shoulders. If we have the wrong priorities we are going to have a lack of balance in our lives. If we have some wrong relationships, ultimately that's going to tear us apart. So they do have an impact. But if we just try and change those things, the outside, we can spend a lot of time and effort just to discover that there is something wrong in the inside, in our hearts, in our souls. You know that deep place that we live, that place that we laugh and where we cry, where we have fun and we feel sadness. That place. Jesus actually only had a go at people when he was walking on this earth about two issues. One of them was a lack of faith. The other one which we will look at today was hypocrisy. He detested hypocrisy. And when you think about it, hypocrisy is when what is happening inside us is not consistent with what is happening outside. Hypocrisy is when the outside doesn't match up with the inside and we say one thing and do another. And in particular Jesus really detested religious hypocrisy. He said: Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and it's fruit bad. Because a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers. He said to these religious hypocrites: How can you speak about good things when you are evil, because out of the abundance of your heart, your mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word that you utter. Because by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned. He doesn't mince his words, Jesus, when it comes to hypocrisy and there is some insight. He talks about a tree and He says, "Look a tree that has good fruit is actually a good tree inside. And a tree that has bad fruit is actually a bad tree inside." He was yelling at these religious hypocrites who are telling the people one thing and then doing another themselves. Now you and I both know people who bear bad fruit.You can see it in their lives. We know them at work, we know them in our social lives, sometimes we know them at home. It doesn't matter how much bravado they use, doesn't matter how much they rationalise it and they brush it aside, you see some of the bad fruit and you have to say, "That is actually a bad tree." And to be really honest, sometimes you and I bear bad fruit. If you and I have anger in our hearts, or malice, or envy, or hurts form the past, and c'mon guys if you are eying off every woman that walks past you down the street. Doesn't matter how we dress them up or rationalise them, they are still there. I used to live in our house that used to back onto a really busy road, a noisy road. And after about six to twelve months we didn't notice the noise on the road. I know my aunty who lives in a house just near a railway line, we can be visiting here and having a cup of tea, and this loud train rattles by and we'll look at the noise and she doesn't even notice it. And the same is true, sometimes with the bad fruit that we bear in our lives. We can live in a dung heap for six to twelve months or years and years and eventually you know what happens, we don't notice the smell. But here's the rub it still stinks. The bad stuff robs us of good things. If I get angry with someone all the time it robs me reaping the fruit from the relationship. If I bear malice towards someone, it robs me of joy and peace. If a man has a wandering eyes, you know what it does, it really robs him and his wife of true intimacy in marriage. If someone has a stingy nature it robs them of the blessings that happen when we stretch to give to the poor and to God's work in faith and then God steps into our lives and blesses us. Isn't it true? Doesn't matter how we try and rub it away, it is the way it is. There are kind of two parts to our lives that we looked at earlier this week, when we were looking at the apostle Peter in jail. Remember when the angel came to let him out and the angel said, "Listen Peter, get up, put on your sandals, put on your belt and put on your coat and follow me." And then the chains miraculously fell of his hands, and the gate just swung open and God sprung him from jail. There were two parts to that story, the mundane, the bit where Peter had to get up, put on his robe and his belt and his sandals on and follow the angel. That was the mundane, the things that Peter could do for himself, which God wanted him to do for himself. And then there was the miraculous - the angel showing up, the chains falling off. And as you and I stand on the threshold of a new year, can I suggest something to you? Your life and my life are exactly like that. There is the mundane and the miraculous. And sometimes we just have to roll up our sleeves and deal with some of the mundane issues and some of the things that we can do for ourselves.I wonder whether part of that isn't spring cleaning our souls. What is the mundane? Well I think it is naming the things that are wrong inside us. Owning up to them and acknowledging them, and taking responsibility for them. If you are someone that gets angry quickly at people put it on the table, and say, "God I get angry quickly with people. I am sorry I don't want to live my life like that. I don't want to be robbed of all the good things you have for me in this coming year and the years down the track just because I have this rotten thing in my soul." And here is the miracle bit. It's almost impossible sometimes for you and I to change some of those deep rooted things, right inside of us that are wrong. And the miracle bit is that as we acknowledge it and we lay it on the table and say to God, "Look, I can't deal with this, I need a hand, help me." As we hand them over to him, as we submit them to him, God steps in and God comes along and sometimes he does it quickly and miraculously. And at other times he does it over weeks and months and even years but he helps us to deal with those things. And it is so good to be clean, it is so liberating. There is a whole new level of life and relationship with God. Come on, as you and I look forward to this year, what is it in your soul that needs spring cleaning?

As we contemplate the year ahead, we can't think for too long without thinking about our relationships. The good ones.  The mediocre ones.  And, the downright destructive and hurtful ones too. It's just so good to be with you again today, looking forward together at the year that lies ahead. And as we think about that year, all the good things and the difficult things that are going to come our way, it is hard to think for more than a few minutes without turning our attention to relationships. Have you ever though about how many relationships you have? Relationships ranging from absolutely crucial to distant; fantastic to fiasco; blessing to bust. And those relationships it turns out have a huge impact in the quality and the effectiveness of the lives that we lead. So what if we looked across all those relationships and looked at the ones that are causing us grief and did something about them. What impact would that have on our lives this year? This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at spring cleaning our lives. Over the week so far we have look at spring cleaning our homes, our finances, our priorities. If you have missed any of those you can listen to them again online at our website www.Christianityworks.com . There are different sorts of people in our lives and one of the groups of people that we have in our lives are what I have called "Poisonous" people. People who drag us down. People who criticise and abuse and compromise. Recently my wife Jacqui and I met a couple. Here was this married woman behaving improperly without setting appropriate boundaries. It was so easy for us to have friendships and relationships with people who are "Poisonous" people. There is a great picture of the apostle Paul on the island of Malta. You can read about it in the 28th chapter in the book of Acts in the New Testament. He is picking up some wood and a viper, a snake, bites him on the hand and starts pumping poison into him. And he shakes it off and throws it into the fire. We all know people like that. People who when we are around them they pump poison into our spirits. I would contend that part of having a healthy life is looking at some of those relationships that in fact we shouldn't even be in. Some of the sorts of people that are so bad for us we need to just say, "I am not just going have a relationship with this person." You might be listening and say, "But that's not a very Christian attitude to have." I would like to point to you what Jesus said to the disciples when he sent them out. You can read about it in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 10 verse 14. He said "Look, go into these towns and tell them about the good news. Tell them about Me. If they don't listen shake the dust of your feet and go into the next town." Sometimes there are people in our lives (and in our hearts we know who they are) we are having friendships and relationships with that are just dragging us down. Is it time to spring clean those. Maybe those people are really close, maybe they are husband or wife. Maybe someone is being hard on us and it is hurting us. Well this is my husband or this is my wife, I just can't leave them. I would agree. It's not time to trash a marriage or our children. That is not what I am talking about. But in that case I just wonder whether it is time to deal with the issues. To try and figure out what I am doing wrong in this relationship. Honestly. Half the time bad relationships come back to what I am doing not what the other person is doing to us. And also dealing with issues. If someone is always angry with us, if someone is always criticising us, or if someone is always whinging, sure let's love them. Let's encourage them, let's be there for them, but let's speak the truth in love. But if you are having a tough day and if you just feel like grumbling, and you're with me, I will empathise with you, I will counsel you, I will listen to you. I will love you. But I tell you what there is one thing I will not do. I will not sit down and grumble with you. And I won't let you ruin my life. Sometimes we need to confront issues. Because if we let poisonous people continue to pump poison into us, eventually it is going to hurt us. The second group of people I would like to talk about is distant people. There are sometimes people we should be close to, our family, maybe and older parent, maybe an older brother and sister that have grown up. Maybe our kids. You know, kids go from being a kid to being a teenager and somewhere along the line there as most teenagers do, they close their lives off. And we end up feeding them, clothing them, driving them, disciplining them but sometimes we don't have a relationship with them. It's not an easy time having teenagers in our family. And parents have a kind of different set of standards and kids want to do… you know what it's like. You've been there. What do you do about people that are distant to us that we should be close to? What can we do to spring clean that relationship? I truly believe that we need to be creative in serving them. In talking to them. In building bridges for them. It's so easy, it's so much fun and we reap such great rewards. Who is it in your life? Who is it in my life, that we should be close to but somehow we have drifted apart? You know you are an incredibly creative person. What things can you dream up? How can you use your imagination, your abilities, who God has made you to be, to be creative about building a bridge back into that person's life; building a relationship into that difficult teenagers space. It is an exciting thing to contemplate. Dealing with poisonous people, that can be hard; building bridges across gaps that's is exciting stuff. The third group of people I think we need to talk about are people who ooze God. You know who I am talking about. Those people that you know that have a special sort of wisdom, this grace. They are just a joy and a blessing the be around. They have a deep influence on us. You know what I think, I think we need to hang around those people more; to watch, to listen to learn, to ask, to really understand them. The apostle Paul wrote this in one of the letters in the New Testament. It is the letter to the Philippians chapter 4 verse 8, "Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just and pure and whatever is a blessing, whatever is commendable if anything is excellence or anything worthy of praise—think about those things." I'd like to turn that around. If anyone one is good and honourable and just and pure, and if you know anyone who is a blessing and is commendable and does excellent things, hang around them! We live in a world that hungers after role models. We have footballers, we look at actors, we look at musicians. What about some of the good and Godly people around us.If we are going to spring clean our relationships, shouldn't we hang around with some people who just ooze God out of their pores. Poisonous people, distant peoples, people who ooze God. The last part of spring cleaning relationships - I wanted to leave the best till last - Jesus. Because I believe that we can't do the first three without Him. One of the things I love to do, is I have a grand piano in my study. And I love sing and to play that piano and there is one particular song that I particularly love. And the opening lyrics go like this, "Oh Lord you're beautiful, Your face is all I see, And when you eyes are on this child, Your grace abounds to me." The bible says, "If we take a person size step towards Him, He takes a God size step towards us." Some people look at Jesus and it never occurs to them that He is a person, that He is someone to have a relationship with. That He is someone to listen to and to pray to and to let Him speak into our spirits. And yet that is exactly what He wants for us. And James said, "Look, if you are struggling with wisdom", and I believe that as we look at dealing with poisonous people and distant people and people who ooze God, "if you are struggling for wisdom, go and ask Him and He ungrudgingly gives to those who ask." If I were going to spring clean my relationships I would start with the best. Jesus.

Balance – if only we could get some balance back into our lives.  It can be tough can't it?  But the way we spend our time – well it comes from the priorities we set – deliberately, or unknowingly. It's just great that you can join me again today. I was driving along in my car just the other day. And I drove past a newsagent. You know how they have the newspaper headlines on the signs outside the store? One of the headlines said this ... "Money or family". Ouch! That really hits a raw nerve with a lot of people. Balancing work and family. Just after that I ended up having breakfast with a man visiting from another city and during the breakfast he received a phone call from his son's teacher. There was a problem with his young teenager. You could see it on his face, as he talked. The tension, the feeling of being torn between being away from work and spending time with his family. He travels a lot you see. The balance can be so hard to get right. Maybe we need to spring clean our priorities? This week on ADP we are looking at spring cleaning our lives. I know it's now spring, but it is kinda the beginning of the year and we are looking forward to all the good things that could be happening this year. And I just wonder if it's not a good time to look at some of the rubbish, some of the baggage that we carry around and say, "Why don't I have a spring clean. Why don't I get ride of some of this stuff, so that I'm not carrying its weight around all during next year." Today I would like to talk about spring cleaning our priorities. So many people are looking for a miracle from God. I wish God would do this, I wish God would do that. If there is a God why does he let this happen in my life. And yet they are not dong their bit in managing the basics, the mundane things that God leaves up to us. They want to feel good about themselves yet their house is a pig sty. They wonder why when they walk in they feel depressed. They want to be a real giver and help the poor, but their finances are a disaster. Today I would like to look at getting some balance into our lives. "But Berni you don't understand, I don't set my priorities, I have all these other things going on". Don't give me that. We can claim to be a victim of our circumstances. Or instead we can come to grips with this basic reality. My priorities in life are mine. And your priorities in life are yours. When our life gets out of balance, it's because of the way that we are prioritising what we do. It's the setting of our priorities that dictates how we spend our time. After all, my diary is mine, I am the one that puts meetings and work and things into my diary. And you diary is yours. And we can claim to be victims, but the answer is it is up to us. "But Berni you don't understand, my boss expects me to work long hours and to do this and to do that". Well maybe you need to educate your boss. Maybe it's time to draw some boundaries and some lines and say, "Well you know, I have to have sustainable life. I have to spend time with my teenagers. I have to spend time with my wife or my husband". And if your boss can't be educated maybe it's time to find a different job. "No, no you don't understand, I have a huge mortgage; I have this house that I am paying off. I need the money… I have to … " Do you need the big house? Do you need the big mortgage? You know we look at all these things in our lives and this is a given, the house is a given, the mortgage is a given, the job is a given. Maybe it is time to change jobs. Maybe it is time to take control and set priorities and say, "My family is important to me. My kids are important to me, and maybe if I take a different job and earn a little bit less money, and maybe live in a house that is a bit smaller or closer to work, maybe I will have more time." Maybe it is time to re jig the priorities. "Ah but there is so many people that need my help you know". Maybe it is time to learn to say, "No". Maybe it's time to ask God, "What do you want me to do? What have you got me doing, what are you doing?" it is interesting how Jesus said, and you can read this in John's gospel chapter 4 verse 19, Jesus said: Truly I tell you, the Son only does what He see's the Father doing. There were so many things that Jesus could have done when He was walking on the Earth, there was so many people He could have helped but He just listened to God. He listened to his Father talking to Him in His spirit. And He went and did the things that God was already doing. I see so many people, running around doing dead works. Things in their lives that God never planned for them. God never anointed them to do, and yet they're racing around doing them. And wondering why they're getting burned out. Now there are times when we have to work long and hard and it can be tough. When I took over the helm of this ministry, Christianityworks here in Australia, the ministry needed some serious work. There were some issues and they needed a lot of work and we were launching new radio programs. And so I made a conscious decision over the next twelve or eighteen months I was up at 4:30am. And they were long days, twelve, thirteen sometimes fourteen hour days, day after day, week after week. Even in the middle of all of that, and still today, every morning when I get up, I spend somewhere between three-quarters-of-an-hour and an hour with God. And when I have worked 12 or 13 hours, I say at four or five in the afternoon, "That's it, its time to stop. I am having my evening off and spending it with my wife Jacqui and my daughter Melissa." And even when I was working those long hours, mostly I had my weekends off. And there were people who consistently tried to intrude into those times. When I set those boundaries and said, "After 5pm that's it. I have been working for twelve or thirteen hours, I now need to spend time with my family, I need to rest." People would try and ring. So this is what I did, I turned my mobile phone off, I turned my computer off, I didn't go to my email and I created a space where my family and I could spend time together. God doesn't need me to burned out. You don't need me burned out. I have a dear friend a wonderful, wonderful man, been a Christian for many years. He is one of natures gentlemen, just a delightful human being. Was recently diagnosed with depression and I thought, "How can this happen to him." It turned out he hadn't taken a holiday for 4 years. We were sitting having a coffee the other day and he said, "Duh, I brought this on myself." He is absolutely right. Now God is helping him and dealing with him. And he is rearranging his priorities and his work life so that he has more rest. One of the things I always do in life is take a holiday, every year, a few weeks off, to rest the soul. Time and time again you look at Jesus and He had sort of "rock star status" when he was wandering around Jerusalem and Judea. He was healing people, crowds, thousands of people, crowds of four and five thousand. When you recognise that the population of Jerusalem at the time was fifteen thousand it was like a third of the city coming out to hear him speak. So he had this huge rally going on. A gruelling schedule. He came here to serve not to be served. But time and time again you read about him drawing away from the crowds, getting in a boat and going away and resting, spending time with God, spending time with just his closest friends. Someone said to me recently, a dear friend of mine, Barry Chant, "You know Berni you can't live your life on the front line. Sometimes you have to pull back and rest". Now if Jesus did this as the Son of God, if it is good enough for Him, I figure it is good enough for me. The problem is that when our life is out of whack we become weak. When our life is out of whack we become weak. What are you priorities? God, family. Doing things for other people. What about you? What about rest? We neglect that and our life falls apart. As you and I look forward to this year, I believe God wants to bless your socks off. And I believe God wants you to bless other people's socks off. If we are going to do that we need to have a cold hard look at our priorities. What are yours? What's some of the rubbish in your schedule and your time? That you need to throw out. Is it time to spring clean your priorities? It's worth a thought, isn't it.

Sometimes, our heart can be aching – if only I had enough to give more money to the poor and the needy.  And so the next thing we do is go and buy something useless on the credit card. Hmm. In recent years there's a new word that's appeared in the vocabulary of sociologists. That word is Affluenza. It's about the high social, personal and environmental cost of over-consumption. The bloated sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that people get from over consumption. Work more, shop more, live less. The research tells us that actually in the west it is becoming a serious social disease. And yet 24/7 is seems people are going down to the local shopping centres running the plastic through the machines spending it on stuff that in a years time will probably be lying disused at the bottom of the wardrobe. And then you get the credit card bill. It turns out that there is a lot of people that live in a constant state of debt and for what? Spring Cleaning our lives. I know it's not spring but you know as we look forward to the year its kind of nice to review our lives, to look at different parts of our lives, and think where's some of the rubbish in my life that I can leave behind. Yesterday we talked about spring cleaning our homes. Now some people want to live a good life and feel good about themselves, and yet there house is a pig sty. And they wonder why when they walk into their home they feel depressed. Sometimes we have to deal with the mundane issues to give God some space, to bring miracles into our lives. Today I would like to talk about our finances. What does it means to spring clean our finances? Jesus actually talked quite a bit about money. He said: Where you treasure is there your heart will also be. Sometimes people read that and they kind of miss the sequence that He is using. Sometimes they read it the other way round, they read where your heart is that's where you'll spend your treasure. But actually he puts the money first. He says where you spend your money, where you invest the cash, that's where you will invest your emotional energy. If we invest in conspicuous consumption, what ever that means in each of our lives and our social context, if we buy, buy, if all we want to do is get the new car, get this, get that… that's where we end up investing emotionally as well. Maybe that explains why people end up feeling so empty when all they do is try and spend money. That used to be me. It used to be so important to me that I had the latest up market car. It used to be so important to me that I had the latest this and the latest that, the best this and the most expensive gadget there. You ended up being bloated but you are never satisfied. Yesterday on A Different Perspective we looked at the story that we find in the book of Acts in the New Testament, of the apostle Peter being in jail. He's locked up, he's being guarded by Roman soldiers. And in the middle of the night an angel of the Lord comes to him, taps him on the shoulder and says come Peter lets go. Put on your clothes put on your shoes put on your belt and follow me. Miraculously the chains fall off his hands, he walks past the guards and they are asleep. They get to the outer gate and the gate swings open of its own accord. There are two dimensions to this story. There's the mundane, there's the angel saying to Peter, "Get up, put your coat on, put your belt on, put your sandals on, follow me." Do the mundane things that you can do for yourself. And the other dimension is the miracle. The fact that God showed up at all. The fact the chain fell off, the gate flew open. Sometimes we hunger after miracles in our lives and we ignore the basics the mundane. If only we would spend some time getting the basics right. Maybe that would give God some space to bless us with his miracles. We spend, spend, spend. We just spend money. We end with sky high debt on our credit cards, we cant' pray for a miracle to get us out of that. We can't pray for a miracle, say, "God when I wake up tomorrow morning I pray that there would be a zero balance on my credit card." We live in the days of credit cards. Back in the good old days when I was a little boy we lived in a cash society. My father used to bring cash home. He was paid in cash. He used to give Mum the housekeeping. When housekeeping ran out, well, that was it. And so there was a control on the way in which we spent our money. Now today, you can just keep running it up and running it up on the credit card. And when that one is full you can just go to the next credit card provider and get another one, and run it up and run it up. And so many people live under this power of debt. This is what Jacqui my wife and I have done in our lives in our little part of the globe to deal with the whole money issue, to spring clean our finances. Jesus is heavily into the realities of life. Remember when he teaches the disciples to pray which we commonly refer to as the Lord's Prayer. One of the lines in that is "give us our daily bread." God knows we need food to eat we need a roof over our heads we need pay for this and that and the other. So one of the things that Jacqui and I have done is we have a separate little bank account which is our housekeeping account. And that's where the money, each week the same amount, goes into that account and that's what we use for our groceries and the little things that we spend. And when that is finished and run out, you know something, it is run out. And that means that we can't get take ways until next week until the money comes back in again. Maybe it sounds old fashioned maybe it sounds a bit silly but it makes a lot of sense. It's so basic it's so simple. The other thing that we do is we have automated debits every month out of our bank account. The first thing that comes out is our tithe, giving to God's work. Now I am going to talk about that in a little minute. The mortgage payment comes straight out. Don't have to worry about it never gets behind. The monthly insurance for the house comes straight out. So we've streamlined those payments that need to come out every month. We know when major bills are coming. We plan for the car registration and insurance. We know what the income is, we know what outgoings are, we know what the surplus is, and we know how much we want to save, and therefore what our discretionary spending is. This is not rocket science, right? But none of this is really high tech. If we would just do some of these basics and not spend more than what we earn, then by little step by little step, we would dig ourselves out of this hole that we call debt. The miracle is in truly believing in that God want to bless us in all areas of our lives including finances. Now let me talk about this question of giving to God's work. giving to the poor, giving to the work of ministries. A tenth seems an awful lot but you know, but it's a number that comes up time and time again. And lots of people who believe in Jesus actually tithe. It's a step of faith. You know when you're down in that hole of debt and we go to God and we say "Lord I actually want to give to you, I want to give a tenth to you." That is a huge step of faith. It is a huge stretch. But I believe in giving in a way that is a stretch. And as we do that, as we believe that God blesses us in our giving, it is just amazing to see how He comes along. It doesn't mean that He makes us all trillionaires. You know that is not what this is about. God is not a slot machine, where you put a coin in one thing and pull a handle and the money pours out. That's not what we are talking about. I was listening to a story the other day of a family who decided they really wanted to stretch and give a certain amount to some of God's work. And that meant that they didn't have enough money to go and do they entertainment things, you know, the movies, skating, all the stuff they use to do. And so they gave the money and they cut back there entertainment. And they were so blessed because they ended up spending so much more time together as a family. As you and I look forward to this year there are some decisions we need to make if debt is a problem. The first one is doing the mundane. Getting the basics right. Doing the cash flow, managing the bills and the second one is believing for a miracle. Having the faith that says, when I put God first, when I give to God's work first, when I give to the poor first, God will come, God will bless. God will love me and help me through this. I really believe that we are to give in a way that cost us something, that makes is a stretch. Manage with the mundane, move with miracles, believing this year, this year, is your year to deal with your finances. What does it look like for you? You start … with a spring clean of your finances.

So often – we can be looking for a miracle – and yet we forget to manage the mundane.  We want God to bless our lives – yet the house is a pig sty and we wonder why we're depressed. It's just great to catch up with you again, this year. There is something intensely satisfying about being clean. You know, you come home you're hot and you're and you're sweaty and you get in the shower, clean. Fantastic. Or your hair is growing so long. It's just driving you nuts. And when you get it cut you feel a million dollars. You with me? And I guess the same is true of your homes. When they are a mess it's kind of depressing. But when you put in the effort, clean the place up. Well, it makes a difference to how we feel about ourselves. So what about your place right now. How messy, or tidy or clean or dirty is it? Hmm … My wife Jacqui, my daughter Melissa and I, live in a small semi detached terrace house, right in one of the inner city suburbs of Sydney. Now it's a lovely suburb. But the house is very small, the block of land is very small, there is no off street car parking so we have to park our car on the street. When we bought it, it was a nasty little place. It was built in 1876 and had a very small, very plain layout, and the kitchen was just the most disgusting place. But since then we have renovated the house, and now we live in a well designed, nicely finished home. It's not big, but it is very comfortable and it's lovely. It's a pleasure to live in. And when the renovation was done, there was fresh paint, and clean surfaces and new floorboards, and it was really nice. But even after the renovation as time goes by, as we live life in a house, it gets messy and dirty. Have you ever notice that? I call it the pollution principle. Life causes waste and mess. It's true in a whole bunch of different parts of our lives. It's true with our bodies, we breathe in oxygen and we breathe out the waste product carbon dioxide. We perspire, we urinate. We, you know, produce waste products. It's true in our home…that bottom draw in the fridge, under the fridge, the washing machine, the dust on the side of the side board. The garbage bins, the toilets, if we don't get rid of the waste and clean up, it just builds up. And ruin our lives. Imagine if we never threw the rubbish out. It's true with cities and the pollution, and the smog and the congestion. It's true in our relationships, even in good relationships. There is static sometimes, there is a by-product of something that really is rubbish, in a lot of relationships. So there is this type of pollution principle that applies throughout our lives. That normal, everyday lives, even good living creates rubbish, it creates waste it creates by products that we have to get rid of. So why are we talking about rubbish. Well this week on A Different Perspective we are looking at "Spring cleaning our lives. "I know, I know it's not spring. But here we are the beginning of the year, and I just wonder if it isn't time to look at our lives, at different parts of our lives. And think about leaving the rubbish behind. So this week on a different perspective we are going to be looking at spring cleaning our home, our finances, our priorities, our relationships and on Friday our souls. This whole pollution principle, how do we get rid of the pollution, how do we get rid of the rubbish. And I think a good place to start is the home because it makes a difference to the quality of our lives. Having a nice home, is something that we all really aspire to. Whether we live in a really big expensive suburb or whether we live in a more modest place. We still like to make our surroundings as nice as we can. But the reality is that so many people live in a mess. I don't know if you remember that comedy, that sit com in the 1970's called "The odd couple". But it was about two men who were living together. Felix Unger played by Tony Randall, and Oscar Madison played by Jack Klugman. And Felix was obsessively tidy; he was so clean and so tidy. And Oscar, well he was the slob. And the whole comedy was how these two men shared an apartment. Now look, Felix lived at one extreme of cleanliness, a Oscar lived right at the other extreme of being a slob. And when I talk about spring cleaning our homes, I am not talking about being a Felix Unger. I am not talking about being obsessive. I love one of the things that Joyce Meyer, a wonderful preacher from the US once said, "Some people, well they want to take authority over the devil in their lives, but frankly they don't even have the authority over a sink full of dirty dishes." It can be true can't it. The environment we live in has an impact on the way we feel. My wife Jacqui and I, as I have said, live in this terrace house, and even after we renovated we left a cellar under the lounge room pretty much unrenovated. It is the only place we have to store all those large suite cases, you now the stuff you have to find somewhere that often people put in their garage. We don't have one of those, so we have the cellar under the house. You open the door of the kitchen and you walk into this sort of cellar. Well since the renovation, we have been using the cellar as sort of a dumping ground. But you know little bit after little bit this goes in the cellar, that goes in the cellar, this goes in the cellar. And we turned around one day and said "You can't even move down there. You just cant use the place." It was really driving us nuts. And so there we went into this basement and into this cellar and we spent a whole Saturday cleaning up. Getting rid of all the rubbish and tidying it up and storing things efficiently. You know something, afterwards we were tired and we were dirty and I had to move big boxes of heavy tiles, but it felt so good to have that mess cleaned up. Life often looks and feels like a prison like a trap, as though we are in a rut at home and work and marriage. And we look forward to another year and.. there is nothing much to look forward to. I think some of us need to get out of the rut and a big part of getting out of a rut is ditching the rubbish. There is an intriguing story in the Bible in Acts 12 about Peter when he was in prison, let me read it to you: The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Quick, get up! he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists. Then the angel said to him, Put on your clothes and sandals. And Peter did so. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me, the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street." It's a great story. But there are two parts to that story. There is the miracle and there is the mundane. The miracle is that the Angel arrived. The miracle is that the chains fell off Peter. The miracle is that the guards fell asleep and they just walked out. But did you notice what the angel said to Peter. He said, "Get up, put on your belt. Put on your sandals, put on your cloak. Follow me. There was some mundane things, some very ordinary everyday things that Peter could do for himself. And that the angel told him to do for himself. Some people want to live life completely in the mundane. And deny that God does wonderful, wonderful miracles in our lives. Other people live in the mundane and think I will not do anything in the mundane, "I am just going to believe in God for a miracle. I am going to believe I am going to wake up one day, and that cellar under the house will be clean." But the reality here, the little story about Peter in prison, is that God works through both. God works through miracles and God works through the mundane. I wonder as we look forward to the year ahead, whether if we don't just deal with the mundane, to deal with the mess around our house that is driving us insane and believe in God for a miracle or three. I wonder if it wouldn't be a different year. I am believing for you. I am believing for you to have an amazing year. That the chains that are holding you back, are going to fall off. That the things that are pulling you back, well, got is going to take them and set you free. I am going to believe that, and I am going to be praying that for you. But at the same time, I think you and I, need to start with the mundane. To clean up, to feel better and to do the things we can do to work ourselves out of a hole. To bring us to a place where we can accept miracles. What do you think? So, how is your place looking?

A lot of people spend a lot of their time imagining how good life would be, if only this…or if only that.  In fact, you can spend your whole life living that way. Until finally, you wake up and realise, you were supposed to bloom where you've been planted. This week, as we've been standing on the threshold of yet another New Year, we've been taking a look at the newness that God brings when we decide to have a real relationship with Him. We're made up of body, soul and spirit, you and I. Not in three nice little separate boxes but instead, each one's so tightly coupled with the others to make up who we are. And where religion fails time and time again to meet the needs of the whole person, a real relationship with God, the God who created us in the very first place, created us in His image to have a deep and wondrous relationship with Him, that deep relationship brings real refreshing. And this time of year, I think that's important. In fact, I think its important 365 days a year but especially as we look forward to this New Year. Do you know, there's one thing that I think that we get wrong sometimes. We imagine somehow that "refreshing" – that a new start – comes when our circumstances change. "I know, things would get better if only I could get rid of this person out of my life. If only I could change jobs or find a decent wife or husband, or get that pay increase that I really need, then things will be better." But sometimes, in fact, often times that's not the case at all. We've seen that on the programs over this week. Sometimes what God really means is for us to bloom right where we've been planted. I want to share a story with you today because this whole idea of running away from the things we don't like in our lives isn't something I'm up on my little pulpit preaching to you about. It's something that we all go through, me included, and learning this lesson of blooming right where we're planted, for me at least, it's never been an easy one to learn … probably because I grew up in the very first disposable generation – the first generation whose parents could take a pill not to have us; the first generation where packaging and cups and plates and knives and forks and spoons and all sorts of stuff became disposable. I grew up in the generation where people stopped darning their socks. Instead we just throw them out now and buy new ones. I grew up in the generation where people started, on mass, disposing of their marriages, the one relationship that's meant to last a lifetime. I grew up in the generation where, instead of holding down the same job for a lifetime, people began to move jobs every two or three years. I grew up in the generation where, in fact, not just jobs were changed but it's quite common now for people to change their careers. And I'm also a product of this society in which I've grown up, a society that's moved away from the permanent to the transient; from commitment to variety; from valuing loyalty to valuing adaptability. We value different things, we can do different things. Technologies that cost a fortune a few years ago have become commodities today. I remember my first transistor radio – all my Christmases had come at once! Wow! Today, we're taught to change our mobile phones about as often as we change our clothes. Technologies have become adaptable; when we change our moods we can have different coloured covers for our mobile phones. Even one card that's out there on the market that comes with different coloured panels so you can change them when your mood changes. Can you believe that? 'What I want, when I want it'. That's what we're taught and the more we swallow that stuff, the more it becomes a part of us. So back to the story I wanted to tell you before I started rabbiting on. Before I became a Christian I used to go through relationships like changing socks. See, here was the deal. I was at the centre of the universe; it was my way or the highway, if you didn't suit me I'd get rid of you. As a friend, as someone I worked with or if something that I was involved with didn't suit me I'd just walk away. I don't like this, don't like that, no problem, just ditch the people or the organisation or the activity or whatever it was. Then, then I became a Christian and, not some religious nut, not into religion much at all actually. I just started getting involved with Jesus, started attending a Church and what I discovered was, that God wasn't so keen for me to ditch people when they didn't suit me. In fact, more and more, He led me to hang in there with people when they were dead set pains in the neck. Of course, you understand, I'm never a pain in the neck. Fortunately I'm perfect and the world revolves around me. Yeah right! More and more, God grew me in this sense that instead of changing people like socks, instead of changing my circumstances or my situation or my job or whatever, God's plan was actually for me to bloom right where He'd planted me. Can I tell you something? That was a real revelation and it's always a difficult lesson for me to learn and you know why? Because it requires sacrifice, it requires me not just to tolerate other people begrudgingly but it requires me to love them with a good heart. Because, unless I do, I don't bloom, I wither. Have a listen to Psalm 92, beginning at verse 12: The righteous will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in the Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God. They're planted and then they flourish, the palm tree, the cedar tree. See, they don't go racing around from one place to another, they plant, they get planted, they stay in one spot. Then they flourish, where? In the house of the Lord. What is the house of the Lord? God's people, Gods family and you know what, like any family, they're not always going to get on. No doubt there are times when we do change jobs or careers or Churches or whatever. It's happened a handful of times in my life but you know most of the time, my hunch is God wants to plant us where He wants to plant us and He wants us to flourish, to bloom right where He has planted us. I love that word "flourish". It's such a rich word; it's such an abundant word. So many people spend so much time dreaming about tomorrow and what life would be like if only this or if only that. Isn't that right? But all you and I have today is today and God wants us to flourish in it. "Flourish" means to bud, to sprout, to shoot, to bloom; new growth, flowers, seeds, fruit. Do you get it? "Flourish" is a fabulous word and the way you flourish isn't by racing around here and there. The way you flourish is by putting your roots down. Now you and I are going to flourish differently, we have different gifts. You and I produce different fruits but flourish is exactly what God wants for you and for me. And that means sometimes, He's going to prune us, pruning hurts. Jesus said: I am the true vine, my Father is the vine grower and he removes every branch that bears no fruit but every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. I just felt to share this with you today. Maybe instead of running away from the things we're struggling with, maybe this year is the year that we trust God and stay just where we are and we flourish. See, running away never works, 99% of the time the real problem's in us, that's why God prunes us and that hurts but when we let Him prune us, all of a sudden we flourish. And that's so rich, so abundant, so satisfying to have love for people who mistreated us. Maybe it's time to stop dreaming, just, just get about the business of flourishing … flourishing right where God has planted us.

Have you ever been exhausted to the core? It's like there's nothing – nothing left on the inside. What we almost need is a new inside. A new life. Some mighty, new spirit within us. Is that even possible? Well, with the new year just beginning it is such an important time for each one of us to decide whether we want this year to be different from the last one; whether somehow we want to break out of the rut that we've been caught up in. But, as we've been observing over these last few days, so often it's not about breaking out of the rut but breaking out of the mould. It's not so much the track we're on, it's the shape we're in. And we've been looking at that from a different perspective. Each one of us has a body, a soul and a spirit. That's who we are and we saw, a couple of days ago that, for some people, well their body's are in such a mess with the wrong foods and not enough exercise and not enough sleep. It doesn't matter what else they do with their lives, they are going to be held back by their bodies. And yesterday we saw that our soul, that our mind, our will and emotions, sometimes we come alive with the disposition of the soul with an attitude that's just plain bad. And so it doesn't matter what else we try to do and change in our lives, we're still carrying around that baggage of bad attitude. Today I want to look at the third part of this complex puzzle that is our human make up – our spirit. Wow, there's more there. Body, soul, I get those two but, but what about the spirit? What does our spirit look like and what does our spirit have to do with their lives, lives we're living and the rut we're perhaps in? I tell you the truth, the notion that, in addition to a body and a soul, that you and I also have a spirit. That's the hardest one for me to come to grips with. I mean the cut and thrust and the busyness of life I can sure come to grips with a body. I can understand that. I can understand a soul. But a spirit? Well it kind of feels a bit esoteric or it's like an invention that some religions made up to justify its existence. Huh, doesn't it feel a bit that way sometimes? What is the human spirit? Where do I go for a definition? Well fortunately God gives us one. Very specific, it's in the Bible, it's in Proverbs, chapter 20, verse 27: The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord searching the innermost parts. Our spirit is the light of God. That word spirit is a Hebrew word, it's Ruach, it means "the Breathe of God". It's that breathe that God puts in us that's from Him. It's that identity that God puts in us that means that you and I are made in His image. The Breathe of God, the Light of God, that spark that lives and searches and dwells in our innermost being. It is the very essence of who you and I are, made in the image of God. You and I have a spirit that is breathed into us from God that shines in us with the light of God. The best way that I've ever come to understand this wonderful mystery is this: in our flesh, in fact in every cell, we have a unique identity, our DNA, the very stuff of life. And that DNA has elements about our fathers DNA and our mothers DNA. It is, in every respect, our unique physical identity. It makes us who we are. It impacts how we think and react and what we're good at and how we look at all those things. That's our physical DNA identity. And in the spiritual realm we have a spiritual identity. That's our spirit breathed into us by God Himself, "Formed by God" it says in Zechariah, chapter 12, verse 1. And the problem with most people on the planet is that they either deny their spirituality altogether or they hand it over to someone else or something else. Spirituality's a big thing. So many people and religions and belief systems and advertising companies talk about the human spirit but when we hand our spirit lives over to someone other than the Living God, we've sold ourselves to the devil. Unless and until my spirit and yours are united with the Spirit of God then we're no more than walking dead. Oh sure we live and breath and we do things, some good things, even some brilliant things but it's our body and our soul that's dominating everything and our spirit lies dormant and corrupted, almost dead within us. Yet each one of us is made in the image of God and yes, each one of us has a spirit but God knows that until our spirit encounters His, it lies dead within. It needs to be made new; it needs to be brought to life. A life that's eternal that begins here and now. Listen to how Ezekiel, the prophet, speaks to words of God about this very thing. Ezekiel, chapter 11, verse 19: I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them. Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31: Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26: A new heart I will give you and a new spirit I will put within you. Three times He says the very same thing and Jesus picks up on this in His beautiful teaching to His disciples just before He's crucified. He says: If you love me, you'll keep my commandments and I will ask my Father and He will give you another advocate, another comforter like me, to be with you forever. This is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. I will not leave you orphaned. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me and those who love me will be loved by my Father and I will love them and reveal myself to them. Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them and we will come to make our home with them. Isn't that fabulous? Whoever doesn't love me doesn't keep my words and the word that you hear is not mine but it's from my Father. I have said these things to you while I am still with you but the advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and will remind you of all that I have said. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I don't give to you as the world gives, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. See, see the plan. A few weeks ago we celebrated Christmas. It was a time when we looked at a new birth. Jesus, the Son of God coming into this world, a new life and Jesus Himself said: Unless you are born again, you can't see the Kingdom of Heaven. And what this promise of the Holy Spirit is about is God's Spirit coming to dwell inside each person who believes in Jesus and what the Holy Spirit does for us is what Jesus did for us on the cross. Jesus died for us on the cross and rose again to give us new life and the Spirit of God brings that death and resurrection to life in us. And see, here's the thing that most people miss, they believe in God but they don't let the Spirit of God join with theirs and renew their spirits and bring them new life. That's why Jesus talked about the fact that we had to be born again. Not a label, it's a spiritual reality, a rebirth, a new life and there are so many people walking through life who feel dead on the inside, as though there's no life. There's a reason for that. They haven't allowed the Spirit of God to renew their spirits. They've never met Jesus, the Son of God, on a spiritual level. I can talk with you about this until I am blue in the face but that's nothing compared to actually receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit; meeting the Spirit of God in our actual experience and reality. So if that's something that you want to do then in a moment, I am going to give you the opportunity to do just that, to pray a prayer with me. Lord Jesus, I really am not sure whether I've ever given my life to you but I want to do that today, lock, stock and barrel. Everything I have, everything I am. Every hope, every dream I give to you. Forgive me for all that I've done wrong, I want to turn away from that stuff now and begin my new life, born again from above, in Your forgiveness, in Your grace and filled to overflowing with your Holy Spirit. Lord God, I want to know that I know, that I know, that I know that I'm Yours. I want Your spirit to witness to mine that I am a child of the living God. So I ask you for a new life. I ask you to fill me once and for all with Your Spirit so that I can walk in Your Spirit and live in Your Spirit so that I can have the power to lay down my life for Your sake so that I will be a fruit for Your glory. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

It's funny how we embark on each new year with great expectations of new things – and yet, we never take a look at ourselves. Our attitudes. How we function on the inside. That never changes. So why would anything else change? Have you ever heard this? Dit dit dit, da da da, dit dit dit, you may recognise it, it's Morse code. Dit dit dit is an "s", da da da is an "o" and dit dit dit in an "s" again. SOS - Save Our Souls, Save Our Souls. It's the emergency distress signal when a plane or a ship or a submarine is going down. Save our souls, SOS. "Soul" is a word that's bantered around a lot these days. "This place doesn't have any soul", 'soul music' and in Christian circles, "soul" is a very common word but what exactly is our soul? I mean, what do you and I mean when we use the term 'soul'? It's one of those terms that we use a lot and yet we rarely stop to understand exactly what it is. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 23, talks about us having a soul: May the God of peace Himself, sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and your soul and your body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ. So, as you and I stand on the threshold of a new year, what's our soul? Is it worth saving? And what does it have to do with our lives and the quality of our lives? Over this week, we're looking at the rut that many of us get into. We have a tendency, this time of year, to think about life and we look at the rut and what we want to do is, we want to change our circumstances, we want to, kind of, run away from some things and ditch some things and improve some things and then our lives will be fine. Problem is that, for many of us, it's not the rut that we're in but the shape that we're in that's the problem. For many of us we're bent out of shape. We've been squeezed into the worlds mould and it doesn't fit so well and so life is uncomfortable and messy. I can run away wherever I like but until I get out of that mould, my life's not going to be transformed, I'm not going to have a new life, nothing's going to change. Yesterday we looked at our bodies. Today we're going to take a look at our souls. So what is our soul? What does God say it is? Well, the Greek word used in the New Testament for soul is actually a word that you and I are quite familiar with. It's the word "psyche". It's who we are and where we experience life. It is indeed the place of life, life itself. The best description I've ever heard is that our soul is our mind, our will and our emotions. It's where we think, where we decide and where we feel. That's our soul. It's that incredible place where we are human beings and it is in our souls that most of our problems in life occur. Yesterday I was talking about the body and the body's really important. The body's the place where the soul lives, it's the physical dimension and you can't separate the two. If my body isn't working properly, it's going to have an impact on my soul. Trauma in the body spills over into the soul. Hormones are the great link between body and soul, you can't separate the two. And if the body isn't being looked after properly then it is going to have a huge impact on our soul - our mind, our will and our emotions – one of the reasons that we really need to look after our body. But today, I want to talk specifically about our souls and the way that we tie ourselves up in a knots, the way we ruin our own lives because when we misuse and abuse our soul, that ends up ruining our lives. Let me explain it this way. If you and I don't look after our posture, the way we sit and stand, if we don't sit straight or walk properly then ultimately, we going to end up being permanently hunched over. If I slouch in front of my computer all day, I'll end up with a sore back and with headache and weakened muscles and it won't be long, another 10 or 15 years, and I'm just going to be living all my life all hunched over. In the same way, it's the same thing with the soul. If I'm constantly angry, unforgiving, proud, lazy, whatever it is, if I keep using my soul the wrong way, my mind, my will, my emotions, that soul is going to end up, well, hunched over, disabled in a sense. The best word I've ever come across to understand that disposition of our souls is our attitude to life. Some people have a great attitude, positive, optimistic, kind, forgiving and others are more like Uncle Scrooge – always angry, nasty, dishonest, always wanting their own way. See how a soul that's caught in that rut is going to ruin our lives? Some people are approaching their lives with a bad attitude; a soul that's hunched over, almost like it's cramped. A mind that's focused on self, a will that's brutal and won't yield and emotions that are all messed up. If I asked you to name three people in your life right now, who have a bad attitude, I bet you could do that in a split second, you just know who they are. And you know something, when we're asked to do that, to name the people we know that have a bad attitude, a stunted soul, we almost never name ourselves in that list. Because we never, for one moment, imagine that it could be us with a bad attitude. But if we're truly honest, brutally honest with ourselves, come on, we would admit that we all have some bad attitudes and those bad attitudes, those wrong and stunted, hunched over dispositions of our souls are ruining our lives. We're all bent out of shape. Some people today, you're caught in a rut and you're thinking, "how do I get out of this rut?" And actually it's the wrong question. We need to look in the mirror and say, "I'm bent out of shape. I need to get that thing sorted out and then I'll be able to see clearly. Then I'll be able to see if I'm on the right track of life." That's why the apostle Paul wrote: Do not be conformed to this world (Don't let it squeeze you into it's mould) but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may know what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for your life. See, if we're stuck in the world's mould, in selfish thoughts and critical and angry emotions, all that stuff, that stuff is ruining our lives. Come on, do you need this wake up call today? We're so good at deluding ourselves, thinking it's everyone else's problem. We completely miss the fact that it's our problem. And that's why Paul said, "We need to start thinking differently, we need to have our minds renewed, our thoughts, the way we exercise our will, the way we feel things and start looking at it from Gods perspective through Gods will." He wants us to love, we want to be selfish. In the short term that works, in the long term it ruins our lives. And love's hard you know, it's a painful thing at times but you look back on that sort of love and it's the best thing there is. Well, we can go into this New Year carrying this baggage of a bad attitude and you know what, the New Year's going to be the same as the last, it just is. It is time to unload that baggage and there's only one place I know to do that. To go to Jesus, to ask for His forgiveness and to tell Him, "I need you to change me" and then, to step into a life that lets Him make those changes. So, so often I've heard preaching about Jesus and the cross and forgiveness as though, somehow it's not connected to life, here and now, but it is. See, God wants to transform our lives. Jesus came to set us free from this delusion in our souls that we are at the centre of the universe. From the bad attitudes that have us living a hunched over, stunted life. Jesus said this: If I set you free then you are free indeed. This is what He wants us to be free from. Well!