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.
Well, here we are standing at the threshold, the beginning of another year. Who knows how many of these you and I have left. But while we do have a new year ahead, I want to share some good news with you. Some great news. Some really … fantastic news. Are you ready? So, what are your plans for this year? Maybe you're planning on changing jobs or studying or maybe you're planning a great holiday or planning on buying a new home or renovating or a new car. What's the plan? Companies spend a small fortune on creating their strategic plans. But a down turn in the economy, an accident, sickness, those things can bring those plans unstuck in an instant. So what is the plan? I mean if God has a plan for my life, for your life, what would it look like? I don't know if you're a parent but what does a parent's plan look like for their children? Well, we want them to be healthy, we want them to be happy, we want them to discover their talents and to use them and to be fulfilled. But also we want them to experience and taste life. You know as parents we do want them to be allowed to make mistakes, to learn for themselves, to grow for themselves and to have a great life. The last few days on A Different Perspective, we've been looking at the things that can hold us back from living a great life. You know – the habits, the behaviours, the bad ways of thinking, the anger, the dissent, all those things that yield lousy fruit in our lives. It's almost like sometimes we're enslaved to them. We've broken so many New Year's resolutions over the years, we just can't get free from them. Now, if that was your kid would you want them to be enslaved to some bad habit? Would you want them to be on a treadmill all their lives trying to get power or money or success? Or would you want them actually really to enjoy their lives? Come on! Really, what would we want for our kids? Pretty obvious, isn't it? We want them to have a full, wonderful, satisfying life that they would look back on at the end and say, "Mum and dad gave me a great start and I have enjoyed my life." There was a time in Israel's history where in their relationship with their God, God their Father, well, they rebelled. God had brought them into their Promised Land. God had given them everything, abundance of the land and they decided that they were just going to live their lives their way and do all the things that God said don't do. They worshipped idols, there was injustice in the land, they did some bad things. And as a direct result of that, God allowed the Babylonians to come and invade Israel – to destroy Jerusalem, the Temple, to kill a whole bunch of people and then take the rest into slavery in Babylon. And that slavery lasted for seventy years in the history of Israel. It began in 587 BC and for the next seventy years they were enslaved in Babylon. And while they were there, this is what He said to His children, Israel, through the Prophet Jeremiah. He said this: When the seventy years is over I'll be there and I'll bring you back because I know what plans I have for you' said God 'plans for your welfare, not for your harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you'll call on me and I'll hear you, you'll pray to me and I'll answer you. When you search for me with all your heart you will find me. (Jeremiah 29: 10-13) Beautiful, isn't it? Here are these people who are in slavery because of the things that they have done wrong in rebelling from God. And as we were talking yesterday about this whole slavery thing, I was watching someone in a workplace recently and they have a habit of being really, really critical of other people. Other people can never match up to their standards. They're always wandering around behind everybody's back criticising person A to person B and person B to person A. And I think, you know, this person is like a slave to this spirit of criticism that they've got going on inside. Because all of that criticism is it healthy, does it bring joy, does it bring collaboration, and does it bring teamwork? No. What it does is that it brings hurt and dissention and pain and anger and people throw rocks at each other, you know what I mean. And I thought, "This person is a slave to that spirit of criticism going on in their lives." So the things that we do wrong end up putting us in slavery just the way that when Israel rebelled against God, they ended up in slavery. You might think it's stating too strong a point. Look at the number of marriages that fall apart because people are enslaved to having affairs, drinking too much, going out, working too hard, not having relationships between husband and wife, the worlds full of it, isn't it? And here we have this beautiful statement from God, "When the time's over, I'll be there and bring you back because I know what the plans are that I have for you – plans for your welfare not for harm to give you a future with hope. You'll call on me and I'll hear you. You'll pray to me and I'll answer you. When you search for me with all your heart, you'll find me." I get three things out of that, I read that and I think, "God our Father He's just like we are as parents in a sense." The first part is, that He allows His children, in this case Israel, to wear the consequences of their mistakes. I thing that's one of the hardest things to do as a parent, to give our kids space to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. There are consequences – if you're lazy, you won't get on at work. I mean if you get to work late all the time and leave early all the time, that's going to have consequences. And we as parents want our children to learn from the consequences of their mistakes. There's an old Yiddish proverb that says: Every generation has to learn; the stove is hot. It's good, isn't it? It's true, sometimes you can tell your kids, you can tell your kids, take out the garbage bin, take out the garbage bin, TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE BIN and they never do. It's not until they get their own house and they figure out there are consequences to not taking the garbage out on Thursday night. So the first thing I get from this, Dad, God – He wants His children, His kids to learn from the consequences of their mistakes. The second thing though is, while we're doing that, while we are in our Babylon living out those consequences He comes along and says, 'Hang on, I have some good plans for you, plans for your welfare and not for your harm'. Isn't that wonderful? Right in that space where we're living through those consequences God comes along and says, "I have a plan for you, a future with hope." Do you want one of those? I sure do, a future with hope. And then the third thing is that that future involves having a relationship with Him. "Then you'll call on me and I'll hear you. You'll pray, I'll answer you when you search for me with all your heart." It turns out He wants exactly the same for us as any parent wants for their children. "Sure, go and learn from your mistakes but in the middle of all that I'm there for you. I am here and I have wonderful plans for your life and those plans involve a relationship between you and me." And on top of that God has something that sometimes we don't have – the power, the love, the grace, the patience to see it through with us, to make it happen in my life, in your life. Now for a long time I was living my plan for my life – it involved a lot of money, it involved reputation, it involved career, it involved big cars. But there came a point when it was time for me to get onto God's plan. To get out of my comfort zone, to use the gifts and talents that He's given me for His glory, as it turns out, in your life and that's where the blessing is. The blessing is when we're living out God's plan. Right now, probably you and I are looking forward to the next year – planning, thinking, turning it over in our minds. Can I encourage you as a part of that process to say, "God what is your plan in my life because I know that's where the blessing is?" "God, what's your plan?"
You know, over this Christmas-New Year period, I've been praying for you and everybody else who listens to this program – that the coming year will be a year where you're set free from the things that have enslaved you, because freedom, as it turns out, is just about the biggest gift that God can give us. This is just such a wonderful time of the year. The sense of a new start, a new beginning and yet, as we've been reflecting this week on "A Different Perspective", it's so easy for the hurts and regrets of the past to haunt us, to hold us back in the New Year. And we can literally be enslaved by behaviours, habits and things that we think and do but if we truly thought about it, we'd admit to ourselves, "Well, they're wrong." But somehow they can hold us captive and rob us of a life worth living. I wonder if I asked you to look at your life, what are those things? What are the chains that hold you back? What are the things that enslave you? Slavery, being enslaved is not something we think much about these days. I mean really, isn't it a thing of the past? Sure Negro's were taken to the United States and to the United Kingdom and that's all over and done with. That's the past. We don't have slavery anymore. Well, actually that's not true. The estimates are … there are about 27 million people living in slavery in the world today – 27 million people. That's more than at any other time in history. Add to those official slaves, if I can call them that, people living and working in the export processing zones of Indonesia, of Malaysia, right across South East Asia. Millions of people being paid a few cents an hour in almost slave like conditions to make the clothes and the runners and the shoes and the toys that we in the West take for granted. And what about the people that are enslaved by poverty? The number is probably in the hundreds of millions. When you look at it like that it's a startling, painful, horrible reality. Slavery is flourishing if I can put it in those terms but I would like to suggest to you that it's much, much bigger than even that. Over this last week on "A Different Perspective", we've been talking about the things that hold us back – the regrets, the thoughts, the behaviours, the habits, the negative things, the things that if we were really honest with ourselves we'd say, "I know they're wrong." Those things bear bad fruit in our lives and you know something? They're just like the chains that the Negro's had around their ankles when they were being shipped from Africa to America. Jesus made that point. He talked about it in terms of sin. I'll talk about what sin means in a minute but listen to what He said for a bit. He wants us to have an abundant life and He said, "Look, if you are involved in sin it's like you're a slave to sin," and He said, "I've come to give you an abundant, rich and full life." He never denied that we'd have tough times but the whole subject of sin was something He talked a lot about. And the word sin means something very specific. We load it with a whole bunch of cultural and theological baggage I think sometimes. But the word "sin" means literally "to miss the point", to miss the point of life, to miss out on the share of what's on offer. When you look at it in that sense you think, "Well, it does make sense, I know that when I get angry with people, I'm ruining my life and I'm ruining theirs. I know when I talk behind people's backs, I know when I stab them in the back when they're not there, I know that's not good. I might want to do it, I've been used to doing it but I know that actually what it does is that it robs me of a life worth living." Jesus said this: I tell you the truth, anyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family but a son or a daughter belongs to it forever. (John 8:34-35) I have met people who live in the biggest houses in the most affluent suburbs and have the flashiest cars sitting in their driveway. And those people are no less slaves than someone who is living in chains. They're slaves to bad behaviour. They're slaves to their consumerism. They're slaves to building a bigger house and spending more money and trying to get their hits that way. They're slaves to power, slaves to money, slaves to position, slaves to status in society. And our behaviour ends up causing hurt and pain and suffering to us and to other people. We end up missing the point of life. We end up missing out on what really is on offer from God. That's why it's called sin. But here's the crazy thing for me, each one of those 27 million official slaves and the hundreds and millions like them right around the world, there's one thing that they want more than anything else in life – they want freedom. I was reading the autobiography of a man called Josiah Henson recently. Josiah Henson lived in the late 1700's, early 1800's and he was the man about whom that great book, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written. He was a real life slave in the southern states of America. And he wrote this, he said: From my earliest recollection freedom had been the object of all my ambition, a constant motive, exertion and ever-present stimulus to gain and to save. He wanted nothing more than to be set free. It's actually a wonderful book and a wonderful story. And you know those old Negro spirituals, remember Swing Low Sweet Chariot? Swing low was a code word amongst the slaves for 'come down south'. The sweet chariot was the underground railroad, the network of illicit safe houses where slaves were smuggled from one house to the next, further north and further north until they went over the border. And it says, "Coming for to carry me home", that meant "get me to freedom in Canada". And the next verse says, "I look over the Jordan and what did I see?" The Jordan was a code word for the Ohio, the Niagara and the Detroit rivers. They were the lines. Once the slaves crossed those lines they were free. These slaves wrote songs about freedom, they sang about freedom so beautifully and so wonderfully because in their hearts they wanted to be free. Yet, there are so many wealthy slaves content to rot in their slavery to sin. No less destructive, no less something that robs them of the freedom and the lives God gave them to live. Content to miss the whole point of life. Content to miss out on their share of the abundance and the grace and the love and the joy and the freedom and the peace that Jesus came to give us. It's crazy, don't you think? Our Sweet Chariot is Jesus, our underground railroad from slavery to freedom is Jesus. God became man, a lowly carpenter who trod the dusty roads, who healed, who loved, who gave. Jesus Himself said, "God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, to the slaves, to let the oppressed go free". We have a choice, we can keep living out a cycle of failed New Year's resolutions – I'm going to change, I'm going to change, I'm going to change. You know something? We never will on our own. Or we can say, "Hang on a minute, there is a point to life and the whole point of life is to enjoy the richness of what's on offer through a relationship with Jesus". And we, like Josiah Henson, can decide to have an abiding, desperate hunger for freedom, as real as any slave and invite Jesus into that space and see what happens. Sin, it's a word with a lot of cultural baggage. But when we say, "Hang on, sin is missing the whole point of life. Sin is missing out of the blessings on offer from God," it takes on a whole new meaning. If we have a behaviour that revolves around sin, we're no more and no less a slave. The choice is ours really.
One of the things that this bit of a pause between Christmas and New Year affords us, is some time to draw breath and decide what we're going to do differently next year. So … as you stand on the threshold of a new year … what are you going to do differently next year? Here we are in this funny week in between Christmas and the New Year and I thought (together) we might look back on the year that's been and forward at the year ahead. It's a bit of a turning point, I guess, between what's been and what's going to be. Over the last couple of days, we've looked at the year in review – what's been. In particular, yesterday, we had a chat about dealing with the pain of regret. Today, I'd like to take one step further. We're going to look at turning things around. Just looking at your life, here and now – where you're at? What in your life would you like to see turned around? Probably since calendar's were first invented, people have been making New Years' resolutions. You know the ones: "I'm going to lose some weight this year, I'm going to give up cigarettes and smoking, I'm going to achieve this, I'm going to work harder at that, I'm going to go to the gym every day." You know because you've been there. I've been there. We've done that, we've got the t-shirt. It's a natural thing to do in this funny little week between Christmas and New Year. A lot of people, whether they're in the Northern Hemisphere in a cold winter or in the Southern Hemisphere here in a warm summer, a lot of people have this week off. And we like to look back at the things that have been and think, "Well, you know, it wasn't a bad year or it's a lousy year or I would have done this differently". And we also look forward – we dream, we hope, we plan. There's something, I don't know, wonderful about contemplating the next year in the New Year. But it's also true that by and large, the resolutions that we make in this quiet Christmas/New Year period, well, they normally don't last. By the end of January, most New Years' resolutions have been broken at least a dozen times. And what we do after we break them because it's such an incredible sense of failure, "I didn't even get to the end of the first month of the year", you know that feeling – we bury them. We don't want to actually even remember that we made them because it's such an embarrassment that we failed so early. Are you with me or am I the only one going out on a limb here? But as we look back on this last year, there are some good things that happened to us and I guess there are some not so good, some bad things that happened. And you look at the bad things, some of those things are completely out of our control but some of the bad things that happen to us are within my control. They're because we do silly things and New Years' resolutions are generally about changing those things. If someone's overweight, the reason (normally) that they're overweight is because they eat too much and they don't exercise enough. And so a New Year's resolution is taking those things that are in our control that are causing us grief or pain or just things we want to change and making a resolution of short-term pain for future gain. Losing weight is about sacrificing in the short-term, not eating the chocolates and the biscuits and the cakes and all of those sorts of things, right? So that we can fit into our clothes again and we can feel better and we're healthier and we have more energy. The formula of the New Year's resolution is the same every time – short-term pain for future gain. It's about achieving something. And you know when there are things that are in our control that are bearing bad fruit in our lives like over eating, like drinking too much, like smoking, like being super critical, like gossiping, like … the list, you know the list. We all know the list. We all have some of these things in our lives. On the one hand, we can look at them and be really depressed and think, "I can't change that." On the other hand, we can look at them and say, "There is an incredible opportunity that awaits me here, to change my life for the better." Thomas Edison I think, the man who invented the light bulb, said this, he said: Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and it looks like hard work. You love that? I love that saying. Opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and it just looks like hard work. When we want to turn something around in our lives, it requires effort and commitment as well as the decision. It's something that we need to stick with. And that's the reason that we fail. That's the reason it can be tough. "I'm going to lose weight" and the first time we get hungry in the afternoon, we go and reach for the chocolate bar or we're going to reach for a piece of cake in the fridge. I'd like to talk about this whole "turning things around" with a twist. You know something in our lives is heading on the down and here we are at rock bottom. Maybe it's a relationship, maybe it's our behaviour, maybe it's work, maybe anything and turning around is about heading it back up again. It's about moving upwards. Maybe someone's spiritual satisfaction has low ebb. Maybe you believe in Jesus but you think, "Well, you know there's nothing really happening in my spiritual life." The twist in this whole turn around thing is involving God. Strange as it may seem, God is in the turn around business and He actually uses some words. Jesus used some words about turning things around in our lives. When we've got stuff happening in our lives that we know is dumb, we know it's stupid, we know we're making mistakes, that's called, in Jesus' words, sin. And it heads us on a downward slide. And what happens when we have sin in our lives – dumb things that we're doing wrong – is that they bear bad fruit. Good trees bear good fruit, bad trees bear bad fruit. I was listening to a man on television just last night. He was sitting there with his wife and they were talking about when he went off and had an affair with another woman. You know what he said? "I knew it was wrong, I did it anyway". You don't need me to tell you what's wrong in your life. I don't need you to tell me what's wrong in my life. We actually kind of know. We don't need somebody to beat us over the head. What we need is someone to help us out of the mire and up the slope again. What's the one thing in your life that you would like to turn around? The thing that's within your control? This isn't theological babble. This isn't some irrelevant, you know – sin, repent, victory thing. Okay, some of those terms are used by Christians and they're in the Bible. But if you bring them into the here and now, this is about real life blessing and transformation. This is about making life better. And here's the key to turning something around in my life, the key to seeing a turn around in our lives … is turning our lives around. One more time, the key to seeing a turn around in our lives is turning our lives around. Yesterday, we looked at something the Apostle Paul wrote a couple of thousand years ago and he said that grief and pain that leads us towards God is a good thing because it results in blessings and we don't have any regrets. But if we let that same grief and pain take us away from God, we end up on the deathbed of regret. Whether you're someone who has never ever had a relationship with Jesus or whether you have been walking with Him for years and years and years, it doesn't matter where we are on that scale, this is a profound thing because our human condition is to turn our face away from God. And it's not until we turn our face around and we look Jesus in the eye that we experience "turn around". Now, the theological term for that is repentance. It just means turning around. It means turning away from some of the stupid things that we do and turning and facing Jesus and saying, 'Listen God, I need your help'. Paul actually wrote in his letter to the Romans 2:4: God's kindness is meant to lead us to that turn around. That's what comes first – God's goodness, God's kindness. It is astounding how people allow things to go on and on and on in their lives. I know that in my life when I made that big turn around. When I turned around from facing away to facing at God – all the other things followed, all the other, little turn arounds in all the other areas of my life. Wherever we are on that spiritual journey, He calls us to turn around and face Him and let Him own the little turn arounds in our lives. The key to seeing the turn around in our lives – is turning our lives around.
As you look back on this last year, I wonder … what would you have done differently? It's worth thinking about, because whilst you can't wind the clock back and do them over, a bit of reflection can help you think about how you're going to handle things in the new year ahead. Well, here we are in this week between Christmas and New Year. It's a funny kind of week, really, looking back on the year that's just been and with the other part of us looking forward at the year that might be. But sometimes the thing that stops us from really getting on and living this next year to the full – is the regret of the year that's just been or maybe the year before or maybe the year before that. We all do things that later we regret. I wonder if I were to ask you to look back over this last year and pick just three things that you regret. What would they be? I truly believe that sometimes we need to look back before we can look forward. Now, I'm not one for living in the past and wallowing in regret. But regret is a funny thing. Regret is about lost opportunities. If only I hadn't done, if only I'd done this and a related word is reproach. It's a sense of blame or guilt that hangs over us from the past because of the mistakes we made, the things we should have done but didn't, the things we could have done but didn't and the things we did but we shouldn't have done. And those three things they bear bad fruit in our lives. They cause pain. It's interesting. There's a prayer in the Old Testament of the Bible, 1 Chronicles chapter 4. It's called The Prayer of Jabez and one of the things that Jabez prays is: Lord keep me from evil that I would not cause any pain. (1 Chronicles 4:10) When you and I do dumb things which we do from time to time, it causes pain, either to us or the people around us or in fact, to both. And as we sit here looking forward to a new year, let's just cast our eyes back on the year that's been and think, what are the things that bring that sense of reproach, that sense of regret on our lives? And truly unless we deal with the regret, the reproach of the past, we just can't move on and enjoy – I mean really enjoy the future. Actually this is quite a common problem. All sorts of people spend their lives carrying around all sorts of baggage that is best left in the past. Yesterday, on A Different Perspective, we talked about taking stock of the year that's just been. On the one side of the page, listing all the positives, all the wonderful things that have happened in life. I don't know about you but I look back on my life and I think, "Gee! This last year has been a wonderful year". It's been a tough year, it's been a hard year too but there are so many things I can look back on and think, "God's blessed me here and this has been wonderful and that's been wonderful." And then on the other side of the page, listing the negatives, the downers, the bad things that have happened either outside of our control that has impacted on us like the London bombing. I mean imagine sitting on the bus at Taverstock Square and all of a sudden the bomb goes off. Nothing that anybody other than the bomber himself could have done about that. Sometimes bad things happen to us that are completely beyond our control. Other times, bad things happen to us because buggerlugs me or buggerlugs you, do some stupid things. And there are a whole bunch of different areas in our lives where we could be harbouring regret. Maybe you've worked too hard this year and haven't spent enough time with your family. Maybe there's been a relationship breakdown, just not enough time invested in that relationship. What opportunities did we miss last year? It's a funny thing how this regret just hangs over us. And you know what we then try and do? We try to deny the root cause. We all do that. We don't want to acknowledge that maybe we had a part to play in this thing. We don't want to own up, we don't want to be frank and open and say, "Hang on, if I had done this better, if I hadn't been so selfish, if I hadn't been so critical, you know maybe it wouldn't have been that bad, maybe it wouldn't have happened at all." And then we rationalise it away and we blame other people. We blame circumstances. One of the things I always have to do is watch my weight. I have to watch what I eat, just my genetics, who I am, who my father was, who my grandfather was, I have to watch what I eat. And often, when I'm travelling as I do for the work and ministry that I do, it's easy to say, "Well, you know I'm travelling and I can't really control what I get served on the plane. And I have to eat where I have to eat". It's really easy to blame everybody else. Actually, it is possible to watch what I eat when I am travelling. And I had to come to a point in my life when I said, "I'm going to stop blaming everybody else and I'm going to take responsibility for this". Sometimes we have to do some radical surgery, we have to say, "I'm sorry, we have to clear the air. We have to decide that what we are doing is wrong." I can hear what you're thinking, "Berni, I wish you wouldn't go there. Just leave this alone. It's the week between Christmas and New Year. I'm having a break. Stop poking around inside me." Let me say this lovingly and plainly and very clearly, if you are suffering from regret, I believe that God wants to set you free from that today. And the first step is acknowledging it and naming it and calling it what it is. If it's your selfishness or my selfishness, we have to own up to that. If it's our short sightedness, if it's our laziness, if it's our imbalance we have to own up and say, "There is a root inside me. There is a root that is bearing bad fruit." And the only thing to do with a root that is bearing bad fruit is to pull it out and throw it away. If we're still doing the stuff that caused the pain, in the first place, we need to decide to stop. Paul the Apostle, a couple of thousand years ago, wrote this. If you want to find where it is. It's in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 7:10. He said: Pain and distress that drives us to God, it turns us around, it gets us back in the way of salvation, it never leads to regret. But those who let distress drive them away from God end up on the deathbed of regret. I love that! It is so realistic. It is so here and now, for you and for me even though it was written a couple of thousand years ago. Pauls saying, "Look, we're all going to have pain and distress, that's the reality". It happens (he did). You have it. I have it. Everybody else around us has pain and distress from time to time in their lives. And he's saying that if we let that pain and distress drive us towards God, well that will turn us around. It gets us back on the way of salvation that is on the way of having a relationship with Jesus. But this is the bit that I really like: it never leads to regret. Why is that? Because if you and I choose to take the high road – if you and I choose to let our pain and distress and our weaknesses and our failures and the consequences thereof, turn us around and head us towards God, there's something that God can give us that no one else can. That is called unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness. And that is the one thing on planet earth that will take the pain of my regret and the pain of your regret away. Then we could choose the low road. We can choose to let the pain and the regret drive us away from God. And this is what he says, I'll read it again: Those who let distress drive them away from God, end up on the deathbed of regret. If there's some part of your life you want to turn around – a difficult marriage, a troubled child, some problems at work – we need to decide to turn it around. And then we need to let it drive us towards God, to involve Him, to pray. Why? Because He can heal, He can touch, He can love. He can fill us with the peace that heals the wound of regret. And hand in hand with God, who by the way delights in this stuff, this is what God wants to do for you and me – to heal the pains of the past. We can see our lives change. Or we can go on with this dull ache of regret right to our deathbeds. So this next year, what will you do differently?
Well, here we are in that funny little week between Christmas and New Year. It's kind of a time for looking back and a time for looking forward. So – looking back on it, how did this year go? It's great that you can join me again today, right here, on "A Different Perspective". I always think that this week between Christmas and New Year, it's an interesting week. The big rush leading up to Christmas, well, that's over. Christmas Day is gone and New Year's Eve is almost upon us. The days are ticking down and another year's over with yet a new one just about to begin. For many of us this week is a week of rest – a time to reflect on the year that's just been. Where did the time go? Here we are at the end of another year, already. If I were to ask you, "What sort of a year did you have?" How would you answer? I mean looking back, really, what sort of year did you have? If you had to sum up your year and compare it to all of the other years you've lived, where would it land on the scale of things? My year, well, it started off for me in India. It was in a dusty, poor village, visiting a school there for the Dalit children, the untouchables. Kids who would never had received an education except for the Christian ministry that gave it to them. Beautiful, wonderful kids and I had a great privilege to baptise fifteen new believers in Jesus right there in the middle of India. The thing that really sticks with me from that trip right at the beginning of this year was standing in the middle of one of the poorest parts of this village. It was dusty. There were little huts. The floors were of dirt. The bathroom was this black little plastic thing wrapped around a few sticks with bucket right in the middle of the village. And when I said, "Where's the toilet?" Well, the answer was, "This". At a certain time of the day, the men would go out and use the fields as a toilet. And at certain times of day, the women would go out and use the fields for toilets. There was an old man there with a crutch and he had sores on his leg. The people were so poor – no water, no health, an incredibly low life expectancy. And I stood there in the middle of this little village trembling, shaking. It was all I could do not to cry at the condition these people lived in. That set the scene for me for the New Year, the context. On a global scale, this year has been a year where millions of children have died of starvation. It's been a year of terrorism, of wars, of bombings – people dying needlessly because of their hatred of others and not just hatred but neglect. While those of us who live in the affluent west, by and large, have plenty, countless others are going without. I wonder how people would feel who lost a loved one this year in a war through terrorism? My heart goes out to them. What I'm talking about here is the whole issue of balance and perspective, millions of children. Imagine being a parent of at least one of the kids that died or the brother or the sister or the aunty or the uncle of just one. Now, multiply that misery by millions – it's just inconceivable; the amount of pain and suffering and hurt and loss. Now, it's one thing to talk about that global scale, that macro, the big geopolitical forces that are out of our control. But the global scale is the sum of seven and a half billion or so individual stories, isn't it? People just like you and me, people who've had a good year or a bad year or maybe an appalling year. So how was your year? On a scale of one to ten, how will you rate this last year for you? The question is: what scale or measure should you use? The first one that we could always use is the scale of pain. If you've suffered the loss of a loved one, if you've suffered some terrible injustice, if you've seen someone die in your life, if you've been retrenched or if your marriage has fallen apart or if your kids have ended up on drugs, if something like that has happened in your life this past year, it doesn't matter how well everything else in your life went, chances are, you'd rate this year as pretty terrible. It's a funny thing. A job could be going well, we can have enough food to eat, we can be healthy but we lose a loved one or a relationship breaks down, just one bad event and grief overwhelms us. I mean, who knew something like some of these bombings in Iraq would be going on? If you knew someone who was killed in a car accident, that sort of really bad event that makes for a terrible, terrible year, doesn't it? But what about if we don't have that really bad event? What if we didn't have one of those, praise God, this year. What measure would you use then to assess how your life has gone this year? It's a funny thing. It's a general level of satisfaction, maybe. We kind of look at our relationships and our family and our work and our finances, some really exciting things may have happened. Maybe we renovated the house or you bought a new car. Then there's the spiritual dimension. We somehow lump all those things together and then we say, "Well, on a scale of zero to ten, I had a six or I had an eight or I had a two." Now, you might be thinking, "Berni, why are you looking back?" Well, my hunch is that mostly, we live life day-by-day and we don't really think about it. It just ticks by. The minutes, the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, then the years and then it's the end of the year. And all that time when we've been doing what we did just to get by. We shouldered our responsibilities. We went to work, we brought money in, we put food on the table, we kept the house running and then we reacted to situations. Good situations, we reacted with joy. Bad situations, we reacted badly (sometimes) and we lump all of that into a bit of a holiday and entertainment and escape and rest and that's it. That's life, isn't it? This is kind of how it all plugs together. But hang on, where is it all going? What does it all mean really? Is life just slipping away like each little grain of the sand in the hourglass or is our life meant to make a difference? This week on "A Different Perspective", I think we need to look back before we can look forward – to take stock, to take inventory. If you've got a piece of paper and if you drew a line down the centre and if on the left hand side, you had a column for all the pluses, all the positives, all the wonderful things. And on the right hand side, you wrote all the negatives, the red side of the ledger, all the bad things that happened. I wonder what that would look like. I wonder whether that wouldn't be a useful exercise for you to do. Tomorrow on the program, we're going to be looking at the things that maybe we would have done differently. So I encourage you to get that bit of paper, to list down the good, the bad and the ugly. And let's have a chat again tomorrow about some of the things that we could have done differently. The Apostle Paul, a few thousand years ago, in one of the letters that he wrote that's recorded in the New Testament called 1 Corinthians. He says this, chapter 7, verse 29. Our time is short. His point is that we really need to make it count. We need to use our time wisely. We need to have a life that makes a difference. I think this funny little week between Christmas and New Year, when we have one eye looking back and one eye looking forward. Isn't it a great time to sit down, to take a blank piece of paper, to draw a line down the centre and have the pluses on one side and the minuses on the other? And just think about the life that you've been living this last twelve months. Just think and reflect upon the year and what's gone. We can't change what's been. We can't go back and undo something that we did or redo something that we would have loved to have done differently. But I will tell you that looking forward – time is short. How long do you have left on this earth? Ask yourself, how long do I have left, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, ten years, fifteen years, twenty, forty years? How many more Christmases? How many more New Years? How many more birthdays? Answer is: we just don't know. Time is short! Your life – the way that you live, the things that you do, the stuff that you spend your energies on – will they count? Will they make a difference? And what measure do you apply to say, 'Well, last year was a great year'? My theory is that as each of us reflects on the year that's just been, we'll all discover some blessings that God gave us along the way.
Well, Christmas is done and dusted. We're in recovery mode … heading out of this past year into the next, starting to think about what lies ahead. And that's appropriate because Christmas marks a new beginning. Christmas marks the beginning of a new life. And that new life is something that God wants you to have. After all, that's why He sent Jesus. At this time of year, we've all experienced those different emotions at different times so let's spend a few minutes looking back on the year that's just been. And perhaps a few minutes looking forward at what might be in the coming year. Christmas is such an incredibly special time because it marks a new birth, bringing a new life into this world is singularly the most special and privileged thing we can ever do. Any parent will tell you that, particularly the mother's in our midst, it's just so special. And it's that new birth that I want to revisit with you today because Christmas is a time to remember that in Christ you and I have a new birth, a rebirth if you will. And there are a few people today I know that need to experience that rebirth for themselves because you're wallowing in the regrets of the past. In the regrets perhaps of things that could have been but weren't, in the regrets of the things that shouldn't have been but were. But in Christ, something special happens. It's a new birth and for many, even for those who heard Jesus talk about it, it wasn't an easy thing to get a handle on. See there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi we know that you're a teacher who's come from God for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God'. And Jesus answered him, 'Very truly I tell you that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again. Nicodemus said to him, 'How can you be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?' And Jesus answered, 'Truly, I tell you no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born both of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit.' 'Do not be astonished that I say, 'You must be born from above', the wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit'. (John 3: 1-8) See, that new birth is about a new start in life. You've heard the term being born again Christian. Some people roll their eyes when they say it. They use it as a form of derision but Jesus means it for real. Jesus means it as a new start, as a complete rebirth, a fresh start, the slate wiped clean through faith in Him. Every now and then when I've had a really long day, I'm one of these crazy early starters, so in the late afternoon I might have a short nap and a shower to freshen up. And I come out of the bedroom into the living room and I say to my wife, "Ah, I feel like a new man." In a sense that's what Jesus is talking about because our faith in Him doesn't just bring forgiveness, it brings that 'new man' feeling as He wipes away all our sins and all the regrets and all the consequences of the past. See, new birth equals new start equals new life. When you're born again, the old life doesn't matter anymore, it's completely meaningless because your slate has been wiped clean. The Apostle Paul put it this way, he said: If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become as new. (2 Corinthian 5:17) So right at this special time of the year, I believe that God wants to give you a new start by reminding you that if you've accepted Jesus as your Saviour and your Lord, then you are a new creation, completely new. And the result of that, is that everything old is gone. It's completely wiped away which makes it completely irrelevant to you today and to all your tomorrow's. The powerfully operative word in this little verse is the short word 'see'. Lets listen to it again, 2 Corinthians 5:17. If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new. God is imploring you to look at your life through His eyes. SEE! See that the effect of the new birth that you have in Jesus Christ means that EVERYTHING has become new. The past is gone, forgiven and done and dusted. Now, you can look forward to the New Year ahead in a completely new way, completely uninhibited and unconstrained by the failures and the hurts and the losses and the regrets that you have over your past. Completely unaffected by your low self-esteem, completely unaffected by nasty hurtful things that people have said to you and done to you because by the miraculous power of your complete rebirth in Christ through the Holy Spirit – you are a completely new creation. And as a result of that, everything in your life, everything in your world has become new. SEE! Nicodemus found that hard to believe and hard to understand. You and I can find that hard to believe and hard to understand. But your God wants you to live your life as though the slate of your past has been wiped clean. Because you know something? If you believe in Jesus, it has and what lies ahead of you is a completely new life full of exciting God-type possibilities and amazing things that God wants to do to bless you. And to let His blessing flow out through you into this parched land of people who are in desperate need of a Saviour. To Israel, His chosen people, at the end of seventy years in captivity as slaves in Babylon, He said this: 'For surely I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. When you search for me you'll find me. If you seek me with all your heart I'll let you find me' says the Lord, 'And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I've driven you', says the Lord, 'And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29: 11-14) Do you see? Are you looking? Are you hearing? Do you perceive what God is saying to you through His Word today? God has great plans for you and those plans are about your future. And He has made all provision for you through Jesus, to wipe your slate clean and to restore you and to bless you. And all He needs now is just one thing … He needs for you to take His Word into your heart, to believe it, to act on it as though it's true. Because you know something? It really is. And if you choose to step out into your future, a future that maybe would have been otherwise constrained by regrets and hurts from the past. But if you choose now to step out into your future knowing that the regrets of the past are completely wiped away – completely gone, completely irrelevant – if you choose to believe God and take Him at His Word and believe that you can live your life from this day forward on the basis of what God is saying about you is true, then what you're in fact doing is stepping out into your own rebirth. Christmas is a time of celebration of new life – the life of Jesus who slipped into this world to set captives free, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring Good News to the poor. This Jesus, He came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bind up your broken heart, He came to bring you Good News and this is the Good News that I bring to you today. Today is the beginning of a new life – a life of freedom and a life of joy and a life of power and yes a life of sacrifice. A life that is so much more than any of us could have ever dreamed. This past year is done and dusted and in Christ you can leave behind. This New Year is full of possibilities, full of potential and in Christ, you can step out into it with the confidence of knowing that you'll be playing your small part in Gods mighty plan. Hey, if that's not Good News, tell me what is.
Have you ever wondered what it would have been like, to have been there on that very first Christmas, when Jesus was born into this world? In one sense, it would have been very ordinary. A little village, Bethlehem. People all around. Business as usual. But in another sense … it would have been totally, mind–blowingly, gobsmackingly amazing! There's a bunch of guys in the Bible who I envy. Now I know what you're thinking, the tenth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour. (Exodus 20:17) Yeah, we're not supposed to envy or covet anything because it leads to some really bad behaviour. I get that. But hear me out. If there was anyone I could have been with in the Bible, it would have to be those shepherds who were out there watching their flocks by night. We don't quite know what night it was. But you have to gather by what the angel said to them that Jesus had already been born so I prefer to think of it as Christmas night. Only to them, sitting there in the field watching their sheep, it wasn't Christmas night at all. It was just another night at the office doing what shepherds did. It was a mundane part of their lives. They may have been enjoying the evening. They may not have been enjoying the evening. It doesn't matter. They were doing what shepherds did out there on the side of a hill somewhere just outside Bethlehem. The sun had gone down like it goes down every night. And tomorrow morning the sun was going to come up again, like it did every morning and nothing much changed in between. Maybe the moon was out, maybe not. And in the absence of the bright light and the pollution you and I have to put up with these days, the Milky Way was spread across the firmament in all its glory and all was well with the world. That's the picture, that's what was going on. But on that particular night God had a plan to break into this world in the most amazing and spectacular way. In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night and then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'Don't be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.' 'This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of clothing and lying in a manger'. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.' When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go down to Bethlehem and see this thing that's taken place which the Lord has made known to us'. So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in a manger. When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all that they'd heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 8-20) I often wonder how I would have reacted had I been with those guys on that starry starry night. I wonder how I would react if that happened to me tonight at home or on the way back from work or whatever mundane thing I happened to be doing tonight. Because for me, the idea of a cosmic light show and angels filling the sky and all that jazz, well for me, it's pretty easy to believe because it happened at a nice safe distance of two thousand or so years ago. Because you and I have watched the kids Christmas pantomimes so many times and sung the Christmas carols so many times, it's become part of our psyche that this thing with the shepherds actually happened. We accept it pretty much without thinking. But bring it back to reality and how would we cope if it happened to us here and now or if we'd been back there with the shepherds' back then sitting in that field on that night. I think I would be petrified like they were to start with. It would be so unexpected, so out of this world, so impossible and yet there they were and it was happening to them and God broke into their world in this startling 'in your face' kind of way. You know something? I believe that that's what God wants to do today in your world and mine. I believe God wants to shake us out of our comfortable little Christmas ritual, our 'business as usual' approach to Christmas and get right in our faces and say, "Don't you realise what this Christmas thing is all about? Today, I'm bringing you good news for unto you a Saviour has been born for you." And the reaction He's looking for out of you and me is the reaction that the shepherds had. Because when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, "Well, what are we going to do? Why don't we go down to Bethlehem and see what has taken place that which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste, they didn't dawdle; they went with haste. They found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. God wants us to come to Jesus for ourselves – to worship Jesus for ourselves, to tell the world what we've seen. Imagine His frustration, His great frustration when He sees people, like you and me, just going through the motions at Christmas time. Imagine how that makes Him feel when on that first Christmas, He gave to you and He gave to me the single most precious gift that has ever been given in all of human history. So how about it? Will you grab onto this Christmas present with both hands? Will you come to Jesus and worship Him? Will you rejoice at what you've seen? Will you tell people what you've seen? Will you let Christmas impact your heart in the most miraculous way? Well, will you or are you just going to do the same old Christmas ritual this year like you've done for the past umpteen years? Because here's the thing, one day Jesus is coming back. One day, Jesus will return to this earth and when that happens it will make the cosmic light show that the shepherds experienced look like a little sideshow, I'm telling you. When Jesus ascended back into heaven this is what happened: So when they'd come together they asked him, 'Lord is this the time when you'll restore the Kingdom of Israel?' And he replied, 'It's not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria and even to the ends of the earth'. When he had said that as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards the heaven suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards the heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1: 6-11) See, that's going to happen one day, just as unexpectedly as the angels appeared before those shepherds, just as unexpectedly as Jesus slipped into the world the first time. One day this Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. One day He will break back into our physical world just as unexpectedly as He did back then. Only this time there will be no mistaking Him, this time He will come just as He left, in amazing glory to gather His own unto Himself. So as yet another Christmas slips by, I'm going to ask you this … are you ready? Because one day Jesus is coming ready or not. And with all my heart, I want to wish you and those whom you love the most radically wonderful Christmas you have ever had.
Christmas isn't always a happy occasion. In fact, for many, it can be quite a horror. Especially if you have to spend time with people you don't like. People who, perhaps, have hurt you in the past. So, question, how much are you looking forward to tomorrow? You know one of the really bad things about Christmas Ð I'm sorry to talk about bad things the day before Christmas but there are not many places we don't go on this program Ð so, here's one of the really bad things about Christmas. Having to spend time with family or relatives that you haven't seen all year. And there's a reason you haven't seen them all year. It's because you don't really get on with them. But for some reason families insist on getting together at Christmas. And so, maybe there's a sister or a brother-in-law or a mother-in-law or someone that you just don't get on with that you're going to have to put up with this Christmas day. For lunch or for dinner or maybe they're even coming to stay at your house or you're going to stay at theirs. Now we may not want to admit that that's how we feel but you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are some people in our lives who, frankly, we'd rather not invite to Christmas. We just don't get on with them. And maybe that's actually why, in most cultures, domestic violence is at its absolute highest at Christmas time. Sad but true. So here's the question, what are you going to do with those people tomorrow? It's Christmas day. You're going to have to put up with them and somehow, just putting up with them doesn't seem very Christmassy does it? It's kind of a niggling, uncomfortable feeling even to think about how we feel about these people, especially at Christmas. It's hard isn't it? We want to be godly and friendly and nice to people but some people just rub us up the wrong way. They're so opinionated they drive us nuts. Or maybe there's a past hurt there, a fractured relationship with issues that have never been resolved. It's hard if you believe in Jesus and you hear His words about forgiveness ringing in your ears. He says: "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others neither will your Father forgive you." That comes from Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15. What am I going to do with that person this Christmas? If I had my way there's no way I would ever have invited them. Why are we talking about this the day before Christmas? Because honestly this is an issue in more homes than we would care to admit. And it's going to becoming to a head again in just a few short hours when Christmas happens for yet another year. Now, I don't know but my hunch is that Gods looking down on all this strife and unforgiveness and discontent as we celebrate the coming of His Son. My hunch is He's looking at this stuff going on and He's not at all well pleased with it. And when we're doing stuff or involved in stuff or even contributing to stuff that He's not pleased with, that's called sin and we shouldn't expect to have any joy in our hearts. And isn't joy what this amazing celebration of the coming of Gods own Son should be all about? So, a few of us have a few issues to resolve in our hearts before we sit down for Christmas lunch with our family and friends tomorrow. That's why we're talking about this and actually GodÕs Word has something specific, something very specific to say into this situation. It comes through some men that I seem to talk about just about every Christmas. I can't help myself. These are the wise men from the east. We think of these as the three wise men because that's what we sing about in the Christmas carol but actually we don't know how many of them there were. But they're an interesting bunch for one reason. Because they're not the sorts of people that you and I would have wanted to invite along to Christmas. Let's have a listen. Matthew chapter 2, verses 1 to 12: "In the same time of King Herod after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking, 'where is the child who has been born King of the Jews for we observed His star at it's rising and have come to pay Him homage?" "When King Herod heard this he was frightened and all of Jerusalem with him. And calling together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people he enquired of them where the messiah was to be born.Ó ÒAnd they told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it has been written by the prophet, "And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people, Israel." "Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem saying, "Go, search diligently for the child and when you've found him bring me word so that I also may go and pay him homage." "When they had heard the king they set out and there ahead of them went the star that they had seen at its rising until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy." "On entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then opening their treasure chest they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod they left for their own country by another road." A familiar story perhaps but do you realise how radical it is? These weren't Jews these wise men, they were gentiles. Well, so what? Well Israel was GodÕs chosen people. They believed God was only for them. They called the gentiles dogs back then. They looked down on the gentiles. That's the first thing, God called gentiles to worship His Son. And secondly they were wise men, Magi. The word Magi means they were astrologers and soothsayers. They dabbled in what we would today call the occult. In the Old Testament God makes it clear, this is a despicable sin. Imagine if a witch or a wizard or an astrologer, professing who they are, came to your Church. How welcomed would they be even today? And the third thing, the third thing is, not only were they gentiles, not only were they sinners and astrologers but they were from the east. What's east of Jerusalem back in those days? Babylon. This is the place of great evil and oppression where in 587 BC the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and took Israel into captivity for 70 years of slavery. They may as well have come from HitlerÕs Third Reich, no less. So it's absolutely astounding that God invited them at all. If I were God there is no way I would have invited them to Christmas. A bit like those rellies we don't want to get on with. But He did. But what's even more astounding is how He brought them to His Son. Did God send them a prophet? Did He give them a prophecy? Did He send them a Bible or a scripture or did He send them an evangelist? No. He sent them a star. Do you get it? A symbol of their deep and awful sin of astrology but a symbol that they could read and understand and follow because while God hated their sin, His love for them was so much greater than His hate for their sin. He wanted them to know His Son. He wanted them to worship His Son. So He called them and led them and brought them using the only thing they'd understand. A star. I wonder if you and I approach Christmas that way, with a heart of God to invite people to worship His Son. People who are rude and obnoxious and who rub us the wrong way. I wonder if we approach them with Gods heart what a difference that would make in their lives. We want to go on with our list of 'buts' but my hunch is that GodÕs response would be something like this. ÒBut nothing! Go there and be my star. You're the one I've sent to them. Go there and bring them to My Son. Do this for Me.Ó And if that offends our egos or our sensibilities then lets remember how offensive the coming of those Magi must have seemed to GodÕs people. GodÕs having a party; it's open to everyone. What He needs this Christmas are some stars.
Travel is a hassle. It's okay if you're going on the occasional holiday. That's fun. But if you're always on and off planes, in and out of taxis and hotels like I am, then yep, it's hard work. So imagine you're on a long trip, you finally get to your hotel … and they tell you that not only are they fully booked, but there's a convention in town, and there's not a single room to be had anywhere. I remember a few years back, my wife and I flew from Australia to the US, to Chicago, in fact. That's a long flight, about twenty-four hours door to door. We had a room booked at a hotel on the Golden Mile in Chicago because I was speaking at an IT conference there and the conference organisers had set it all up for me. In LA where we had to clear customs, we discovered that they'd lost Jacqui's suitcase (along the way), fantastic. And then when we landed in Chicago, we had to part ways because I had to fly on for a couple of days to Minneapolis, St Paul. So the plan was Jacqui would catch a cab to the Chicago hotel and I would join her in a couple of days time. Now, it was her very first trip to the US of A. She doesn't do a lot of travel so heading to the hotel on her own was just a little bit daunting. So not only is her luggage missing but she has to find her own way to downtown Chicago and when she arrives, get this, she's told, "No, sorry but the hotel is fully booked." "Hang on, there's a conference here and my husband is the keynote speaker and the conference organisers have booked a room and ..." Well, you can imagine her despair, right? She was ready to cry and she's been travelling now for the last twenty-four hours so she's exhausted. She's alone in a foreign country, her luggage is missing and now they tell her there's no room at the hotel. Two hours it took to get it sorted. At one point they found a room but because the booking was in my name and not hers they weren't going to let her have it. Fortunately, the hotel manager got involved and saner heads prevailed. We did, by the way, eventually find her luggage but that's a whole another story. Now, if you have any sort of heart beating inside you, you'll be feeling a bit sorry for poor old Jacqui. A bit like a lost soul in a foreign land, all alone with waves of exhaustion and despair crashing all over her. For her fortunately, it all worked out. But if I now take you back to the old, old story, the first Christmas story, there was a couple who rocked up to Bethlehem for whom things didn't work out so well – Mary and Joseph. They've come down to Bethlehem from their hometown of Nazareth, up north. A few hours by car these days, as we saw yesterday but for them it's been a one to two week journey by foot perhaps with the aid of a beast of burden to carry the full term, very pregnant, almost due Mary but perhaps not. It's a journey that makes our twenty-four hour flight from Sydney to Chicago look like sheer luxury by comparison. They're tired, they're exhausted, they're ready to get to their room and dive into the jacuzzi and relax, but let's pick up their story. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered, Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David. He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there the time came for her to deliver her child and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them at the inn. (Luke 2: 1-6) Much of the nation of Israel was on the move at this time because of this wretched census ordered by the Emperor Augustus. So, there really was a convention in town when they arrived in that small village, as it was back then, the village of Bethlehem. They weren't in downtown Jerusalem there on the Golden Mile but out of town in this hamlet. And frankly there weren't a lot of five-star or even two or three star hotels available, those that were choc-a-block. And so after, presumably, a few hours of schlepping around and discovering there wasn't a room to be had anywhere some kind inn keeper, seeing Mary's condition, offered them a shed out the back which housed animals. Now I don't know, sheep, goats, maybe the odd cow if he was really wealthy. Can you imagine how Mary's heart sank when she entered that stable where she knew she would give birth? After that whole fanfare with the angel and falling pregnant, not the normal way but through the Holy Spirit? Hey, surely God was with her. Surely, God knew what was going on, His Son, the very Son of God is about to be born. "My son too!" Mary is thinking to herself and now I get a stinking stable? Come on you women who have had children put yourself in Mary's shoes, how do you feel? Not all that impressed, right? Your water's break, the pain starts and you lie down on the floor of a stable that's been pooped on and weed on by the assemblage of farm animals watching you give birth. Just fantastic. I don't know what you're expecting of Christmas this year. It's almost upon us and it's supposed to be great. The world hypes it up as being a great celebration, Christians and Churches hype it up as being a great celebration. I don't think that's how it felt for Mary on that day and I know that's not how it feels for a whole bunch of people today. But let me tell you this … God was in that place with Mar. He was watching over her, He was with her and yes He chose a humble, uncomfortable place for His Son – the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, to be born as a man. God often chooses humble, uncomfortable places for His people. It's just His way. But no matter how uncomfortable it may be for you, no matter how God forsaken this place may seem in which you've found yourself, I want to tell you this, God is with you because Jesus on that first Christmas, Jesus came for you. Do you remember what it was that the angel said to Joseph in his dream when he was explaining to him what had gone on with Mary falling pregnant? Matthew 1: 21-23: 'She will bear a son' said the angel, 'and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins'. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet 'behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call him Emmanuel which means 'God is with us. Jesus is God on the journey with us. Back in Chicago when Jacqui stood negotiating with those difficult hotel employees over the counter, she no doubt felt incredibly alone, lost in a foreign land. Her husband off in another city, completely uncontactable. Perhaps, as you face whatever it is you're facing the same thoughts race through your mind as no doubt went through Mary's when she lay eyes on that crummy, stinking stable for the very first time. Doesn't God get it? How can He let this happen to me? Why doesn't He fix it? And so you're sitting here on this Christmas Eve wondering even what Christmas is all about. If that's you, if that's a bit of what you're feeling right now, then I have just one word for you from the Lord, "Emmanuel". God is with you. You are never alone. And though He may have chosen circumstances for you right now that you may not have chosen for yourself, on this day, on this Holy day, know this … your God is with you and that beautiful wondrous truth, this truth that we are celebrating right now, at this time that we call Christmas, that truth is something that nothing and nobody can take away from you. Your God is with you.
Over the last thirty years, I've done a lot of travelling. It's hard work. The wear and tear on your body is quite a thing. But it's even harder when you're not fit and well. And that is the very journey that Mary had – almost full term in her pregnancy – heading into that first Christmas. Now I know that this is not going to come as any great surprise to you but I have never been pregnant. Something (by the way) that I've often given thanks for because I'm your typical male – the idea of going through childbirth is something I can't comprehend. Which is why, I guess, God didn't leave it up to men to be mother's – wise move God, wise move. Anyway, back to Christmas, I'm trying to imagine what it was like for Mary who was pretty much full term to travel from Nazareth the Bethlehem for the census. We don't think too much about it because these days the drive from A to B would take, umm, two to three hours I'm guessing; maybe four, if you took it slowly and you had a break for lunch along the way. You'd probably do it in a comfortable air-conditioned car although even then, let's say a three to four-hour car ride wouldn't be particularly the most delightful experience for a woman who was close to full term, would it now? But back then it was a one to two-week journey. Tradition has it … if you believe all the paintings and drawings that Mary rode on the back of a donkey, of course, there's no Biblical evidence for that, we're not told how she got from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But for her sake, I'm hoping she was on a back of a donkey or riding in the back of a cart somewhere rather than walking the whole way because one thing's for certain she wasn't riding in an air-conditioned car. My point is this … we often look back on the old, old Christmas story as though it's a fable or a pantomime or, I don't know what. It was so long ago and we've heard it so many times that we just have this two-dimensional view of what went on. Yeah, yeah Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, wise men, Bethlehem, manger, yeah all that jazz. And when we look at Christmas that way, it's almost as though we're closing our hearts off to the wonderful real, gritty, here and now things that God's wanting to speak into our lives. Mary and Joseph didn't have an easy run of it. It was time for a census. The Roman emperor had decreed that it was time to do a people stocktake. And the way they did it back then (before marks sensing, computer readable census forms distributed to each household) was that you had to head back to your ancestral home and for Joseph that meant Bethlehem. In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David. He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. (Luke 2: 1-5) See, the Romans were nothing if not efficient administrators. They, in fact, had a huge impact on the distribution of the Gospel after Jesus' resurrection and ascension because of the road and port infrastructure that they'd built and the relatively peaceful and homogenous Roman Empire that dominated the known world at the time. But on this occasion, as far as Mary and Joseph were concerned, they were being a right proper pain in the backside. Quite literally for Mary if she was fortunate enough to have travelled the journey on the back of a donkey. I imagine that if you or I had been Mary or Joseph, we would have had a few choice words and thoughts about the timing of this rotten, lousy census. Why now? What a pain! How inconvenient! Mary is almost full term and she and Jo are travelling with a sea of humanity in all different directions heading for their ancestral homes, in their case that was Bethlehem. Isn't that how it feels when circumstances and events beyond us seem to dictate the course of our lives? Pretty frustrating, isn't it? – inconvenient and sometimes, downright dangerous and hurtful. But this census wasn't just some random event. It wasn't a happen chance thing. As with everything, God was in it because centuries before through the Prophet Micah, He had spoken to His people about their Messiah whom He would send who would be born in, yeah you guessed it, Bethlehem. Let's take a look, Micah 5: 2-3: But you O Bethlehem of Ephratah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth, then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. See, God had a plan. His plan was that Jesus, the bread of life as He later referred to Himself as, would be born in the town of Bethlehem, a word which literally means 'the house of bread'. God's plan was to speak powerfully to His people through the Words of Micah's prophecy and through the fulfilment of that prophecy in the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. My point is this … events are never random. Events that seem to roll over the top of your plans and your hopes and your dreams even never just happen by chance. Sometimes the most difficult and devastating events are the most powerful moves of God in our lives and through our lives and into the lives of other people around us. Of course, it never feels like it at the time. And rarely (if ever) does God give us the big picture if you will to explain what's going on and what He's up to when He's doing that and letting these things happen to us. But that doesn't change the fact that God's sovereign will is playing out right there and then. Psalm 135 verse 6 says: Whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps. So whatever that looks like in your life right now, remember your God is up to something good. I mean really good just as He was with Mary and Joseph even if they didn't have the full picture. I've called this series of messages leading up to Christmas – 'Old Story, New Twist'. I did that for a reason because I know that this Christmas story, far from being some distant archaic tale of which pantomimes are born, is a gritty, real story of the journey of the Creator of the universe into the lives of men and women, into the lives of you and me. And when we look at that old, old story from His perspective (from the vantage point of heaven's balcony if you will), when we allow God by His Spirit and through His Word to guide us on that journey over the dusty trails that Mary and Joseph trod, we discover a God who is on that same dusty, difficult journey with you and me today. Peter the Apostle in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7 said that we should: Cast all our anxieties on God because he cares for us. So whatever anxieties and discomforts and fears and disappointments you happen to be carrying around on your rocky road towards this Christmas – this God who is above all your circumstances, this God who is in all your circumstances, this God who sent you His Son to lighten your load wants to take your burdens from you. So how about it? Is it time to hand all that stuff over to Him and to get on the journey and head towards Christmas with joy and anticipation and excitement in your heart? Because Jesus came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bring you forgiveness and a future and a certain hope and an eternity with Him. That's what He ushered in on that very first Christmas. And that, I reckon, is something definitely worth celebrating – Christmas.
The other Sunday, the pastor at my church was talking about dying. He made the point that people's greatest fear is to die alone. I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense. So … what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, as it turns out … everything! I know, it's kind of a weird perspective from which to come at the story of Christmas. But hopefully as we chat together, it will start to make sense. Death … dying is pretty much the one taboo subject left in our society. We can talk about pretty much anything else but not dying. And the last thing that you and I really want to think about is dying. But humour me because I want you to put yourself on your deathbed. Hopefully, quite a few years away from now, and imagine how you'll feel. Would you be afraid of dying alone? I'm guessing you would particularly in a hospital room, sterile, white, disinfected, clinical, with tubes coming out of you, those squeaky sounds the nurses shoes make on the floor. The idea of being completely alone at the end is a terrible thought. Now and then, you hear about an elderly person who died all alone in their home and their body wasn't discovered for seven or eight years. That's frightful. Imagine how the end must have come for them. Of course, you don't have to wait to die in order to be alone. So many people are desperately alone, sometimes through circumstances but mostly as a result of their sin. That may sound a bit weird but sin – turning our backs on God and going our own way usher's in death very quickly. That's what God promised Adam and Eve would happen if they ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he forbade them to eat from. The Lord commanded the man, 'you may eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2: 16) The result of that apparent minor transgression? Well, God said to them: I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, 'I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing, in pain shall you bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. And to the man he said, 'Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you 'you shall not eat of it' cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, you are dust and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3: 15 – 19) The immediate result of that sin was broken relationships, a broken relationship between God and Adam and a broken relationship between Adam and Eve. And broken relationships mean loneliness and strife. So … what was God's solution to that distance that we put between Him and us through our sin? How did He address that? Well, it's simple really. It was a complete no brainer for Him. All He had to do was to follow the longing of His heart and we know what that is because He tells us what it is over and over again in the Old Testament. Let's have a look at just one example, Leviticus 26: 11 – 13, God said: I will place my dwelling in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be slaves no more, I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you to walk upright. The longing of God's heart is to be close to His people. He's our Father, He loves us, of course, that's the longing of His heart. And yet, through the whole of the Old Testament we see how God's people struggle to honour Him. In fact, the name Israel literally means 'to struggle with God'. They failed, all the time, over and over again. And over and over again, He forgave them. It was this constant merry-go-round and it wasn't working so here was His plan, a plan that, as I said yesterday, wasn't some fall back, it was always His Plan A. Are you ready for it? Here God's plan, John chapter 1 beginning at verse 10. Speaking about Jesus, it says: He was in the world and the world came into being through him yet the world didn't know him. He came to what was his own and his own people didn't accept him but to all who received him, who believed in his name he gave them power to become children of God who were born not out of blood or out of the will of the flesh or of the will of a man but of God and the word became flesh and lived amongst us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and of truth. (John 1: 10-14) The plan was for God to take a giant step towards us even though we'd drifted so far away from Him that we really didn't know Him anymore. This God who had an intimate personal relationship back then in the beginning with Adam and Eve, the Word (that's Jesus), the Word became flesh and lived amongst us. That's what we celebrate at Christmas But can I give you the literal meaning of that verse because when you have that, it makes a lot more sense. It literally says that Jesus became flesh and tabernacled amongst us, set up His home amongst us, it's the language of the Exodus where God's presence travelled on the forty-year journey through the wilderness with His people in that tent, in that tabernacle. Jesus coming to this planet is Jesus stepping out and coming close to you to travel on your journey with you on your exodus. That's what makes this Christmas thing so amazing – to set you free, to make sure that you are never alone. Not through the problems of this life, not through the fractured relationships and the enmity that exists in this world through our sin, not through that time where we come to the end of this life and not for the rest of eternity. Christmas is Jesus coming close, Christmas is God following the desire of His heart to be close to you and me by sending His Son to be on our journey with us. Are you getting this? Is this touching your heart as I tell you this age old story with a new twist? That new twist is that Jesus came for you. Jesus came to be on your journey. Jesus came to bring you comfort to bind up your broken heart, to bring release from captivity of your sin, to be on this journey every step of the way. And what a terrible price He paid for that so that we could see His glory and know Him and experience a one on one intimacy with Him. Now let me bring you back to your death-bed … what if, instead of being terribly alone on your deathbed you experience the very presence of Jesus right there with you on your journey with His love and His forgiveness and His grace and His peace and His mercy? What if instead of being terribly alone, you come to know as each second ticks by on that clock, you are drawing closer and closer to that time that you will see that Jesus face to face? I don't care what bad things have happened to you in your life. I don't care how lost and alone you may feel. It doesn't matter because Jesus is in this place with you and He will never leave you and never forsake you because on that starry starry night in Bethlehem, He came for you. He came to say, "I love you", He came to suffer and die for you. He came to rise again and give you a completely new life with your slate wiped clean. He came to set you free. He came to bring you peace. He came to be with you for every minute of every day for the rest of eternity. That's Christmas. That's what God was doing by sending us His Son. That's what we're celebrating or at least, what we're pretending to celebrate over this coming week. Do you get it? Jesus came for you and if you have nothing else to celebrate this Christmas then celebrate that. It's all you need to make your Christmas the best one ever. And remember, I'm praying for you that this message, this incredibly Good News of Jesus, will light up your heart with a joy unspeakable.
I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea! I mean, what exactly was God thinking by sending His Son to become a man – and to be born in some drafty, smelly shed out the back of Bethlehem. Yeah, absolutely, on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea. I mean stand back and think about it … God's God, He created the whole universe. Okay, He's Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one, something that's not that easy to wrap your mind around. But let's just leave that to one side for the moment. God is God. God creates everything. We read about it in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. It's pretty straightforward description of what He did and it was amazing. And the crowning glory of all His creation is humanity – you and me, male and female. And the very last thing that He does before He rests to enjoy His handiwork of creation is that He hands the whole thing over to us. God said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind and it was so and God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind, everything that creeps along the ground of every kind and God saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make humanity in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.' So God created humanity in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.' God said, 'See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to every thing that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life I have given every green plant for food' and so it was. God saw everything that He'd made and indeed it was very good and there was evening and there was morning of the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 26-31) So far, so good. Adam and Eve go and enjoy all of this amazing creation but God does one thing, just one thing that is so crazy, inexplicable. The Lord commanded the man, 'you may freely eat of every tree of the garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16) Well, you know the rest. They couldn't help themselves, Adam and Eve, they just had to try to be like God. They ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the rest as they say is history. Sin entered the world, sickness entered the world and just as God had promised them death entered the world. Life became hard. That's something you and I can attest to – life is hard and all because God had to forbid them that one tree and they just had to try it anyway. Could it be all of your misery and mine hangs on just that one crummy apple? For Pete's sake, that's nuts! And then as humanity spirals ever downward, as we become ever more debauched and depraved, after that moment God mounts a rescue mission – He sends Jesus to save us. What's that about? Why didn't He just give them access to every last tree? Why did He have to hold that one tree back from them and why did they have to blow it for the rest of us and after all that, why did God mount that rescue mission and send Jesus? It defies human logic until you realise that love and logic have nothing more in common than their first two letters. Love isn't logical. Have a listen to this: But the free gift is not like the trespass for if the many died through one man's trespass, Adams, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift and the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin for the judgement following the one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If because of the one man's sin death has exercised dominion through that one much more surely will those who receive the abundance of the grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man's trespasses lead to condemnation for all so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. But the law came in with the result that the trespass multiplied but when sin increased grace abounded all the more. So just as sin exercised dominion in death so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Romans 5: 12-21) There you have it. There you have the reason that God did what He did. If you love someone you give them free will, right? He gave Adam a free will by excluding that one tree and Adam chose against God and so sin, with all its consequences, entered the world for you and me. Now, before you think to yourself, "I am going to punch Adam in the nose when I see him in heaven." Ask yourself, if nobody in all of history before you had sin and ultimately you were living in that garden, would you have resisted the temptation? So sin entered the world through one man and forgiveness came though one man as well, Jesus. God sent Him into this world as that little babe we remember each year around this time so that we could be forgiven. And notice how that 'grace' word comes in. Forgiven by the free, unmerited favour of God so that we could know what? God's love. What greater expression of love is there than to forgive someone who doesn't deserve it? I guess only one, to do it and to take his or her punishment on their behalf, to give your life to suffer in order to purchase their forgiveness and their freedom. To step out of heaven into this hurly burly of a sinful world and be punished even though you'd never done anything wrong. And this is not as some Plan B because Plan A didn't work. This was always Gods Plan A. God always knew Adam would blow it. He always knew that you and I would blow it. None of that was ever a surprise to Him and yet out of His great love, He gave us a free will to accept or reject Him. And out of His great love, He came to purchase us back from death by offering up His Son as His sense of justice demanded – to take all the fall for you and for me, to pay the price, to die the death. Now, I know you have a lot going on in these days leading up to Christmas – those last-minute presents to buy, the things to clear off your desk perhaps before you have a few days off, the turkey to buy, the decoration to get up, all that stuff. Now I know that you may not have a lot of time to think about this Christmas stuff but at the heart of Christmas lies a Father's love. The heart of Christmas in the most unhygienic, feed trough called a manger, in that even more unhygienic stable filled with animals, right where that child was born and lay and cried and gurgled – is a love so sublime that there are not enough words to describe it. There are no words ever invented that can really explain a love so great. So as you hurtle towards yet another chaotic Christmas, let me say to you quietly, kindly, gently, "Take a moment to wrap your heart around that love. Just let that love touch you deep inside and change you and change your life and change your world." After all, what do you have to lose?
One of the problems that many people have is reconciling the supposed wonder and joy of Christmas, with the humdrum realities of their lives. How … how do you do that? How do you take this Christmas message and make it real in your life? That's what we're going to be chatting about today on the program. There is something incredibly powerful about 'business as usual'. If you think about how your life has played itself out, so far, I suspect that it's been ninety-nine percent humdrum and about half a percent of wonderful mountain top joy and another half a percent of tragedy and loss. Sure, some people seem to have better lives than others. Some are born rich, some are born poor and very sadly for some people life is one long tragedy. I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all that away for those people who find themselves in that boat. But I just can't and yet for most of us, most of our lives are occupied by the normal every day, business as usual, monotony which consumes most of our time, most of our attention and most of our focus. Am I right? But beneath that monotony there is always, always, always a sneaking suspicion that there must be more. You've had that feeling, right? This sense that something is oppressing you, something is didling you out of the sort of life that you think you should be living. There are in fact very few people on planet earth today that don't have that feeling. I used to have it but I don't have it anymore. I've always been someone who's tried to get out there and live life to the full. And all along, as hard as I tried, something was missing, things weren't quite right and I couldn't put my finger on it. I want to wind the clock back to what was going on in the history of Israel around when Jesus was born. Not just the history of the nation but the lives of the ordinary people like you and me. In fact there's a particular bunch of guys I want to focus on because they, to me, exemplify this 'business as usual' but something was not quite right in their world. What am I yabbering on about here? I'm talking, of course, about the shepherds who were out watching their flocks by night. Now, no doubt you've sung the Christmas carol many times and heard their story many times. By the way, the fact that they were out there watching their flocks by night makes it pretty certain that Jesus wasn't born in December, Israel's winter. Average December maximums of fifteen degrees Celsius or around sixty degrees Fahrenheit and of course nights were quite a bit cooler. So in winter they generally brought their sheep into town where there was a communal pen where they were cared for overnight. So even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it probably didn't happen then on the first Christmas. Anyhow, here were these guys living out their 'business as usual' tending their flocks by night but they weren't living as free men, they were living as men in an occupied country. The Romans of course had occupied and ruled most of the known world back then. And in fact, the Romans had been the rulers for the last sixty or seventy years in Israel. Now, in the overall history of Israel that's pretty short but for those shepherds it was all that they could remember. The Romans were tough task masters and what made it even harder for the Israelites is that they knew they were God's chosen people. They knew they were meant to be free and so they expected, kind of, sort of, maybe one day for God to send them a King – a Messiah, as He was called back then, God's anointed King – in order to boot the Romans out and restore the kingdom of Israel, to set God's people free. After all, God had done it before. He'd set them free from captivity in Egypt. He'd set them free from captivity in Babylon. He'd set them free from the Seleucid Empire through the Maccabean Revolt only a century and a half before. That was their simplistic understanding of what should be going on. So there they were, business as usual. But something wasn't quite right, they were oppressed and that simply wasn't the way it should have been. They were being robbed of the freedom, the life that they knew they were entitled to as God's chosen people. Does that sound vaguely familiar to you? Does that sound like anyone that you know? Now, people back then were kind of expecting this Messiah to come. But when you and I used this term 'Messiah' we think of Jesus, right? That's not who they were thinking about at all. They were thinking more about a strong warrior king, someone like King David of old who could muster an army, defeat the Romans and set the people free. After all, isn't that what God promised to David years before? 2 Samuel 7: 12 and 13, He said to David: When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. So in effect, they were looking in the wrong direction for a saviour because they misinterpreted what God was on about. They thought they were going to get another King David. Again a bit like, in fact a lot like people today, that's what was going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people like those 'business as usual' shepherds back then and in many respects it's what's going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people today. People are looking for someone or something to set things right. They know that life is not all it should be so they turn to money or career or reputation or luxury or holidays or friends, you name it. They turn to it expecting 'it' to make things better but it never does. People have been looking in the wrong direction for a Saviour for thousands of years just like those shepherds and then God breaks into the world with such power and with such might and in such a surprising way that we can't even begin to imagine what He's up to. In that region were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'don't be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2: 8-14) This Messiah, this Saviour, He wasn't what they expected Him to be – He still isn't what we expect Him to be. What are you expecting Jesus to be? As we roll inexorably towards Christmas, yet again, what are you expecting to discover or are you so busy looking in a different direction that you're going to miss this amazing surprise in Jesus? Or are you running away as I was for many years because like the shepherds I was kind of afraid? This idea of God breaking into history by becoming one of us is too startling and too incomprehensible to begin to make sense. Just listen with me quietly to what the angel went on to say to those startled, frightened, 'business as usual', confused shepherds. This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. And so ... When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, 'let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made known to us'. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and a child lying in a manger. When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 15 – 20) Seems to me that you and I, like the shepherds, have a choice. We can continue to get on with business as usual, stay in our field and ignore Jesus. Or, we can go and check Him out for ourselves. The only question that I'd ask is this; so how well has your 'business as usual' worked out for you so far?
You know that first Christmas … it didn't just happen. It wasn't like God hadn't told His people that He was going to send them a Saviour. It's just that … well, they were so focused on the here and now, they really hadn't stopped to consider the big picture. I guess when it comes to this whole Christmas thing; we see it from where we sit. And for most of us, our perspective (our take on Christmas) comes through the ritual that surrounds it – a ritual that we've acted out year after year for as long as we can remember. Sure, it's changed a bit. When we were kids it was all about the excitement of presents. But you know the deal, you know all the things that you do in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you know how Christmas Day is going to pan out. You know the carols you're going to sing and the food that you're going to eat and the people you're going to celebrate Christmas with. If it's at all possible, this exciting celebration of Christmas has become something of a routine for you. A bit of a contradiction but it's true for most of us, life is full of contradictions right? When it comes to Christmas we kind of narrow our view, we lower our gaze and focus on the well-worn familiar path of the Christmas ritual. Whatever that looks like for each one of us, we narrow our perspective and like Pavlov's dogs we get on with that part of life and in many respects, that's how it was on that very first Christmas two thousand odd years ago. Although it wasn't called Christmas back then. In fact, the first record of there being some celebration of Christmas doesn't appear until 354 AD, three and a half centuries after the birth of Jesus. And of course many of the modern-day traditions of Christmas that we celebrate on December 25th – for instance, eating turkey, having a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, presents, tinsel, lights, all of those are much, much more recent. In fact, the Christmas ritual that you and I take for granted today, as though it's been around forever, is little more than a hundred years old, it's a bit of a surprise, isn't it? But let's wind the clock back even further to that first Christmas. People by and large were just going on with their daily business. The big news in town was of course the census. The Romans had ordered a stock take of all the people and in the absence of the technology we use today, the way you did it back then was to go back to your ancestral home. And in the case of Joseph and therefore Mary, his embarrassingly pregnant betrothed, that meant going back to Bethlehem. The inns were full, the shepherds were out doing what shepherds did, tending their flocks in the field by night. Other than the disruption of the census, it was pretty much business as usual. And then wham, the light show in the skies in front of these shepherds. God broke into that 'business as usual' in a spectacular way. You know what, I'm praying for this Christmas, God is going to break into your 'business as usual' in a spectacular way too. All these people were just living their lives, just like we do, head down, doing stuff that they did day after day when all along God had promised a Saviour. There are quite a number of prophecies in what we now call the Old Testament (the Scriptures to the Jewish people) of the coming of a Saviour and principle among them is that He would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5: 2-5: But you O Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall live secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be the one of peace. The prophecy of the coming of the Saviour in great power in this tiny humble little village of Bethlehem and by the way the word Bethlehem means literally 'the house of bread'. Remember how Jesus said, 'I am the bread of life'. How appropriate that He should be born in Bethlehem – the house of bread. And then there was the prophecy that He would be born to a virgin, now that's pretty outrageous when you think about it, Isaiah chapter 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look the virgin woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel which means 'God is with us. And that is, of course, exactly what happened. There are quite a few more prophecies about the birth of Jesus that were given centuries before that He fulfilled – His lineage, the slaughter of the infants by Herrod, His need to flee to Egypt. The bottom line was that there were plenty of signs, plenty of prophecies, plenty of predictions. Okay they were cryptic. I mean God revealed His Son in mystery and wonder. We always try to analyse God and put Him in a box. We try and figure out how He operates and then make a bunch of rules about Him. But you can't do that with God. He does startling, creative, outrageous things like sending His Son, Jesus as the son of a carpenter in humble circumstances in some shed out the back of Bethlehem. But the picture was always there, the big plan was always there. God had given some predictions about what was going to happen even as way back as His promise to Abraham. Right back there in the first Book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, God said to him, "Through you all nations shall be blessed" pointing forward to Jesus. But the people were just chugging along, business as usual and it was difficult (if not, impossible) for many of them to see, to perceive, to understand. Not all of them had the light show like the shepherds and the wise men. As I look at the world today, it seems to me that still today most are asleep to what God did back then and what God is doing now. The only difference is that we know the whole story, we know what was going on and how it ends. So as this Christmas approaches, you find yourself asleep to the wonder of what God is doing then let me say to you with all love and with all care, "Wake up. Don't be asleep through yet another Christmas." The wonder and the power of what God did back then, the doors that He opened for you through the coming of Jesus, the joy of what He brings to you today, the unspeakable glory that He opens up through His Son for you to spend eternity with Him, why would you want to sleep through that? Why would you want to be blind to that? Those prophecies of old which is the faintest hint of what was to come. But now we know, now we can see the sheer wonder that is Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy and full of acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen. (1 Timothy 1: 15-17) Man, why would you want to ignore that, to sleep through that, to replace it with trite Christmas rituals that don't come anywhere close to what that's all about? Why would you do that? Because, well, that's just what people do, that's how it goes. It's Christmas again so let's roll out the Christmas tree and the tinsel and the lights and play it again Sam. That's not what Christmas was meant to be. That's not what God the Father had in His great and mighty heart as He gazed down upon the birth of His Son in that horrible dirty little stable. It never ceases to amaze me how readily we're prepared to accept cheap imposters when the real thing, the real deal is available to each one of us. Christmas, what will it mean to you this year, hmm?
Well … here we are again. It's December. It's almost the end of another year … and it's almost Christmas time. Again! Happens year after year. Christmas. Question is … what do you make of it? What do you do with it? It's an age-old problem. Christmas. I don't know if you've ever thought of this but Christmas is a real problem for guys like me, preachers I mean. Year after year, we have to crank out yet another Christmas series. And for the first few years, that's pretty easy but then after a while you start thinking to yourself, "Well, how am I going to put a new twist on Christmas this year?" Last year, I approached it from this perspective, the year before from that perspective, the year before that from ... well, you get the picture. There are only so many different perspectives on Christmas. Well, we've all been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Yeah, so it's Christmas again, so what? If you live in the Northern Hemisphere it's an excuse for a few days off. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere as I do, it's probably the summer holidays that you're looking forward to more than Christmas itself. A chance for a decent break, a bit of a much-needed R and R and sure Christmas is part of that but the Christmas bit can be a bit of a hassle. Buying presents, figuring out who has Christmas lunch with whom and then perhaps scooting off to Christmas dinner with another part of your family. Kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents – it all gets complicated. And then there's the fact not everybody in the family gets on. You know Christmas day is one of the peak times of the year for domestic violence. Even if it doesn't get that bad you know there are going to be clashes or you're going to have to smile sweetly at someone that you don't really like or you just know that so and so is going to have too much to drink again this year. Those are the burdens that many people carry into Christmas, it's just the reality of life. So as things turn out, Christmas isn't just a problem for preachers like me who have to dream up something fresh and new each year, it's a problem for many, many people. I heard someone say once, a Bible believing Christian she was, "I hate Christmas, I wish we could just skip over it." It's pretty sad but it's the reality for many people even those who actually believe in Jesus. So Christmas gets something of a bad rap, I wonder how many people who are out there who would just love to skip Christmas. I wonder? Well, as you look ahead to the next ten days or so in the run up to Christmas, I wonder how you're feeling about it all, exhausted, frustrated, anxious, stressed. What are the emotions that generally accompany this thing we call Christmas in your heart in your life? What are you feeling? Is Christmas a problem for you? Can I be honest here? I struggle with the kids pantomime version of Christmas. I struggle with the whole Carols by Candlelight phenomenon around Christmas where people get together in parks and sing Christmas carols as though they believe them, when most of the entertainers up on the stage and on our television screens don't have the remotest faith that Jesus is actually the Son of God. It's like we wrap this whole Christmas in tinsel and lights and tie a neat bow around it. And we make it out to be this happy time, when the truth is, for many people, well, they struggle with Christmas. Now I don't mean to be a Christmas Grinch here. Personally, I love singing Christmas carols because they mean something to me but what I really want to know is why don't we sing Christmas carols all year round? Why don't we celebrate the coming of Jesus all year round? I remember hosting a Christmas in July service at our Church some years back. It's a bit of a phenomenon down under as many restaurants put on Christmas dinners in the middle of winter when it's cold and at the service we actually sung Christmas carols. I can't tell you the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me how weird it was singing Silent Night in the middle of July. Yeah, we wrap a whole bunch of rituals up in a nice neat package in December and we call it Christmas. And it's all supposed to be sweetness and light and yet how much of it really, really, really speaks into our hearts about the wonder of what God did on that first Christmas? What I want to do today is to unsettle you, to drag you out of your Christmas ritual comfort zone and ask you: Why do you do what you do at Christmas time? Why are you racing around buying presents for people who don't really need anything? Why do you put tinsel and Christmas decorations around your house and maybe even a Christmas wreath on your front door? What are the candles and the Christmas tree and presents and all that food really about? What do you do it for? If you stripped away all that packaging and paraphernalia what would Christmas actually be for you? In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, 'don't be afraid, for see I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord." "This will be a sign for you, you'll find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger' and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours. (Luke 2: 8-14) So if you took the packaging and the paraphernalia and the ritual and the racing around away, is that what Christmas would mean to you? Would you in your heart shout out, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven. Glory, glory, glory. Hallelujah?' Because if not, don't you think you just might be wasting your time with all this Christmas nonsense that you go through each year? All this pressure you put yourself under, all these presents you buy and the money you spend and the decorations you put up and the food that you stuff yourself with – is that what Christmas is all about? Or in your heart, is it about the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God to be the Saviour of this world? The biggest Christmas gift of all history – the Son of God given to all humanity, given to you and given to me. So let me ask you, what is your Christmas all about? It's something I've thought a lot about over the last few years, maybe that's what you do as you get a little bit older. You start to reflect on some of the things that you've done over and over again without thinking too much and you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" So why are you doing this? In your life, in your family, in your situation, in your home, in your place, in your community, why are you doing this thing that we call Christmas? What does it mean to you? What does it benefit you? What lasting difference does it really make to you? And when you come to December 25th, do you wake up in the morning with this overwhelming sense of joy in your heart that unto you a Saviour is born? Or do you lie there and wonder, why am I doing this again and how's the day going to pan out? I want to challenge you today, that if you're going to actually celebrate Christmas and that word 'celebrate' is one that I use rather loosely around this time of year to describe a whole bunch of different things. If you want to do that again this year, is it going to be worth it or not? Because this whole crazy idea that God came up with to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born into that stinky draughty stable, into a stinking hurting world, is meant to mean something to you and me. It's meant to touch our hearts deep, deep inside somewhere. And unless it does, then to be perfectly frank about it, this thing in your life that you call Christmas is a complete waste of time. Completely!
We people are very much into surface things – things we can touch and feel. Someone dresses well or performs well or looks good – and we judge them to be successful. But God's interested in something else. Something quite different. God's interested in our hearts. I don't know if you've ever watched the Oscar's on TV. You know, the movie awards they give in Hollywood, in "Tinsel Town" each year. Look I think it's great that they award the best movies and actors and directors. But sometimes, as I see people prancing down that red carpet and accepting their glory when they get their awards. Well I can't but help have this sense that it feels just a tad superficial. It's about being beautiful. It's about being the best. It's about winning. And that my friend is pretty much what our world's like. If you're rich or beautiful or entertaining, we value you. But if you're not, we don't. We tend very much to judge the book by its cover. Now, it's not always true. Sometimes we form closer deeper relationships but in a world where there are so many options to consume and to be entertained, hey, you have to choose somehow. And we tend to choose a book by its cover. We tend to value outward symbols of beauty and success. And that's good because that's what makes the economy grow. That's what gets us to buy things. That's what gives people jobs. So it's a good thing, isn't it? Well, we know it's not but it's just the way the world is. This, of course, is nothing new. It's been around for a long time. The apostle Paul, a couple of thousand years ago, wrote about people who boast in outward appearance but not in the heart. You can read that if you like in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 12 in the New Testament. And another thousand or so years before that, God had this to say through the prophet Samuel when he was looking for a new king for Israel. God said: Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart. (1 Samuel, chapter 16, verse 7) I was watching a show on TV the other day, it was out of the UK. About a woman who goes in to show shops how to turn their business around. So she goes into this struggling little boutique and she's helping this little boutique in Doncaster in the UK and she decided that their target market was, listen for this, the disciples of Beckham. People who wanted to be like and look like Victoria and David Beckham. Now sure, they're celebrities and there's nothing wrong with that. But this whole idea in turning this boutique around was to stock and promote clothes and the look that celebrities were sporting. To be seen to mimic the celebs. Do you see what's going on here? I don't knock the business. They're doing stuff to get money. But what they're chasing after is our desire to be all about appearances. But outer appearances aren't actually that important to God. See He's much more concerned with our hearts and to tell you the truth, when I started doing a bit of research in the Bible I was actually quite shocked with how much God has to say about our hearts. And how concerned He is for our hearts. Have a listen to 1 Chronicles chapter 28, verse 9. Listen to this: The Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. Listen to that again. He searches every heart. See we race around doing things. Thinking things. Imagining no-one notices. Imagining that people can only see us on the outside and they don't know the rotten things going on on the inside. We can be angry, revengeful, deceitful, dishonest in our hearts. But we stick a smile on our face and have soft word on our lips and we think we're kidding everyone. We may well be. But we're not kidding God because He searches every heart and understands every motive behind our thoughts. And God tests our hearts too. Have a listen to these few verses. The first one comes from Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 2. It says: Remember how the Lord your God lead you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what is in your heart. Whether or not you would keep His Commandments. And this one, it's a little bit longer. 2 Chronicles, chapter 32, verses 27 to 31. Have a listen, it's about a king called Hezekiah: Hezekiah had very great riches and honour and he made treasuries for his silver and gold and for his precious stones and spices and shields, all kinds of valuables. He also made buildings to store the harvest of the grain, new wine, oil and he made stalls for various kinds of cattle and pens for the flocks. He built villages and acquired great numbers of flocks and herds for God had given him very great riches. It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channelled the water down the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything that he undertook. But when the envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous signs that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him to know everything that was in his heart. See this king, he's rich, he's powerful, he's successful and it's all happened through Gods blessing, under Gods hand. Because the king turned away from his pride and so God blessed him. Everything he touched turned to gold. But then, with the ominous threatening envoy's were sent by the rulers of Babylon and they showed up to check out all his successes, what did God do? Did God perform more miracles and wonders? Did God show up with some flashy display of power? No. God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart. God searches, tests and probes our hearts. Now probe is a very strong word. It's an invasive word. I had to go to the doctor recently and he put a telescope in through my right nostril and it went down the back of my throat to look at my voice box. That's probing. It was very uncomfortable, very unpleasant, very invasive and I couldn't wait for him to stop doing it. Psalm 17, verse 3 says that God probes our hearts and examines us. Jeremiah chapter 20, verse 12 says that God examines the righteous and probes the heart and mind. Now this is pretty 'in your face' kind of stuff and there's a reason for that. Because God is so concerned about our hearts. The heart is the well spring of life. If we have a diseased heart, our life is going to be diseased. And God aches for us to have a healthy heart. God looks at the inner person. The inner man. The inner woman. 'Cause He wants to heal us. He wants to set things right in our hearts. Listen to me my friend. We go through life setting our hearts on all sorts of things. We go through life with our hearts torn and divided. We want to serve God. We want to love Him. But there's attractive, beautiful, external things that everyone else can see. They beckon us and that means our hearts are torn. Did you know that when our hearts desire wealth or fame or recognition, they become diseased with envy and pride? Have a listen to what Solomon writes, a great piece of wisdom from God, in Proverbs chapter 14, verse 30: A heart of peace gives life to the body but envy rots the bones. See God wants you and me to have peace. That's why He's concerned about our hearts because God has a plan to heal our hearts. Yours and mine. When we seek after God with all our heart. When our heart if full of His peace and His joy. Then we don't lose heart. Then we see Him just as He is. God wants the very, very best for you and me and He reserves the very best for those with a pure heart. That's why Jesus said: Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.
A prophet is someone who speaks the will of God. So let me ask you something – are there still prophets in this world today, or not? Does God still speak prophetically through some of His people today … or not? Well there's only one way to find out – what does His Word have to say on the subject? It's just fantastic to be with you at the beginning of another week and yes, we're continuing again this week in our look at how it is that God speaks to us today, right here and now in the 21st Century. It's interesting, way back in the Old Testament God spoke to His people through prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and all those Old Testament prophets – men who God called to speak His message to His people. Then in the New Testament He speaks to us, first and foremost through His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, and through the Apostles and the other writers of the New Testament books. And He's still using those to speak to us today by His Spirit. He speaks to us today through the Word of God. But it's interesting, the New Testament in particular tells how His Spirit speaks to us today. Sometimes it's easy to ignore that. It's easy to get all dull and boring about the way God communicates with us. But God is a stunningly creative communicator. There's nothing, absolutely nothing dull and boring about how God communicates with you and me. And one of the ways He does that is through the power of the prophetic. So today, that's what we're going to take a look at on the program. Now in embarking on this today I acknowledge that there are some amongst God's people who simply believe that there are no more prophets today; that this is something that belongs to the past and not the present. What's a prophet? Well, quite simply a prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of God; someone who speaks the will of God into the lives of God's people. Some people believe there are no prophets today, and yet other traditions and denominations really emphasise the prophetic dimension of God's communication and sadly some do so to the point of abusing the prophetic. What do I mean by that? Well, I don't carry any particular denomination baggage or tradition around this whole thing, my heart is simply to open up God's Word the Bible and figure out what is God saying and go with what God says. So that's precisely what we're going to do today. Let's take a look. This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth, after Jesus has died and risen again and ascended into heaven. This is the fledging New Testament church that the Apostle Paul is writing to. I'm going to read to you from 1 Corinthians chapter 12 beginning at verse 4. Have a listen: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. So here Paul's talking about supernatural gifts that are given to people in the family of God, and not just the special super-Christian leader people. Have a listen again to verse 7. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To each person, to each believer is given one or more of these supernatural gifts. Now I've heard people say, "Wow, wow, that was for back then not for now." This passage, 1 Corinthians 12, rolls straight on into 1 Corinthians 13, that famous passage about love that kind of says, you know you can have all the gifts under the sun, but unless you use them in love those gifts are useless. Now these same people love to quote 1 Corinthians chapter 13 but somehow, perhaps because, particularly in the west with our western mindset, we're uncomfortable with the idea that there might be supernatural gifts, things we can't explain rationally, we sometimes want to deny that this bit of the New Testament actually applies to us but accept other bits that make rational sense to us. I don't know what it is, but I find nothing – when we say nothing in the New Testament – that tells me that this theme of spiritual gifts, supernatural gifts was meant for then and not for now. Nothing. And the gifts? Words of wisdom, words of knowledge, extraordinary faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment of the Spirit, speaking in different kinds of tongues, interpreting different tongues. One of the arguments against words of wisdom and words of knowledge and prophecy is that these so called modern day prophets set themselves up above the Word of God. They can say things that don't agree with the scripture, God's Word. So what do we do with that? Well, I have to tell you. Like anything else good that God gives us, you can take it and you can abuse it. Absolutely. I've seen it happen in this area, where people go for emotionalism and they go for manipulation where they claim to be speaking on behalf of God but in fact they aren't. They are just operating out of their own flesh and their own desires. Is that a reason to believe that God doesn't use prophets? Just because something good from God can be abused doesn't mean that it's not a good thing from God. I mean, back in the Old Testament there were false prophets. Back in the New Testament we see that there were some false prophets. Just because men and women abuse a gift from doesn't mean that gift doesn't exist. There are several times in my life when someone has given a specific prophecy just for me, and all of those barring one, and that exception simply didn't ring true as being from God to me and to the other people that were there at the time, but the rest of those prophecies in fact, had a huge impact on my life. I look back on them now and they were major turning points. And you know, they weren't proud people coming to me with a "thus-sayeth-the-Lord" proclamation. One of the most powerful was from a man called Denis Adams. He works for a large Christian radio network called HCJB. It was at a conference. I had just taken over the reigns at Christianityworks here in this ministry and my predecessor had taken all our radio programs off air. There was almost no financial support and the ministry was almost dead and I didn't know what to do. I met Denis for the first time at a Christian Media Conference. He looked at my name tag, we didn't know each other, but he'd heard some of the short radio messages I'd put together in the past. And almost immediately tears welled up in his eyes, and with such passion and such conviction he said to me. "You have to start doing those radio programs again, you just have to." Well I tell you, Dennis' words pierced my heart that day and because of that we spent the last few thousand dollars the ministry had on producing the first series of these programs. At the time we had no idea how we were going to get onto any radio station anywhere. That was only six years ago, and today these programs are heard by millions of people each around the world. I know with all that I am that those words that Dennis Adams spoke to me that day were from God. That they were a prophecy, that without them I wouldn't be here today. Should we discern prophecies? Absolutely! Should we think them through and pray them through? Absolutely! Should we reject any that don't ring true? Absolutely! But, my friend, God's Word says that He's still speaking to us today through prophets. Why, oh why would we want to deny that? Why would we not want to hear when God has something specific to say to you and to me from His heart into our lives?
Ever been so thirsty you think you're going to die. And then – then you have a deep drink of fresh, cool, clear, living water. Awesome. In fact Jesus talked a lot about water. I remember when I was training to be an officer in the Army we used to go out on exercises for weeks at a time, war games and we'd be fighting this imaginary army and learning, I guess, how to fight battles. Back in those days the Army was heavily into water rationing, two water bottles per man, per day, perhaps. That was for shaving, washing, cleaning your teeth, cooking and drinking. In those hot summers with all the heavy physical work that a battle entails it was never enough, many a time we'd finish an attack up a steep hill in the middle of the noon day sun or be digging a trench and all I wanted was to guzzle down a whole bottle full of water. Of course you couldn't do that, then I'd close my eyes and imagine that I'd be swimming in a nice cool river with stacks and stacks of water. When you're that thirsty, what you really want is water in abundance, you want to be filled to overflowing. This week on the program we're looking at what it means to be filled by God to overflowing. Not just half full, not just full to the brim, filled so that we overflow all His goodness and His blessing. When we're really thirsty and we have a deep long drink, it is such a satisfying thing isn't it? I mean our need for water is one of the most basic of all needs. 70% of our body is water and after oxygen, water is our most important physical need. You can't go for very long without water. The body starts closing down some of it's functions and depending on the conditions, we can be dead within a couple of days. Or if you're stuck in a hot car without water, you can be dead in a few minutes in extreme heat. It's interesting that when Jesus was talking about His plan for our lives, He uses 'thirst' and "water" to explain what He means. I think it's because it's something we really can relate to. He meets a woman, a Samaritan woman, at a well and He says to her: Everyone who drinks out of this water will be thirsty again but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them, a spring of water gushing up into eternal life. Life gets thirsty and this week on the program we've been looking at what it means to be filled to overflowing because that's Jesus' plan, no ifs, not buts, "oh well, that's not my experience." Maybe not but it's Jesus' promise: Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give them will become in them, a spring of water gushing up into eternal life. I wonder sometimes whether in life we don't make things just a bit too complicated. For me, faith is a simple thing, I read what Jesus said, I hear what God has to say and then you say, "well okay, if that's from God, that's what I'm going to believe even if my circumstances are screaming at me saying, that's never going to be possible, you're never going to have a fountain of spring water gushing up in you." And every time my feelings or the things that are going around me scream at me, "God's a liar," I'm just going to pick that book up again and read what Jesus said again. I'm just going to believe Him and not them. Now you might say to me, "but Berni, that is unrealistic, I've been trying to have a life of peace and of joy and abundance, it seems like forever and it's just not happening for me." Look at His promise again, John chapter 7, verse 37, "If anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, rivers of living water will flow from them. By this He meant the Spirit whom those who believed in Jesus were later to receive." There are 3 parts to that promise. The first one is "if you're thirsty - get a drink". When life is dry and parched and empty, if ANYONE is thirsty (anyone means anyone) come to Jesus and He will fill us full of His water, a water that when we drink it, a living water, we'll never be thirsty again. And the second thing is He says, "whoever believes in Me", you see, it's a faith thing. When He says "whoever believes IN Me", that word "in" means literally 'into', so it says, 'whoever believes into Me'. You may have heard me say this before, I can look at a chair at a distant and believe that it will hold me and I'm believing in 'it' but if I want to believe "into" the chair, I walk over and I sit down and I say, "you see, the chair can hold me. I put my faith "into", my trust "into" the chair." And so Jesus says, "whoever believes in Me, whoever believes what I say, whoever reads what I said and says, 'you know something, like a little child I'm going to accept that from Jesus.' Whoever believes in Me, from their belly rivers of living water, not a trickle, not a stream, not a river, river's plural. Get the picture, an abundance, a flood tide of blessing of the Holy Spirit, "whoever believes in me, from their belly rivers of living water will flow out from them."' The last couple of days we've looked at some of the things that can stop that from happening, the blockages, our own rejection of God, the compromises, the sin, the devil in the spiritual realm robbing us of what God wants us to have and you might say, "Berni, I think you're being unrealistic. Well, I have problems and stresses and strains in my life." Absolutely, Jesus promises those too. Look at how He trained His disciples. He promised them all those things and He never promised them that He would somehow lift us out of those and exempt us from suffering. He promised the opposite, He said, "In this world you will have tribulation" but in the middle of all of that He promised that He would fill us to overflowing in this thirsty, parched, dry land. He would let us experience the incredible satisfaction of a deep drink of His spiritual water, of Him himself. Now we might be spiritually or emotionally thirsty or parched or dry and Jesus says, "Come to me and I will give you the Holy Spirit, I will fill you to overflowing." We're all different; we're all close to God in different ways. Some people do it by singing, other people like me get up early in the morning and pray, other people love to read, other people find Jesus just most in the middle of life and there are combinations and permutations of those. But the consistent message of Gods word is, when we draw close to Him; He draws close to us and that's a special thing and there is an incredible satisfaction in being filled full of Him and being filled full to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. He fills us in ways that nobody else can. The problem is so many people have been living so dry for so long they've accepted that as being normal. I meet so many spiritually dry people. We think everybody else is like that, we can't imagine how God could ever fill us with His spirit, how He could ever make a fountain of living water bubbling up but that's what He wants to do, that's the normative of Christian life. Don't accept anything less; don't settle for anything less than the fullness of God in your life, the very presence of Jesus through His spirit in us. Thirst, then wait to be filled by Him and just don't accept anything less
There's nothing worse than a hypocrite. One of the things we're called to be, if we believe in Jesus, is Ambassadors of Christ. But if how we live our lives – what we say, what we do – if our lives don't measure up – then what sort of Ambassadors are you and I going to make? When people look at us – what do they see? An Ambassador, or a hypocrite? Let me ask you a question, if you're someone who believes in Jesus and who drives a car, do you have some sort of Jesus bumper sticker? One of those fish stickers on your bumper bar. Maybe, maybe not. It's okay even if you don't, that's okay, I don't either. But if you had to put one on your car, let me ask you, does your behaviour on the road as a driver match up to the message of the sticker? I mean, are you a courteous driver who obeys all the road rules or do you break the speed limit, honk your horn at people and yell at them from the inside of your car? I guess if you're a courteous driver it will be okay to have a fish sticker or a Jesus sticker on your car because your behaviour is a good advertisement for God. In effect because what you advertise on the sticker and how you behave, they match up and so the message works. On the other hand, can you imagine a rude impatient driver who's constantly breaking the road rules, identifying themselves as a Christian by some sticker they put on their car. Not a very good ad for God is it? And it turns out that who we say we are, who we hold ourselves out to be and who we actually are, in what we say and what we do, if those two don't match up, well there's a name for that. We call those people hypocrites. Over this past week on the program we've talked about living our lives as ambassadors of Christ. The key Bible verse that I've been quoting and forgive me if you've been with us each day and you've heard it before but I'm assuming some people haven't. The key Bible verse I've been sharing this week is 2 Corinthians chapter 5; verse 20 where the Apostle Paul writes: We are ambassadors for Christ since God is making His appeal through us. In other words, God, just as He used the Apostle Paul, wants to involve you and me in the business of making His appeal to the rest of the world. Now, what we've seen over the course of the week is that we don't all have to be Paul's to do that. Diplomacy, which is the role of an ambassador, mostly happens in one on one relationships where trust is built, so governments have relationships and a place and a forum to resolve difficult issues. That's the point of diplomacy and it's the role of an ambassador. I think sometimes we're mislead into thinking, "Oh wow, an ambassador of Christ, well that would have to be the Pastor's role, not me 'cause it sounds like flashy up front kind of title'. And yesterday we saw that in order to be an ambassador for say India, we have to be Indian. If we're Swedish no one's going to believe we're the Indian ambassador, right? Who we are on the inside really counts, that's why God promised us something new. Ezekiel chapter 36:26: A new heart, God said, I will give you. A new spirit I will put within you. I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Now we can't change who we are on the outside until we've had a change of heart on the inside. I've tried it, you've tried it, it doesn't work. If something first happens in our hearts to change us on the inside, then changing on the outside is kind of a natural progression of that, it's much easier. That's what we talked about yesterday. Today we're going to follow on with a natural continuation of that. Today we're going to look at how important it is, who we are on the outside is consistent with whom we say we are on the inside. And that's why I kicked off with that story of the bumper sticker. It's kind of obvious isn't it? Now I'm not suggesting that you or I are ever going to live a perfect life. I pretty much make mistakes every day, you probably do too and no one expects us to be perfect. But either how we live declares that our heart and our life has been changed by God or it doesn't. And if it doesn't then without putting too fine a point on it, we're being hypocrites. That's something that Jesus identified in the religious leaders of His day. They pretended to be O so holy on the outside but on the inside, well have a listen to what Jesus said to them. Matthew chapter 23, verses 25 and 26: Woe to you Scribes and Pharisee's, you hypocrites. For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate but inside they're full of greed and self indulgence. You blind Pharisee's, first clean the inside of the cup so that the outside may also become clean. Pretty in your face isn't it? But you know, I'm comforted by that. I like it that Jesus is concerned about both our hearts, who we are on the inside, and our hands, who we are on the outside. If someone came to me and said to me, "You know Berni, I've heard what you've been saying, I've decided I want to be an ambassador of Christ, what do you think is the most important thing?" Well, this is how I would answer. "The first thing is your heart and your relationship with God, being completely sold out to Him. If you don't have that then you can't pretend." "And the second thing is how we behave because if you say that you're one thing and you do completely the opposite, people will pick you as a phoney (Berni clicks his fingers) like that. And then, instead of shining Gods light into the world, you've just turned people off." Let me give you an example. My country, Australia, has a strong relationship with the United States, has had for a good many years. Now imagine that the US government appoints a new ambassador to Australia and sends him across the pond to our country and within a few months we discover he's a lecherous drunk who can't keep his hands off women, whether or not he happens to be any good at his trade of diplomacy. And scandal after scandal involving this new ambassador hits the news and the press. How do you imagine such a person would influence the view that we Australians have, not only of the US government but of the American people? It wouldn't be good for the relationship, it would be devastating wouldn't it? Not only would this so called ambassador hurt the people around him but he'd bring his nation and his people into disrepute. And that's why the lives we lead as Christians are so important. Come on, let's get real. Does hypocrisy display the glory of God? No, it brings God and Gods people as a whole into disrepute. 'Oh those Christians, they're just a bunch of hypocrites.' And God, God doesn't like hypocrites. Listen again to Jesus, Matthew chapter 23, verse 25: Woe to you Scribes and Pharisee's. You hypocrites for you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate but inside you're full of greed and self indulgence. People talk about missional living, living out our lives as missionaries in this world. You know, I think the biggest thing that we can do to live missionally is to live a holy life. What's a holy life? It's a life where the cup and the plate are clean on the inside first as well as the outside. Peter the Apostle sums it up like this. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 14-16: Like obedient children do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead as He who called you is holy be holy yourselves in all your conduct. For it is written, 'You shall be holy for I am holy'. My friend, there is something wonderful and utterly sublime when we roll up our sleeves with God and we get to clean the inside as well as the outside and here's the thing, people notice. People sit up and take note and think to themselves, "You know, there's something different about that person. Something good. Something I trust. Something I want." And there, right there in that place, clean on the inside, clean on the outside we have an ambassador of Christ.