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Το περιεχόμενο παρέχεται από το Christianityworks and Berni Dymet. Όλο το περιεχόμενο podcast, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των επεισοδίων, των γραφικών και των περιγραφών podcast, μεταφορτώνεται και παρέχεται απευθείας από τον Christianityworks and Berni Dymet ή τον συνεργάτη της πλατφόρμας podcast. Εάν πιστεύετε ότι κάποιος χρησιμοποιεί το έργο σας που προστατεύεται από πνευματικά δικαιώματα χωρίς την άδειά σας, μπορείτε να ακολουθήσετε τη διαδικασία που περιγράφεται εδώ https://el.player.fm/legal.
There is such incredible power in God’s Word! Power to change. Power to make an impact in this world. That’s what Christianityworks is all about – in depth teaching straight out of God’s Word. Join Berni Dymet as he opens God's Word to discover what God has to say into your life, today.
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Σήμανση όλων ότι έχουν ή δεν έχουν αναπαραχθεί ...
Manage series 3561224
Το περιεχόμενο παρέχεται από το Christianityworks and Berni Dymet. Όλο το περιεχόμενο podcast, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των επεισοδίων, των γραφικών και των περιγραφών podcast, μεταφορτώνεται και παρέχεται απευθείας από τον Christianityworks and Berni Dymet ή τον συνεργάτη της πλατφόρμας podcast. Εάν πιστεύετε ότι κάποιος χρησιμοποιεί το έργο σας που προστατεύεται από πνευματικά δικαιώματα χωρίς την άδειά σας, μπορείτε να ακολουθήσετε τη διαδικασία που περιγράφεται εδώ https://el.player.fm/legal.
There is such incredible power in God’s Word! Power to change. Power to make an impact in this world. That’s what Christianityworks is all about – in depth teaching straight out of God’s Word. Join Berni Dymet as he opens God's Word to discover what God has to say into your life, today.
…
continue reading
100 επεισόδια
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×Stress is affecting so many people – in fact, it’s a global pandemic. And what we’ve all discovered is that the shallow, band aid solutions that the world offers us, simply don’t work. What we need is power. Power to deal with the stress in our lives, once and for all. Have a Cheerful Heart Sometimes we need to be pretty direct, pretty blunt about dealing with the blockages in our lives that are interrupting the flow of the power of God in our life. Because God means to bring all His power to bear to deal with the stress that we suffer from, but sometimes, we’re working against Him and then we’re wondering – hang on, where’s that power that Jesus promised? So … … Sorry to be a bit blunt here, but it doesn’t hurt every now and then we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves some questions like that. So – are you one of those people that exudes joy or sadness; a positive outlook, or a negative outlook; encouragement or discouragement? Which one are you? Are you a sad sack? Or do you fluctuate between the two – up on the mountain-tops one day, down in the dumps the next? The reason I’m asking is that if you’re someone who spends more than a little time down in the dumps, then it’s having an impact on you … it’s having an impact on the people around you … and it’s having an impact on your relationship with them. That’s pretty far-reaching. Because if we damage relationships, we damage career prospects, we damage marriages, we damage our children. This is serious stuff. Stress is debilitating and a negative, untrusting attitude that focuses on the problem rather than the on the God who can make all the difference, interrupts the power that He wants to pour out on us. On top of that, the world wants us to believe that we can wave a magic wand and make stress disappear. Here’s what one of those body and soul web sites recommends. Ten quirky stress busters it’s called. Chew gum, eat chocolate (oh that’ll be just fine and dandy when you come down off your sugar high), get a cat, keep a diary, do some yoga, hum a tune, blow up a balloon, snack on walnuts (Well, that is a lot better than sugar filled gum and chocolate I have to admit), have a laugh or ring your mum. Oh please … stress is so much deeper and more profound in our lives. It’s a constant companion for many, many people – everything stresses them, or if not everything, then they go through prolonged periods of stress over one or two very important issues or situations in their lives. You’ve probably figured out that eating walnuts (as good as that maybe for you) is not going to solve the problems in your life or relieve your stress. At least I’m hoping you have. You see the world’s answer to stress is to conjure something up out of nothing . Or to apply en external band-aid, to heal a deep, internal wound. Have you ever had this experience? You’re driving along in the car and it’s bright and sunny – so you pop your sunglasses on. But gradually the clouds roll in and at some point you’re thinking, it is so dark and gloomy today. Then you realise you’re wearing your sunnies so you take them off and it’s only then you realise that it’s nowhere near as dark and gloomy as you thought it was. Sure the clouds have rolled in, sure it’s overcast, but not that dark and gloomy. The attitudes of our hearts are a lot like those sunglasses. Some people are walking through difficult times, with a gloomy, darkened heart, and so the whole experience feels about a hundred times worse than what it really is. God knows that and that’s why He’s concerned over the state of your heart. Have a listen to some of the things He says in His Word about what’s going on in your heart: An anxious heart weighs you down, but a kind word, cheers you up. (Proverbs 12:25) A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit. (Proverbs 15:13) A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 17:22) God’s interested in the state of your heart. He’s interested in what’s going on in your life. Now last time we chatted about how to get God’s peace guarding your heart and your mind – do you remember? Philippians Chapter 4, verses 6 and 7: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Simply by praying instead of worrying, giving thanks, laying out our worries and concerns and needs openly before God, He will replace the fear and stress and worry with His peace which will actually guard your heart and your mind. Imagine, God’s peace standing guard around you to keep worry and stress away. That’s a pretty good deal. But what the Apostle Paul goes on to say straight after that – writing as he is from his cell on death row – is equally instructive in terms of how to foster that peace and how to keep the cheerfulness and joy that God’s peace brings, strong in our inside. Philippians 4:8,9: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. So, instead of mulling over the bad stuff and what might go wrong, think about the good stuff. Now, you might say to me, I can’t control what I think. Sure you can. When you find yourself thinking about something negative, you can choose to think about something positive. Try it, it actually works – and if you’re struggling you go back to prayer and the Holy Spirit, who is – remember – guarding your heart and mind with God’s peace, that same Holy Spirit is right there in you to be a part of that and to help you. Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as your counsellor and comforter. And now the exciting thing that happens, is that we get benefit from that on the inside, but other people, the people around us get benefit from that as it oozes out of us on the outside. Do you want to be glum? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being downcast? Do you want to be feeling down in the dumps all the time? Of course you don’t. So now you implement these two simple things – pray instead of worrying, and when you find your mind wandering into the down things, grab it back – with the help of the Holy Spirit who is on your inside and who’s on your side – and focus it on the good stuff. The stuff that God is about in your life. The things that bring you joy, the things that God’s doing, God’s faithfulness, the fantastic things He’s done in the past. And now, you are living a much, much better life on the inside. You’re at peace. Your heart is cheerful – Jesus wants you to have a cheerful heart. Remember what He said to His disciples, John 16:33: In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. So, now your life is much better, now this peace and joy is oozing out of you, and all of a sudden – you can’t help it – you want to encourage others. You’re having an impact on their life: A cheerful look brings joy to the heart and good news gives health to the bones. (Proverbs 15:30) So the cheerful look on your face is going to bring joy to someone else’s heart. The encouraging word that you give to them, the good news that you can share with them, is going to give health and life to their bones. Your joy touches their lives. Your life improves. Their life improves. Your relationship with them improves. All because you took the time and the wisdom of God to lay hold of the peace and the joy that God has for you. Talk about a stress buster! Not bad, eh? And on top of all that, the Bible tells us that the joy of the Lord is your strength. Do you get it? When we let the joy of God fill us amidst the gloom, all of a sudden, we experience His strength, and His power. Lift Up Your Eyes Well, over these last few weeks, we’ve been chatting about how to deal with the stress in our lives. Not that all stress is bad – some stress from time to time helps to get things done, gets us to sharpen our game and deliver and perform. Think about an athlete about to run the 100 metre dash at the Olympics will harness that nervous energy, let’s call it, as they line up on the starting blocks. That’s a good thing. It’s just not good, if we’re constantly living our lives under stress. And so we’ve been chatting –in this series that I’ve called Stress Busters – about dealing with the root cause of the stress. No band-aid solutions, like listening to soothing music, or having a nice cup of tea, or patting your cat. They’re all nice and lovely, but when we’re under real stress, all those things do is alleviate the symptoms for a short time. What we need, is to deal with the root cause of the stress. Now immediately people think stress, root cause – oh right. It’s that person, that situation, that medical diagnosis, that thing out there – that’s what I have to deal with. Well, perhaps you do. But pressure and stress are two different things. Those things out there put pressure on us. But stress is all about how we react to them, so if we're looking for the root cause of our stress, it lies inside us, in our hearts, in our minds. In what we feel and what we think. So we’ve chatted in this series about some real, stress busters. Things that deal with the root cause. Learning to trust in God. Learning how to develop a quiet confidence in Him and how to pray the prayer of peace. How to have a cheerful heart – if you missed any of those messages, you’ll find them all in the Series Stress Busters on our website christianityworks.com. So … I’d like to bring all of those lessons together in a practical, case study if you will, by sharing the story of a woman called Hannah. She was the Prophet Samuel’s mother in the Old Testament of the Bible. But as with many of the great things that God is doing, Samuel’s entry into the world wasn’t an easy one. At least, not for Hannah. It was a very stressful time. In fact, she was deeply, deeply distressed over a long period of time. So just sit back and have a listen to her story – it’s real, it’s stressful … and it’s beautiful. Here we go, 1 Samuel 1:1–18: There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. He had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb. So it went on year by year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she used to provoke her. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah said to her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?’ After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. She made this vow: ’O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and do not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.’ As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’ But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ So Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.’ And she said, ‘Let your servant find favour in your sight.’ Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. It's a beautiful story isn’t it? You can’t help but feel for Hannah and what she was going through. It was a really big thing in that culture for her not to be able to have a child. The basic belief was that if you were a good person who honoured God, He would bless you with many children. But if you weren’t, He wouldn’t. So Hannah was looked down upon by all in sundry. Particularly, Penniniah, her rival we’re told. The other wife who was delivering plenty of sons. Just imagine how much stress this was putting on Hannah. Firstly, she couldn’t have children – any woman whose body clock is ticking and who desperately wants kids but can’t have them – knows how devastating that is, just on it’s own. But now add to that the constant niggling and whispering and derision from ‘her rival’ – there they were, these two women, competing for their husband’s affections – I just can’t begin to imagine what an awful, additional layer of stress that heaped on Hannah. And then there were the social and religious expectations – everyone treating her like she was some sinner or leper. She could have spent the rest of her life wallowing in that morass of pain and self-pity. But Hannah took some decisive action. She poured it all out to God. Instead of constantly looking down at her terrible circumstances, she lifted her gaze and looked up to Him and, deeply distressed we’re told, poured her heart out to God and asked Him to do something. And before she even got an answer, before she even fell pregnant, listen again to the impact of this prayer on her whole being, on her countenance, on her life: Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer. There you have it. The peace that passes all understanding. She did exactly what Paul the Apostle counselled his friends in Philippi to do over two thousand years later: Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God and the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. ( Philippians 4:7,8) We don't need to clean up our act before we go to God. We don’t have to be all confidence and self-assured and ‘together’. He just calls us to come as we are and pour it all out. And you should never, ever be afraid to do that. In fact elsewhere, in the New Testament book of Hebrews, this is what God says to us about this very thing: Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) Don’t you love that word – with boldness. So as our time in this series – Stress Busters – draws to a close, let me counsel you to do exactly the same. Do what Hannah did – lift up your eyes and pour your stress out on God, and my friend, He will act. And whatever the outcome to your stressful situation, He will give you peace. That’s just what He does. God is a God who brings His power to bear for the people whom He loves – His people, the people who have put their trust in Jesus His Son. He doesn’t always take away the person or the situation that causes the stress, but what He does do, is He works in our hearts, He gives us strength and courage and joy and peace and power to remove the stress. But there’s one thing … on thing that robs us of all that. And that’s the thing we're going to talk about. Blackout Have you ever been in a power blackout? Here where I live, they’re quite rare. But in many parts of the world, they’re a daily occurrence and in some parts of the world, there’s no power at all. I travel quite a bit and I regularly find myself in places where there’s no power or there are constant blackouts. In a sense, you get used to it pretty quickly. When you’re sitting and talking in a meeting and the power goes out, you just keep on talking until either the generator cuts in, or … if there’s no generator, until the power comes back on. It’s just a fact of life. You learn to live with it. But when I come back home again, to a place where the power almost never goes out, I have to tell you, it’s a much, much better way to live. I think in the three years that I’ve been living in our current apartment, we’ve lost power perhaps once or twice. Many people are living their lives, spiritually, emotionally, morally, either in a state of regular power outages, blackouts, or in a place without any power at all. And the thing that flicks the switch on God’s power in their lives, is their sin. Have a listen to this, the Apostle Paul, Ephesians 1:17–21: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. Paul’s praying that his friends in Ephesus would realise the certain hope, the riches of their inheritance, and the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that they already have in Christ. The very same power that raised Jesus from the dead and put Him above everything and everyone. Do you see – God means to bring that power, that life-giving power, to bear in your life, to give you the new life that Jesus died and rose again to give you. But when we rebel against God, when we turn our backs on Him through our sin, the power stops. Why? What good father would continue to reward and bless his child when the child is rebelling? As much as the father loves the child, he stops the flow of blessing, so that the child will realise its mistake, and come back to him. It’s what dads do. And it’s the same with God: Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:7) One of the most stressful things that we can ever do is to rebel against God – we talked about that earlier in this series. And as God calls us back to Him, often He turns the heat up on our stress, as we live through the consequences of our sin and our rebellion. When we keep struggling against and kicking against God, when we run away from His goodness and His plans for our life, man, be prepared for a wilderness experience, right? And I know that there are a few people in that place right at the moment. You’re experiencing extreme stress, because you’ve turned your back on God. Well, in a moment we’re going to pray together. And this is what we’re going to pray about. Peter said to them: ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’. (Acts 2:38) Do you see, when you repent, when you turn back to God, He promises you the power, the power of the Holy Spirit. The greatest stress buster of them all.…
There are all sorts of things in this world that cause us stress. And I’ve heard so many ridiculous ways of relieving it – have a cup of tea. Take a hot shower. Okay – so they might relieve the symptoms for a short while. But what we need are some powerful solutions to the root cause of our stress. Trust in the LORD When you Google stress relief, mostly what you discover is relaxation techniques. Take a hot bath. Watch some television to get your mind off things. Spend more time with friends. Some will even tell you to go and practise yoga and meditation. Play stress relief games. Identify your stress responses and manage them. Well, it all sounds great, but here’s the problem I have with all of those things. They’re a bit like taking an aspirin for a headache. They may alleviate the symptoms for a short while, but they don’t solve the problem by treating the cause. If your headache is caused by a brain tumour, hey; aspirin just ain’t going to do it. You need something that goes to the root cause. The same is true with stress and anxiety. You know, a mistake we make when we think about the root cause of our stress is we imagine that the root cause is that thing out there somewhere that’s causing us stress. It’s that difficult person; it’s that difficult relationship; it’s the fact that I’m struggling with my finances or I’ve had a bad medical diagnosis from the doctor. It’s that thing out there that’s causing me the stress. If I can get rid of that, then I won’t have any more stress in my life. That’s our rationale. That’s what we think, but stress is our response to a situation. Stress is something we do to ourselves. Of course, sometimes scary things happen. Someone we love dies, and the process of grieving is stressful. We lose our job, and the process of dealing with our finances can be stressful, but a lot of what we stress out about is totally manageable, except for the fact that we’re stressing out over it. Stress, anxiety, fear ... Those things immobilise us. They stop us from doing the things we need to do to deal with the situation, so when I’m talking about dealing with the root cause of stress, I’m actually talking about dealing with whatever’s going on inside you that’s causing the stress response, because each and every day of your life and mine pretty much is going to bring along circumstances and situations and people and stuff that have the potential to cause us stress. It’s one thing to have an initial response of fear or shock when something potentially stressful comes our way; it’s another thing entirely to spend the rest of the week, the rest of the year, the rest of your life, stressing out about it. So let me share my number one, numero uno , stress buster with you right now. Trust in the LORD your God. I know it sounds like a cop-out; it sounds like a platitude, but in a moment, I’m going to tell you why it’s the one solution that decisively deals with stress. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. The thing that causes us stress by and large is when something that has the potential to negatively impact our lives is completely outside our control. Would you agree? The doctor tells you that she’s detected a tumour on your scan, but she doesn’t know yet whether it’s malignant or benign, or whether they’re going to be able to operate on it and get it all out. So much is out of your control in that scenario, and your very life hangs in the balance. Stress! Now bring God into the picture. There are three key facts that I want you to note about God in this stressful scenario: Here’s the first one. He loves you beyond measure. In fact, He loves you so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die and to pay for your sins, to give you eternal life, so there’s absolutely no question about how much He loves you. Secondly, nothing escapes Him. He never fails to notice what you’re going through. If He knows exactly how many hairs you have on your head, and He does because the Bible tells us that, then He surely knows what you’re going through, and the third thing is that nothing is outside His control. If He created the universe, friend, He has the power to deal with anything and everything that’s going on in your life. Now, you put those three facts together and what you have is a compassionate, loving God who completely understands, and who has just the right plan for your life. He knows what to do, when to do it, and how to get it done, and He will do it. The Bible has a name for that: It’s called faithfulness. The writer of the book of Lamentations was looking over the destruction and the devastation after the Babylonians had completely and utterly destroyed Jerusalem, and taken God’s chosen people into captivity as slaves. He pours his heart out, which is why the book is called Lamentations, but then despite what he sees, despite the devastation and the pain and the stress that he feels in his heart, he comes to this conclusion. Lamentations 3:22-24: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my Portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him. My friend, no matter what you’re going through at the moment, no matter what lies ahead, no matter what the devastation and the ruin that your eye can see, your God is faithful; and when you put your trust in Him, all of a sudden, the stress goes away because He can and will act to make sure that His steadfast love plays itself out in your life. Look. Each one of us is going to die sooner or later, and along the way, each one of us is going to have financial problems, health problems, relationship problems, inadequacies, insecurities ... There are more than enough in each week to get you and me to stress ourselves into an early grave. Listen. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. Let me tell you, no amount of relaxation techniques – yoga, TV, dinner with friends, hot showers, hot cups of tea – none of that stuff is going to come anywhere close to the impact of trusting your God with all your heart. He knows what to do; He has the power to do it; He loves you so much. Ok, we are going to die one day. That’s part of His plan, but in the meantime, friend, He loves you so much. Whatever you’re going through, He’s in that place with you, and He is worthy of your trust. Develop a Quiet Confidence We kind of stress out about our kids and our jobs and how we look and what other people think. We stress out about tomorrow. What will that bring? We stress out about ... Well, we stress out about just about anything or everything. Let me ask you this. What are you stressed over right now? What’s the thorn in your side that keeps on making you worry about this or that? Pretty much everybody can name at least two or three things that are causing them to stress out right at the moment. Jesus hit the nail on the head when He asked this rhetorical question. Luke 6:27: Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of your life? Well, that’s pretty much it. That right there just shows us how utterly useless worry and stress are. They don’t achieve anything positive. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Stress and worry often immobilise us from doing the things that we can and need to do to deal with that situation that’s causing us the pressure and the stress in the first place. We just kind of sit there on the sofa worrying about it, when getting up and doing A or B would actually reduce the risk or fix the problem altogether. Now you can call me crazy; plenty of people do ... Call me crazy, but let me throw this out there for you to think about. This is absolutely no way for you to live your life, or for me to live my life. Would you agree? I mean, being stressed all the time is totally nuts. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t achieve anything good, and yet countless people are caught up in chronic, repetitive, day-after-day, lifelong stress, and for what? So let me ask you, what if you could replace that with a quiet confidence? Not some false bravado; just a quiet sense of confidence on the inside that you know it’s going to be fine. What if that were the overriding mind-set in your life, in place of the person who worries and stresses about everything? Would it be a worthwhile thing to achieve? Well, that’s what I’m aiming for in your life today, not because I happen to be particularly smart or insightful or brilliant; I’m none of those things, but because the Word of God has the power to transform your life completely and utterly. If only you will receive this mighty, powerful Word of God in your heart today, your life can be utterly transformed. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. ‘This guy hasn’t a clue what I’m going through. How can he possibly say that?’ And in part you are right; I absolutely don’t have a clue, but God does. I don’t have the wisdom, but God does. I don’t have the power to transform your heart and your mind and your thoughts and your emotions or your life, but God does. Have a listen to this. It’s about a guy called Joshua. For the last forty or so years, he’s been playing second fiddle to a guy called Moses, leading God’s people (probably over a million of them) through the wilderness: Relying on God for food, and for water, and for protection every step of the way. Moses (the leader) has just died, just at the point when they’re about to cross over the Jordan river into the land that God’s promised them; just at the point where they have to gear up for battle after battle because the promised land is full of other tribes and nations, and they’re going to have to take it by force. Just at that point Moses, the proven, trusted, experienced, wise leader ups and dies, and Joshua is put in charge. Stress? Absolutely! Stress with a capital ‘S”. This is life and death stress. If you put yourself in Joshua’s shoes, man, you’d really be stressing. Right? Well he must have been, because this is what God says to Joshua right at this point in his life. Joshua 1:1: After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, ‘My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I’m giving to them – to the Israelites. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness of Lebanon as far as the Great River, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites and to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them; only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with the Law that my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it, for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.’ No less than three times, God says to Joshua: ‘Be strong and courageous’, and one of those times he says, ‘Be strong and very courageous’. Why? Because God has a plan. God is in this, and God will see His plan through, despite the overwhelming odds, despite the impossibility of the task. It’s about God and who He is, not the enemy and who they are. Let me say it again: It’s about God and who He is, not the enemy and who they are, and the foundation of Joshua’s confidence is to be what? God’s Word. "Stay in My Word; think about it; meditate on it day and night, so that it doesn’t depart from you." As you read on through this book of Joshua, you see that under his leadership, Israel faced many, many life and death, stressful situations, but God called him to do it with confidence. You know, sometimes, our confidence is misplaced. We put our confidence in our strengths and abilities; we put our confidence in money or other people, but won’t place our confidence in God. When He’s the One we look to and we trust, lean on and co-operate with, then that confidence – my friend, it’s never misplaced. Hey, listen. Without faith it’s impossible to please God. God wants us to put our trust in Him during those difficult, stressful, dangerous, scary situations. That’s the whole point! We develop this quiet confidence as we experience His faithfulness, and that’s what carries us through. Pray the Prayer of Peace Listen. You and I are going to find ourselves in stressful situations from time to time; we just are. It’s par for the course. In a very real sense, it’s kind of what’s meant to happen, and for anyone in a stressful situation right now, my prayer is that just knowing that gives you some comfort. We all end up there from time to time. The question now is, what do we do about it? How are we going to respond in this moment of crisis? Well, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been taught that the right thing to do is to put your faith in God. That’s exactly what we’ve been chatting about on the program so far in this series of messages. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths. And the other one that we looked at earlier, Lamentations 3:22-24: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my Portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him. And what did He say to Joshua? Joshua 1:5-7: As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you nor forsake you. Be strong; be courageous, for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. You see, each of those Scriptures that we’ve been looking at point us in absolutely the right direction, without a doubt, but anybody who’s been in a deeply stressful situation, and particularly anyone who’s there right now in that stressful situation, is sitting there thinking: ‘Well, look, that’s all fantastic and nice, Berni. I know those Scriptures too, but how do I do that? How do I put my trust in God? How can I be strong and courageous when I feel so weak and helpless?’ And unless you get the answers to those questions, then the Scriptures we just read and plenty more of them to boot, they’re just going to make you feel more and more condemned – more and more like you’re failing God, because you can’t conjure up that trust and that faith and that strength. Am I right? So right now, we’re going to get the answers to those questions and not from me, but from God because He always has the answers. God knows how you and I can lay hold of that courage and confidence in God, because He loves us. He tells us very clearly, very plainly in His Word how to do that, and to be honest, in my walk with the Lord over the past ... mmm ... almost twenty years, this has probably been the most important how-to that I have ever learnt. Are you ready? Here we go. Stress buster number three. It comes from Philippians 4:6-7: Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is a very plain piece of Scripture. There are not a lot of hidden meanings there, but you’d be amazed, amazed at how easily we skate over the surface of it and completely miss the point. I think I may have told this story once before on the program a few years back, so if you’ve heard it, just get over it (I’m just kidding). I was sitting in a Bible-study with a bunch of people who’d been Christians for many years, much longer than I had. We were studying this particular passage in Philippians 4. It was interesting; people hedged around – this, that; yeah, we all worry ... The discussion went on for ten or fifteen minutes and at the end of it, the Bible-study group-leader summarised it along these lines: ‘Well, yeah. God wants us to have peace but still, we’re just going to worry, aren’t we?’ The crazy thing was that everyone seemed to nod in agreement with him and we were about to move on. Well, I don’t know; I was only the new kid on the block, but I couldn’t help myself. I kind of let out this loud, agitated, ‘No!’ I don’t think anyone had ever heard that before because there was stunned silence and all the eyeballs were on me, and I think my wife wished that the floor would swallow us both up, so I went at it with both barrels. I said, ‘Look at what this says. It’s a promise from God through the apostle Paul, who (by the way) was sitting on death row in a dungeon when he wrote this thing.’ God’s saying, ‘Look. Instead of worrying, pray. The time that you would have spent worrying and stressing out about this stuff, take that time and spend it differently. Take that time that you would have spent stressing, and pray instead’. Thank God. Let Him know your problems and your needs and your requests, right there in the stressful situation that you find yourself in, and when you do that, says God through Paul, here’s the promise bit: The peace of God which surpasses all understanding. There’s this peace that in this situation, in this circumstance, simply doesn’t make any worldly sense. That peace will not just fill your heart; it’ll guard your heart and your mind in Christ. Now, think of the power of that. When worry comes along, when stress comes along and hits you, when it attacks you, when it knocks on the door of your heart and your mind, God’s peace in Christ Jesus will be standing as a mighty, powerful, God-given sentinel to the door of your heart and mind. God’s peace in Christ will guard your heart and your mind, and the impact of that: Think of a fortress being guarded by a mighty army. The opposing army simply can’t get in, and so in this case, the worry and the stress just won’t be able to get in because God’s peace will keep it out. Hey, that’s God’s promise here, so let me ask you this: Do you believe God’s Word or not? Do you believe that this is God’s promise to you, or not? It’s one way or the other. I don’t know if they got it, these people in this home group that we were talking about, but I’m praying that you get it. The way that we appropriate the peace of God, the way that we lay hold of it, the way that we grab it with both hands and hang onto it, is by praying to God with a thankful heart, and pouring out our feelings and our needs on God. Let me tell you something. If you’re in a stressful situation and you take this one promise, just this one Scripture (two verses) and start living it out by making it a habit to get away alone with God and pray and spend time with Him and pour your heart out and give Him thanks, I guarantee you that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will become the sentinel of your heart and your mind and your life. There’s your stress buster. There’s your peace, and remember, it’s a peace that given your circumstances, you really shouldn’t be able to feel. You shouldn’t be able to have. It’s a peace that in the face of this stressful situation simply doesn’t make sense. That’s why Paul calls it the peace which surpasses all understanding, but you know what? It doesn’t have to make sense, because peace is peace, and God’s peace is God’s peace, and I will take that in place of the world’s stress any day. How about you?…
Sometimes stress is triggered by other people or circumstances – things out there, many of which we don’t have any control over. Other times, it’s something that we bring on ourselves. Whichever of those two it happens to be, you and I, we need to know how to handle stress. The Stress of Circumstance I wish I could tell you that there is something that you could do to avoid every stressful situation and circumstance in this world. Wouldn’t it be fantastic? But it just wouldn’t be real. Because no matter who we are, where we live, how young or old we are, how rich or poor we are … there are going to be those days when tough, difficult, stressful situations and circumstances arise. Sure, some stressful things are avoidable. We’ve been talking about those already in this series that I’ve called, "Stress Busters". And when it comes to dealing with needless, avoidable stress – I’m definitely all for that! But some stressful situations are totally unavoidable, and they’re the ones that we’re going to chat about for a few minutes today. Because it seems to me that the trick isn’t to hide our heads in the sand and pretend that we can make them go away. The trick is flourishing amidst the stress. Now, you might think that’s a crazy idea! Flourishing amidst the stress? Get off the grass, who are you trying to kid? I know … I know that’s what some people are thinking right now. But this isn’t my idea. It’s something that Jesus came up with. It’s something that He said to His disciples right at the most stressful point in His relationship with them. He was soon to be crucified – the plot to kill Him was well afoot and His disciples could feel it. Not only was Jesus threatened, but they were probably wondering: well, are we going to be next? When they come to arrest Jesus and nail Him to a cross, are they going to do the same to us? There can’t be any greater level of stress than that. So right at that point, right at that moment, this is what Jesus says to them: The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you, so that you may have peace. In this world you will face tribulation. But take courage; I have conquered the world. (John 16:32-33) So, the persecution is coming, they’re about to be scattered, running in fear for their lives, and Jesus tells them in this world you will face persecution. The original Greek word there that sits aback of the English translation for "persecution" is thlipsis , it means pressure, stress – literally it means to have the life squeezed out of you. Just fantastic Lord, they must have been thinking. Thanks for that, just what we needed to know. A promise from God right in the moment when we’re in fear of our lives and Jesus tells us – in this world you will have the life squeezed out of you. Perfect! But Jesus doesn’t leave it there. He goes on to say: but take courage, be of good cheer, don’t worry, because I have conquered the world. All this I’ve said to you so that in Me you might have … peace. The exact opposite of stress. Which would you rather have in your life – peace or stress? Well, peace obviously! But here’s the nub of what Jesus is saying – you can have that peace, right in this place where the life is being squeezed out of you. Did you get that? Jesus is saying – look, you won’t always be able to avoid the pressure, in fact one thing is for certain, you will have pressure, you will feel squeezed. But in the middle of that you can have confidence and peace, because I have overcome the world – something they would just see in a few short days later when Jesus rose from the grave and appeared to them. And friend, that’s His message for you today. I love how this powerful truth works its way out in the life and the ministry of Paul the Apostle, who down the track, had more than his fair share of pressure. Have a listen to what he writes from out in the field, out on assignment preaching the Good News of Jesus into a hostile world. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 8 to 11: We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction that we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we could not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. There it is again, the same word that Jesus used for persecution, that exact same word thlipsis – unbearably crushed so that in their despair they thought they were going to die. You’d call that serious stress, right? And yet in the middle of all that, what gave them strength and peace? They relied on God. They trusted in Him. They were at the end of their tether, they had nothing left, life itself hung in the balance – so they did the only thing that they could do. That’s what happens, especially, let me say, when we’re in the business of getting out there and doing God’s business; serving God. I find it to be true that whenever I’m serving God, opposition comes thick and fast. The more powerfully I feel called to step out and serve my Lord, the more powerfully Satan hurls opposition my way. It’s as though the armies of hell muster in opposition and they unleash all their fury. I remember once, it was the first time I was to lecture at my old Bible College, where I’d been taught. It was a Thursday evening and I drove off from my home. Before I’d gone half a kilometre, three different vehicles had tried their darnedest to run into me. What’s going on? I thought to myself. And then I realised. That’s what happens when you’re serving Jesus. Opposition, disruption, stress, pressure, they all get hurled at you from every direction. So, let’s not be amazed. It happened to Jesus. It happened to Paul. It’s going to happen – guaranteed – to you and to me. It’s exactly what Jesus promised. In this world you will have thlipsisi – you will have tribulation, you will have the life squeezed out of you, but be of good cheer, be confident, don’t be stressed, because I have overcome the world. And you know something, He has. Our confidence in those places at those times needs to be in Jesus – in Him and in Him alone. Sometime later, in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 8 to 15, Paul puts it like this: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So, death is at work in us, but life in you. But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture — ‘I believed, and so I spoke’ — we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. Friend the message is clear. In this world you will have tribulation – but don’t worry, because right in that place, Jesus is there, and He will carry you through. And when I’ve had nothing left in the tank, that’s the only thing that’s carried me through. Jesus. Let your confidence be in Him and in Him alone. Now that’s what I call a stress buster! The Stress of Evil Evil seems like a strong word, doesn’t it? I mean, by and large, you and I don’t think of ourselves as evil people. We’re not a murderer, or a rapist, or a child abuser, well, 99.99% of us aren’t. And so, the word evil seems just a tad strong. I’m guessing you know the story of Adam and Eve. God put them in the Garden of Eden, they had a fantastic life, they could do whatever they wanted, except eat the fruit of one of the trees in the garden. That’s all. I don’t think there was anything particularly special about the tree – no magic potions, no hallucinogens in the fruit. It’s just that God nominated this one tree to give Adam and Eve a choice – either to obey Him or not. God always gives us a choice. Genesis chapter 2, verse 9: Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, what was the tree called? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Where evil is defined as anything that rebels against God. You see, up until the point that Adam and Eve ate the fruit from that tree, they had no idea what evil was. It may have been a concept, but they’d never experienced it in their lives. They didn’t know it, they had no knowledge of it. And God warned them: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may eat freely of every tree of 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 will die.’ (Genesis 2: 15-17) They couldn’t say that they didn’t know, right? But then the serpent tempted them, and Eve made the first move: So when the woman saw that the tree was in fact good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make someone wise, she took of its fruit and she ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was there with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. (Genesis 3:6-7) Would you say at that moment, when they, for the first time, knew for themselves the difference between good and evil, they were stressed? I’d think so – because the very next thing they do is to hide from God when they hear Him coming in the garden. Just think about how silly that is! But eventually God found them, and the consequences of their actions were devastating: To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall 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 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.’ … Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ — therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. Now again, would you say that this evil that they’d done in God’s sight caused them stress? Absolutely it did, and it was a stress that lasted for the rest of their lives. Well, right there you have it – whenever you and I rebel against God, it is going to cause us pain and stress. I don’t care what it is we do to rebel against Him, but there are going to be consequences. Serious consequences. A husband doesn’t cherish his wife; a wife doesn’t honour her husband. Stress? You betcha! A man decides that his life is all about making money and being wealthy – so he chases after riches and sacrifices everything. Stress? Well, let’s take another look at what may well be a familiar passage to you: But those who want to be rich will fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (1 Timothy 6:9-10) Now that’s what I call stress. What about anger and dissension and strife, back-biting, dishonesty? Well the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like those. I am warning you, says Paul, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-20) Now that passage tells us that all that stuff is going to end in some serious stress – for those who do those things will not inherit the kingdom of God . But from experience we know that all of those things will also create stress here and now. Strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, all that jazz. Would you like to work in a place that has one of those things happening – factions and dissensions for example. Maybe you do – well, that’s what you’d call a stressful workplace. Would you like to live in a family where one member is constantly drunk? Anyone who has, will tell you that that causes tremendous stress. You’re getting the picture, right? Sin – sorry to put that word up there, but that’s what God calls it, or if you’d prefer evil perhaps – evil always results in stress. That’s the bottom line. It promises a lot up front, it’s so seductive, but it only ever delivers us stress and trouble. Some people, and maybe you’re one of them … I’m being very direct here, kind but direct … some people are wanting to hang on to some bit of evil in their lives, some particular sin and rationalise it away as though it was nothing. But it’s like a thorn in their flesh – it causes them stress and pain over and over again. I am not going to forgive her for doing that to me!! Okay, don’t forgive her, but you’re going to suffer the stress of unforgiveness for as long as you care to hang on to that sin. My friend, if you want to rid your life of unnecessary stress, then the quickest and easiest way of getting started is to root out the sin in your life, to pull it up by the root and throw it out. The moment you forgive, the moment you deal with your pride, the moment you stop quarrelling with people at work and stirring up trouble – the stress in your life starts to subside. Why? Because God only labels something as evil, as sin, if it’s going to hurt us. Get rid of the sin, it stops hurting. It’s that simple. The only question is … what are you waiting for? A Time to Reflect If you had to sum-up your life right at the moment, where you’re at, what you’re feeling, the things that are causing you to stress out, the amount of pressure and stress that you feel under. What would you say in twenty-five words or less, where are you at in your life when it comes to stress, anxiety, fear and uncertainty? Is the picture that you’d paint me, a bright and sunny one? A bit overcast? Or maybe there is a great storm raging? I guess what I’m trying to do here is to hold up a mirror and get you to take a look at your life, yourself, your stress levels. Stress is a bit like a chronic disease, well actually, for many people, it is a chronic disease. I was listening to an interview on the radio just the other day of a man who had kidney disease. In the twelve months leading up to his diagnosis and treatment, he started noticing the symptoms, but being a typical male, he didn’t go to the doctor. You know how it is, you’re busy, you’re focused on this or that, and this little symptom niggles away at you over here, and then it seems to go away, and then another one happens over there, and its kind of incremental, it builds up really slowly over time. After a while, he realised something was wrong, but he still didn’t go to the doctor. So, by the time he was feeling really sick, and had it checked out, he was actually seriously ill. Its sometimes like that with the stress in our lives, tossing and turning at night, not feeling happy, this, that. But when you are busy, you kind of brush it aside, and all the time the stress is building up until something snaps. That’s why people have break-downs. That’s why relationships are torn apart. Most of us don’t cut a pretty picture when we are under a lot of stress. It’s not good for us and its not good for the people around us. So, how are you going? Are you noticing that things aren’t what they should be? Are you burning the candle at both ends, wondering: Why am I so tired? Are you letting certain people get to you? Are money worries worrying you? Come on, what is it that has been niggling away there in your life? In you heart, in your mind? Bubbling away under the surface. And you’ve been trying to ignore it desperately, but the more you try to ignore it, the worse it seems to get. And as we sit here and speak about it now, you’re really beginning to realise: You know what, something isn’t right – I’m dealing with this stress and I’ve been trying to ignore it, and this is not right. God is a really practical God. You don’t have to read very far in the Bible to discover that. And He is vitally interested in dealing with the stress in your life. Take Psalm 55 – its all about the treachery of a friend. Here it is in a nutshell – verses 20 and 21: My companion laid hands on a friend and violated a covenant with me, with speech smoother than butter, but with a heart set on war, with words that were softer than oil, but in fact were drawn swords. Its not very nice, but it happens, and it causes stress. See how God deals with really practical stuff that happens in our lives? Just as He was interested in the plight of King David back then, who wrote that Pslam, He is interested in your plight, in your circumstances, and in your stress. And the solution to that stress, comes in the very next verse of that Psalm – verse 22 of Psalm 55, and that’s what I’d like to leave you with this week: Cast you burden on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. Isn’t that beautiful? Cast your burden on the Lord. He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved . And that is what I’d like to encourage you to do, starting this week. God wants to help carry your heavy loads. God wants to lighten your load. God wants to be part of the solution to eliminating stress and bring peace into your life. Friends, listen to it again: Cast you burden on the Lord. He will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. Come on, where are you at in your life? What stress are you grappling with? What are you struggling with and you are kind of thinking to yourself: I just can’t cope with it anymore. I’ve been dealing with this for so long. I’ve been struggling in this relationship for so long. I’ve been struggling with this problem at work for so long. I’ve been struggling with my money problems for so long. I just can’t deal with it anymore? Friend, we are often going to be under pressure. Pressure is often something we cannot avoid. Stress is our reaction to the pressure. Stress is what we do with the pressure. When you are lying there at night, turning it over in your mind, struggling, worrying, imagining all the bad things that can happen. Jesus is in that dark place with you. Jesus, who gave peace to His disciples is in that dark place with you. The Jesus that wants to bring peace to you is in that dark place with you. Cast your burdens on the Lord, He will sustain you, He will never permit the righteous to be moved. That is a beautiful truth. If you are struggling with some dark thing at the moment and you don’t know how to deal with the stress, I want to take you and encourage you to read Psalm 55 this week. Maybe you read nothing else, just spend your time in Psalm 55 day after day after day. And experience the love and the power and the mercy of your Lord Jesus Christ. And in our next programme, in fact the next two programmes, in this series called ‘Stress Busters’, we’ll be discovering exactly how to do that. Where? Well, in the Bible of course! God’s love letter to you. So I’m really looking forward to catching up with you again, next time around. Remember, cast your burdens on the Lord, He will sustain you.…
Stress comes in all different shapes and sizes, but whatever its cause, none of us was made to be under constant stress and yet, that’s how many people are living. In a constant state of stress. Well, it’s time to do something about it. A Stress Free Life? Stress. For most of us, that word sends a shiver down our spine, and why wouldn’t it? Who wants to be under stress all the time? And that’s what it feels like for a lot of us, so what is it? Well, it’s a state of mental or emotional strain or tension, and my dictionary adds, "Resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances", although I’m not sure that’s always the case. We’ll explore some of the main causes of stress in this series, but first, what sort of impact is stress having on our world? Well, a recent study conducted in Australia by the Psychological Institute (and by the way, I’m sure you’d probably find the same results no matter where you live) ... Well, the study found some interesting things about the reach and impact of stress. Here are the headline findings: 12% of people reported experiencing levels of stress in the severe range, with young adults experiencing significantly higher levels of stress and significantly lower levels of wellbeing than the general population. One in three reported experiencing depressive symptoms, with ten percent of these being in the severe range. One in four reported experiencing anxiety, with nine percent of these in the severe range. Young adults, 18-25, reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population. Although women reported significantly higher levels of perceived stress than did men, this didn’t lead to differences reported in their levels of anxiety, depression, or wellbeing. Those people experiencing family or recent relationship-breakdown and those separated reported much higher levels of stress and distress, on all measures. If the relationship-breakdown had occurred more than one year earlier, reported stress levels were about the same as the general population. In the US, things appear to be more extreme. Seventy-three percent of people regularly experience psychological symptoms caused by stress. Almost half say that stress has a negative impact on their personal or professional lives, and the cost to employers in stress-related healthcare and missed work is estimated, in the US, to be about three hundred billion dollars a year. No wonder we want a stress free life! That idyllic life by the beach is looking pretty good to a few of us at this point. Right? But that’s just not realistic and in fact, the reality is that a bit of stress in our lives isn’t a bad thing. We enjoy a challenge, for instance, and working under a bit of pressure sometimes produces really good results. It’s like a guitar or a violin. If the strings aren’t under the right amount of tension and stress, it just doesn’t work the way it was meant to. I know for instance after a longish holiday, say three weeks off over Christmas, I’m really looking forward to getting back into the cut and thrust of work. If we had no pressure, no deadlines, life would be missing something; and in any case, sometimes we’re hit by circumstances that put us under a lot of stress, whether we like it or not. Take Jesus. He experienced huge stress. Luke 22:39-46: He came out and went, as was His custom, to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed Him. When He reached that place, He said to them, ‘Pray, that you may not come into a time of trial.’ Then He withdrew from them, about a stone’s throw away, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.’ Then an angel from heaven appeared to Him and gave Him strength. In His anguish He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling down on the ground. When He got up from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, and He said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray, that you may not come into a time of trial.’ The fact that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood tells us just how severe His suffering was. This was stress, and it only got worse from here, as He was beaten and nailed to a cross. No, that completely stress free life isn’t a reality for any of us. Even the rich and famous, in fact sometimes especially those people, suffer enormous amounts of stress. How many superstars have died from drug overdoses? What were they doing there in the first place? What drove them to drugs? The pressure and the stress of fame. So, sometimes stress is desirable; sometimes it’s unavoidable, and sometimes we experience it because of our reaction to a particular person or set of circumstances, and yet the Bible says don’t be anxious about anything (Philippians 4:6). So what sort of stress are you under right now? Is it the normal cut and thrust of life which, at the end of the day, you kind of enjoy anyhow? Then that’s probably not such a bad thing, is it? It’s manageable, and you know that with a few adjustments to your life, you could easily get things right under control. Then you’re probably in a good balance, but if the stresses that you’re under feel like a huge burden, like a heavy load that you’re carrying around twenty-four by seven ... well ... that’s not such a good thing. We’re not made to be under that sort of constant pressure and stress, and yet many people live their lives like that. That’s why we’re kicking the year off with this series called, "Stress Busters" because God has a lot of things to say about how to alleviate the stress that you’re under; lots of practical, powerful things to say. Hey, why should that be a surprise to any of us? God cares so deeply about you; what you’re going through; what stress you’re under, and the stepping off point for that is what Jesus said. We see it in Matthew 11:28-30. Jesus said: Come to Me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke of easy, and My burden is light. Jesus wants to lighten your load, so over these coming weeks, we’re going to discover what He has to say about your stress, because Jesus didn’t say this lightly. Jesus didn’t say this flippantly. Jesus meant it – come to Me, all you who are weary and who are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Come on! Take My yoke upon you. Learn from Me. I’m gentle. I’m humble of heart, and with Me, you’re going to find rest for your souls. Hey, that’s a powerful thing, and that’s why we’re doing a series over these next few weeks called, "Stress Busters" because God wants to deal with the stress in your life. Stress we Put Ourselves Under You and I have this habit of putting ourselves under pressure and stress needlessly. Don’t believe me? Well, right now, we’re going to chat about how we do that exactly, and what we can do about changing our habits, because there are more than enough things out there that are going to cause you and me stress, whether we like it or not. There are going to be situations and circumstances completely beyond our control that cause us stress: The loss of a loved one; a difficult boss at work; financial problems; health issues ... There are plenty of things out there that are going to come our way, whether we like it or not, that are going to cause us stress. So, why would we possibly want to needlessly cause ourselves stress? Well, right now, we’re going to chat about the main three reasons that we cause ourselves stress. I’d be surprised if you don’t recognise at least one of them in your life. The first one is physical. Sometimes we think of stress as an emotional thing, even a spiritual thing; and of course, it is those things, but the physical reality is that God has given you and me a body, and there are three main things that we do to abuse this amazing body that God has gifted us. We eat too much of the wrong stuff, we don’t get enough sleep, and we don’t get enough exercise. How many times have you heard someone (including me) banging on about our diet and exercise and sleep? And yet still the first and most obvious thing that we can get wrong when it comes to managing our stress is how we treat our body, so come on. If the hat fits, wear it. Are you sick of feeling tired? Are you sick of feeling bloated and stressed and exhausted? Then do something about it. Last year, we had a whole series on the programme called, "Healthy living to a Ripe Old Age" and all of those messages in that series are available in the Resources section of the ChristianityWorks.com website, under the heading of Health. Grab them, listen to them, read the transcripts and please, if you’re struggling because you’re not treating your body properly, do something about it. 1 Corinthians 6:19: For don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? God expects you and He expects me to look after this amazing body that He’s given us, and when we do, let me tell you, our stress levels drop dramatically. The second thing that we do to put ourselves under stress needlessly is constantly second-guessing ourselves: Constantly telling ourselves, "I’m not good enough. I’m not fast enough. I’m not smart enough." You know what that’s called? Low self-esteem, and it might surprise you to know that this is a trap that I too find quite easy to fall into. Shocked? Here’s how it works for me. I’m something of an achiever. I drive hard at things; I work hard; I try to deliver on-time ... It’s just who I am, and when you’re that kind of person, you can see not only all the things that you have achieved, but all the things that you haven’t yet achieved, and so you start telling yourself, "Come on! You’re not working hard enough for God. You should be doing better for God. You should be getting up earlier and working longer and delivering sooner. You need to get more done. Look at all the things you haven’t done yet! Oh, Berni, you’re failing God." You see how easy it is to do? Or at the other end of the scale, perhaps you only ever see your inadequacies, because you’re constantly comparing yourself to other people. Anyone recognise that? It’s like that song by Casey Chambers. "Am I not pretty enough or smart enough or liked enough or strong enough or articulate enough or" ... so we find all these ways to put ourselves under enormous pressure, and cause ourselves huge stress by believing this nonsense that we’re just not good enough. Have you been there? Then I have a word from God for you today. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7: Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; there are a variety 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 one, He has given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Did you get that? Each one of us has been given a particular set of gifts and abilities. They’re all different, but they’re given by the one God; and the gifts He’s given you, He’s given you by His sovereign will and choice. You are who you are because He made you that way. He didn’t make a mistake. You’re exactly who God purposed you and made you to be. Get your heart around that, and you’re set free from this nonsense of, "Am I not pretty enough? Am I not good enough for God?" Hello? Is anyone listening to this? I for one need constant reminding of this stuff, because I can end up stressing out by having a wrong view of who I am. It’s about trading in your self-image for a faith-image from God, and this God says that you’re beautiful, and that you’re just who you’re meant to be. So you’ve been given gifts by God now to be that person, and to use those gifts. Hallelujah! And finally, the third thing that causes us needlessly to put ourselves under stress is not letting go of the past. So many people are still holding onto the failures and the hurts and the regrets of the past. How many people are living under the reproach of the past? Come on, the past is the past. You and I can’t change it, and God is in the business of setting us free from it. Mark this. Before Israel was able to cross over the Jordan River and enter into the promised land, God dealt with their past. Joshua 5:9: The LORD said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the reproach of the past, the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day. You’ve heard that saying, "Don’t cry over spilt milk." Right? Yes, wipe it up. Yes, clean up the mess. Yes, learn from your mistakes so that you won’t spill the milk again, but don’t just stand there and wish you hadn’t spilt the milk, and spend the rest of your life living in that one moment of failure, because you can’t un-spill the milk. That just doesn’t make sense. This Jesus came to set you free from the past, to bind up your broken heart, to give you a vision for the future, a new set of eyes to see, a new set of ears to hear, and a new life to live. Jesus came to lift the reproach of the past off your shoulders, so that it won’t cause you any more stress. Come on. There are enough things out there for you to stress out over without your health, without these false feelings of inadequacy, and without your hurts from the past doing it all for you. Do you think? The Stress of not Enough It seems to me that there are three basic resources that you and I need to get by each day: Time, money, and expertise; and when we’re short of any of those three basic resources – time, money, or expertise, that can cause us enormous amounts of stress. Let’s start by looking at time. I don’t know when the term time-poor started to fall into common usage, but these days, you hear it a lot. People are time-poor. In fact, once you have enough money to cover the basics in your life, time becomes an even more valuable commodity than money, and for many people, time is way too short. ‘If only I had a few extra hours in every day!’ I’ve heard people say. Really? The more affluent we become, the more options we have for spending our time. Take social media. Right at the moment, eleven percent of the world’s population are active Facebook-users. Just think about that for a minute, and they are collectively spending seven hundred billion minutes on Facebook each month. That’s 1.33 million person-years every month on Facebook, and that doesn’t count watching TV and all the other entertainment options available to us. No wonder we’re time-poor! So what’s changed? Why have we, all of a sudden, become time-poor? ‘Cos we’re trying to cram too much into our day. We’re always connected. We’re always working and chatting, and we’ve forgotten how to have disconnected, quiet down-time. If that’s you, if you’re burning the candle at both ends, something has to give, otherwise the stress is going to kill you. Really, and in case you’re one of these workaholics, who just has to work eighteen hours a day otherwise civilisation as we know it is going to come to an end, here’s a different perspective – God’s perspective. Psalm 127:1-2: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guards keep watch in vain. It’s in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for God gives sleep to His beloved. It’s simply not God’s plan for you to live like that, and I’ve recorded a whole series of messages on that called "It’s Time to Stop Labouring in Vain" . You’ll find it in the Resources section of our website, ChristianityWorks.com . Now the second thing that causes us stress is a lack of money. Sometimes that’s because people simply don’t have enough money to get by, but sometimes, it’s because we squander the money that we do have on impulse buys or on things we don’t need; on food that we bought, and then because of our bad management, it goes off in the fridge, so we throw it out. I want to deal with wastage first because that’s criminal. With people starving in the world, wasting money on stuff that we just don’t need is criminal, but the problem is that advertisers have it down to a fine art. They seem to be able to get us to part with our money like nothing else, so the question you have to ask yourself, the thing that’s going to get you to change your mind, is whether the stress of this is worth it; whether having all those things makes you happy or, at the end of the day, makes you stressed. 1 Timothy 6:9-10: Those who want to be rich end up falling into temptation, and they’re trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains. So ask yourself, "Is it really worth it for me? Really?" Or is it time to get your house in order? Is it time to get money-wise? And again, I’ve recorded a whole series called, "How to be Money-Wise" that you’ll find in the Living in Victory section of the Resources library at ChristianityWorks.com. Sort that out, and the stress goes away. Believe you me, it’s worth it. And for those who are poor, desperately poor, let me say this to you: In fact not me, but Jesus. Matthew 6:31-33: Don’t worry, saying, ‘What am I going to eat?’ or, ‘What am I going to drink?’ or, ‘What am I going to wear?’ For it’s the Gentiles who strive after all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father already knows that you need them all. But strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. God knows what you need, and He will provide it for you. So, Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. But in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. Your God will surely provide for you, and once you learn to trust Him to do the things you can’t do and provide the things that you need that you can’t acquire for yourself, the stress will be replaced by the most amazing peace and assurance. Finally, the other thing that causes us stress when we’re without it is expertise. When I look at the ministry of ChristianityWorks that produces these radio-programmes, ok, I’m the front guy; you hear my voice, but without Max on the opposite side of the glass here in the studio and our dedicated team around the world, there simply wouldn’t be any radio-programmes. One of the biggest things that you and I can do to cause ourselves stress is not to value and recognise the different abilities and capabilities of the people around us because when we don’t cherish them, they desert us. I see this all the time: Leaders who think everybody should be exactly like them, so they drive their people hard and all of a sudden, there’s no one left to lead. A true leader recognises other people’s gifts and abilities. A true leader encourages and empowers people to be all that they can be, and whether we’re leaders or not, we need other people around us who will co-operate in getting things done; because without them, we are going to be under stress with a capital S; because without them, we have to do the things that they’re good at, and those things are invariably stuff that we’re not good at. There’s something incredibly stressful about being a square peg in a round hole. If I had to do Max’s job here in the studio, I couldn’t do it, and I’ve tried to get Max on the other side of the glass in front of the microphone, and he’s not real keen on that either; because that’s not his gig, just as much as what he does is not my gig. It’s easy to be stressed by not having enough: Enough time, enough money, or enough expertise. But when we lean on God – hey; when we really trust in Him (come on, really), the stress starts to go away because what we discover is that God provides richly for those whom He loves. He just does. So if you’re struggling under the stress of not enough, listen again, please, to this passage from Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In other words, don’t look at the problem and keep turning the problem over in your mind, and just seeing the problem which then appears to be bigger than God. Instead, trust in the LORD with all your heart! Don’t lean on your own understanding. And in all your ways acknowledge Him, and God will straighten out your paths. God will make it happen. God loves you. Do you get that? God absolutely loves you, and often we are going to be confronted with things that are much bigger than us. Pressure is different from stress. Pressure is out there; stress is our reaction to it, and God doesn’t want you stressing out.…
C
Christianityworks Official Podcast
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Many people are prepared to accept that God exists, even that He has the ability to bless us – or at least bless other people. But when they look at their own lives, well the reality doesn’t appear to match up with the promise. What’s going on here? The Blessing of Here and Now I sometimes think that Jesus would have benefited from the services of a good Public Relations consultant - you know, a spin doctor to dress up some of the difficult messages He had to get across. Take this one for instance: Matthew chapter 16, verses 24 and 25: Jesus told His disciples, “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.” I mean, that picture of a cross is a brutal one. It’s a picture of being nailed to a cross and dying a gruesome death. If any want to become my disciples then let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. I mean, "Give me a break! Who wants to follow someone like that? I want to be healthy, wealthy and wise. I want to live on easy street! Take up my cross?? You have to be kidding me." Yes, Jesus could have used the services of a good P.R. consultant to get some spin on His message – to make it more palatable. No wonder it says in John’s Gospel that many turned away from Him. Have a listen: John chapter 6, beginning at verse 63: It is the spirit that gives life; and the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that would not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one comes to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. Yep, Jesus definitely needed a spin doctor. And you know something? I so often hear people speaking about Jesus – whether it’s a preacher preaching or a person telling me what Jesus is doing in their lives and what I hear is not about this gritty, authentic Jesus who was prepared to lose followers, in a world where the measure of a Rabbi’s success – a key performance indicator, if you will – was the number of followers or disciples he had. But Jesus was prepared to lose followers because He wouldn’t play by the world’s rules. He never let them squeeze Him into their mould. You know, they were looking for a Messiah; a King like David; a powerful warrior to raise up an army and drive the Romans out of this, their Promised Land. That’s what Israel was believing for, when Jesus came on the scene. After He miraculously fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, the crowds wanted to grab Him and appoint Him King. Can you imagine that? He has been wandering around out there in the fields, speaking to and wooing the crowds, performing some amazing miracles, here he is – this obscure carpenter from Nazareth … Nazareth of all places; “Does anything good come from there?” And finally, Jesus hits the big time! He is pulling some serious crowds! Finally, they recognise how good He really is and they want to make Him King. Woo hoo!! So what does Jesus do? John chapter 6, verse 15: When Jesus realised they were about to come and take him by force to make him King, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. He withdraws! "Jesus … Jesus, what’s the matter with You? You’ve made it – success at last. What are You doing?" He didn’t need just a spin doctor; He needed a couple of good strategic planning consultants, as well. And He continued His journey … His inexorable journey to that ugly, brutal cross, where He was nailed and left to suffocate, hanging by the nails through His hands and His feet. He tells us why He did it. He tells us in this outrageous promise, why He did that. Listen again with me – John chapter 10. Verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. He did this contrary to the thief, this thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. He did it that we may have life … real life and have it abundantly. Literally, it says in the original Greek language that sits aback of our English translation – "super-abundantly" . Now, He wasn’t talking here just about eternal life. Sure, He came that we could have eternal life and that’s something we are going to be looking at later, but He is talking about our lives here and now. And in this passage He is painting a stark contrast between the imposter and the truth. Let’s listen to a bit more of what He has to say. John chapter 10, beginning at verse 1: Truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. Do you see the contrasts in this passage: the real shepherd and the impostor; the true shepherd and the stranger; the good shepherd and the hired hand; Jesus and the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy? One sharp contrast after another. The real thing is Jesus and the impostor is the devil – the thin hollow promises of this world. And it’s only the True Shepherd who brings abundant life and we know Him because He’s the One who is prepared to lay down His life for the sheep. So we can bow down to the impostor, just as the devil said to Jesus when he dangled the kingdoms of this world under Jesus nose. Luke chapter 4, verses 6 and 7: To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then,” he said to Jesus, “will worship me, it will all be yours. We can bow down to that, but the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Or we can obtain this abundant life by living out this truth: Jesus answered therefore, “It is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him alone. That’s where the abundant life, that Jesus came to bring us, is to be found. The choice, however, the choice is ours and it’s a choice that has not just eternal consequences – it has those for sure and we are about to look at them after the break – but it has here and now consequences as well. Jesus was talking about a shepherd and his flock, about the protection and the peace and the safety that we can have in His flock, here and now. Man, people are letting the devil plunder their lives, rob them of life, rob them of abundance, when all along, life in all its abundance is available here and now, through Jesus. And I ask myself, "Why would you do that? Why would you want to waste your life, dancing with the devil, into a Christ-less eternity, suffering all the pain of that deceptive dance along the way, when Jesus came to give us life and to give it to us in all its abundance? I mean, why would you want to do that?" The Blessing of Then and There Well, we had a look earlier at the blessing that God wants us to have, here and now. But the days of our lives tick by very quickly, don’t they? You wake up and it’s Monday morning and the whole week is ahead and before we know it, it’s Friday again, heading into another weekend. And whether you just prayed that prayer with me during the break, or whether giving your life to Jesus is something you did years ago, or whether it’s something you still haven’t done yet, our time here on this earth is running out with every tick of the clock. It seems to me that the weeks are slipping by ever more quickly. You blink and they’re gone and before you know it, another year is gone and we are into the New Year, and pretty much, we’ll blink and this one will be gone too. It’s like a video of a merry-go-round and someone speeds it up and before you know it that little merry-go-round is spinning around at a million miles an hour, and one day "BANG" with little or no warning – it stops! This little merry-go-round, called my "life" and your "life" stops – dead! Life on this earth will come to an end. I was listening to an interview on the radio the other day of a woman who woke up next to her husband because the radio alarm was going off in the morning and he hadn’t reached over to turn it off. Well, there was a reason for that – he died of a heart attack in the bed next to her in the middle of the night. It makes you squirm because a lot of cultures, particular Western cultures, we are not so good at talking about death and coping with death, even though death is very much part of life, here on this earth. "What’s the matter with Berni today," you might be thinking to yourself – "why is he going so morose on us?" Not really. Over the last few weeks we have been talking about the promise that Jesus made to give us an abundant life. John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And when you look at it, that promise is a life and death promise, isn’t it? The thief; the enemy; the devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy … to steal and kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. See the contrast? Death and life! It’s a contrast between an abundant life that Jesus wants to give us and the death the devil is hell-bent on delivering at our doorstep. Life and death. We live our lives believing that they will go on forever – that we’ll never get sick and we’ll never die. Of course, the facts are, that unless Jesus returns first, you and I are going to die, there’s no denying that. But denying it is absolutely what we do, day to day. We sweep death under the carpet as though it’s never going to happen to us – always knowing deep inside that it will, but trying to ignore that inconvenient truth. Life is for living, right? Who needs to talk about death and think about death? And so we try and squeeze as much out of life as we can, even if it’s not all that satisfying, in the vain hope that we will stave off the inevitable, death, as long as we can. I used to be petrified of dying – absolutely petrified. I just couldn’t fathom that I would have to let go of this life here on earth one day, or at least, that it would let go of me. And the thought of what, if anything, lay on the other side of the grave was just horrid. Either there was nothing and I would lose everything with the last breath or there was a God and indeed a heaven and a hell. Man, I was in serious trouble in that department. So I put my head down; I just concentrated on the here and now, living life, squeezing everything out of it that I could. And no, it wasn’t satisfying. A decade and a half ago, something happened to change all this and it happened without me noticing it. A decade and a half ago I gave my life to Jesus. Now I noticed that bit – but without me realising it my fear of death evaporated overnight. I first realised it when I was flying in a plane to New Zealand. It was incredibly bumpy and rough flight and in the middle of this terrible landing in – wait for it – Christchurch, I all of a sudden I realised, I wasn’t gripping my seat anymore; I wasn’t afraid. I’d lost my fear of dying! Have a listen to what the Apostle Paul writes on this subject – it comes from First Corinthians chapter 15, verses 51 to 58: "Listen,” writes Paul, “I’ll tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain. There it is – eternal life! The one thing we had all hoped for, delivered by Jesus through His death on the cross and His resurrection. What could be more abundant than that? I mean, it’s great that we can have a rich and abundant life amidst all the trials of life here on earth. That’s what we have been chatting about these last few weeks on the programme. Fantastic!! But the abundance; the overflow, goes beyond the grave, for ever and ever and ever and ever! And that knowledge … that knowledge of an eternal life is supposed to make a difference; a huge difference to how we live our lives here and now. Look at that last bit of that passage from First Corinthians 15 again: Therefore, because of what I have just told you about eternal life: Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain. In other words, the knowledge of eternity is meant to impact our lives, here and now, because it changes everything. It gives us hope, it gives us resolve, because at the end of this life there is something worth having; something worth more than absolutely anything and everything that this world has to offer – a life eternal. And yet, we are all so busy – head down, pedalling hard – that we have completely lost sight of the finishing line. And that finishing line is something, not to be afraid of but to look forward to. That finishing line is the best thing that can ever happen to us. Listen again to Paul, the Apostle. Philippians chapter 1, verses 21 to 24: “ For to me,” writes Paul, “living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ for that is far better but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. You see this, Paul is not afraid of dying. Paul is torn between this life and an eternity with Christ. Not just does he have an eternal life foremost in his thinking, but he is literally torn between the two. Do you know what I think the Lord is saying to you and me as we are totally immersed in our respective here’s and now’s? He is saying, “Wake up, something much better is coming.” Again, Paul, Colossians chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. He says: So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on this earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Come on, wake up! Something much better is coming. Live life focused on eternity; with an eternal perspective because that is going to add a richness and an abundance and an anticipation that is better than anything this world has to offer. Come on, wake up! Journey in My Shoes Well, we have been talking about this abundant life in Jesus over these last weeks and we are almost at the end of that. And as I reflect on our journey together through God’s Word, it seems to me that, well, this life in all its abundance can be an illusory concept. Something in a sense that we are content to hear some joker on the radio talk about because it makes us feel good and something that we are content to agree with, that Jesus could do that and He probably does do this "abundant life " thing for other people, in their lives but something that for many, well, it’s never entered their minds, that this promise could possibly be for them. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. Friend, I’m here to tell you – He absolutely means it for you! We are so conditioned to chasing the things of this world, some of us, that we have lost sight of the things of God. I was definitely like that. For most of my life, reality for me was the wealth that I could accumulate on this earth. Reality for me was being happy, only it didn’t really. I would sweep death under the carpet because I was too scared to think about it. And so I could hear the promise of an abundant life but it never meant anything to me. I was like that rich man that Jesus talked about in this parable: The land of the rich man produced abundantly and he thought to himself, “What shall I do for I have no place to store my crops?” And he said, “I’ll do this – I’ll pull down my barn, I’ll build bigger ones and there I’ll store my grain and my goods and I’ll say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! For this very night your life is being demanded of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is for those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God. "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy" – The thief is a deceiver; a liar; he robs us of the rich abundant life that Jesus came to give us. He robs us of life itself. As each day goes by, I have been walking with Jesus for a decade and a half, to this point – as each day goes by, I discover more and more this reality that richness is something we get from God. The blessings of righteousness, peace and joy are something that nobody in this world and nothing in this world have been able to offer me. And the more I get into God’s Word, the more I discover the reality of who He is through Jesus Christ, the more I let the Holy Spirit scrape the muck out of me that God calls sin, the more this life in all its abundance is the reality that I am living out with my life. Oh and please don’t give me this cop-out, "Well, Berni, you are a preacher on the radio. Of course, the promise is meant for you." Don’t give me that because when the Good Shepherd came to me, I was a sheep that was lost far more than most. I was a man full of pride and success on the one hand, but suffering through the deepest failures of life on the other. If you could have seen me back then, you would never have picked me for what I am doing now and you would never have thought that Jesus promise of life, in all its abundance could possibly have been for me. That’s the truth – it’s the cold, hard reality. And yet by God’s amazing … utterly and completely amazing grace, I can now tell you that I am like the man who found a treasure in a field. The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which someone found and hid and then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. My life – I’m completely sold out to Jesus. Not because I’m so great and clever guy but because the life He has given me is abundant. The life He has given me is exactly what Jesus promised – an abundant life! Imagine - He gave it to me – imagine!!…
C
Christianityworks Official Podcast
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Most of us want to be happy, so we go looking for happiness …. everywhere. No stone left unturned, only to discover that we can’t find lasting happiness. Because at the end of the day – happiness isn’t what we’re looking for. It’s joy that we’re after. The Blessing of Righteousness Over the last few weeks we have been having a discussion on this programme about the promise that Jesus made; an outrageous promise, in fact, of an abundant life. Here it is, have another listen, John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And I guess that the reason that it’s so outrageous is that firstly, Jesus is saying that His purpose in coming to this earth, in stepping out of heaven into the physical dimension, taking on flesh, becoming a man, dying on the cross, rising again – all that – the reason He did that was what? “ That we may have life and have it abundantly .” And it is for us because this promise is made in the context of a parable, where Jesus is the Good Shepherd; the True Shepherd and we are His flock. It’s a beautiful picture with a deep and rich meaning to the agrarian audience to which He said it, back in the first century. "An abundant life" , but what does that mean? I had a student ask me that once when I was lecturing at a Bible College. I was rabbiting on about this "abundant life" thing as though the idea of an abundant life was completely obvious to everyone. And one of the students, a woman in her sixties, asked me, she said, "But Berni, what is an abundant life?" You know something, I think that is a really, really good question. A little while ago we aired a teaching series called, “ Financially Secure Once and for All ”. It was all about the fact that God means us not to find our security in money; in wealth but in Him. However much we may have or may not have when it comes to financial wealth. Now, I was interested in the response of one man to that. He sent me a sharp email, declaring that he couldn’t support anyone who preaches the prosperity doctrine. You know that false idea that if you believe in God in the right way and give lots of your money away to whoever is preaching that day, you will be rich. God will make you healthy, wealthy and wise, with a big house, big car, and a great job – on easy street! It’s a false idea and we should have nothing to do with that because it puts our own wealth at the heart of things, rather than God’s glory. And that is not – simply NOT what we are called to do. Anyhow, the point of me telling you this story is that, the moment I open my mouth about financial security, the man who wrote me that sharp email, assumed that I was talking about monetary blessing from God. But that was, in fact, the complete opposite of what I talked about in that teaching series. What I was talking about ‘God security’ irrespective of the size of the bank balance, we might or might not have. And I wonder whether that isn’t the obvious thing to fall into, precisely the same wrong assumption when we start talking about "an abundant life in Jesus" ? That abundance must mean, well, healthy, wealthy and wise – easy street! And so people look at their lives and think, "Well, you know, I don’t fall into the healthy, wealthy and wise category. I’m on struggle-street, not easy street. My life definitely is not all good or hunky dory, therefore this promise must either be false or for someone else." Do you see my point? We can be like that man who sent that email – we judge Jesus wrongly; we judge what He said from a worldly standpoint, rather than from a godly one. Back in the early church in the first century, a controversy arose about what foods they could eat and what drinks they could drink. Remember, early Christians mostly came out of Judaism with its legal demands about a whole range of things including food and drink. And the Apostle Paul was addressing this controversy in a letter to the Roman church. And the crux of what he had to say was this, Romans chapter 14, verse 17. He said: For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In other words, boys and girls, stop looking at this whole thing from a worldly viewpoint, because in so doing you are completely missing the point. God’s Kingdom isn’t a physical thing – it’s something that happens inside you when you lay your life down; lay down your worldly desires, lay don’t everything you want, for Jesus. It’s about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We will look at each of those today, starting right now with righteousness, because that’s the heart of an abundant life. Righteousness is a word that is bandied around a lot in Christian circles at least, and used almost never anywhere else. So what does it actually mean, "righteousness" ? It means ‘a right standing with God’; it means the state that we should be in; the condition in which we are acceptable to a holy God. Now, we have all sinned and rebelled against God. That means there’s an enmity; a hostility between us and God but the moment we accept Jesus, the forgiveness we have through His sacrifice on that cross, there is peace. Because the debt for our sin, which is death, has been paid by Him and now through our faith in Him and what He has done, God sees us are righteous. Just as the criminal, who has paid his debt in prison, once released, is now right with the law; so we are right with God through our faith in Jesus. That’s why elsewhere in his letter to the Roman church, Paul has this to say, Romans chapter 5, verse 1: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand. See, we are back where we should be. We are justified; ‘made right,’ through our faith in Jesus Christ and so we have peace with God through Him. The war is over; the battle is over; the enmity between us and God is over; the running away from God is over. And then, does Jesus say, "Well, okay. Now, keep on doing all the things you were doing wrong – that’s fine, that’s not a problem?" No! Just as He said to the woman caught in adultery, whom the crowds had condemned and wanted to stone to death. In John chapter 8, verse 11, Jesus said to her: … neither do I condemn you. Now, go your way and from now on, do not sin again. So, we are forgiven, back in relationship with God and then we are called to go and live out our lives and stop doing the things that have caused the problem in the first place. That’s "righteousness" , right there. Something that God gives us as a free gift through Jesus Christ – a right standing with Him and then something that we are called to live out in our lives. That’s what Jesus came to give us, an abundant life! A life that begins with God’s righteousness given freely to us and that then continues in that righteousness and there … right there is the blessing, because sin has its consequences. Sin is the thief that comes only to steal, kill and destroy but Jesus came that we may have life … real life, in all its abundance - righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Blessing of Peace We are looking today at Jesus’ outrageous promise of an abundant life. John chapter 10, verse 10: "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came,” said Jesus, “that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Righteousness (we looked at that earlier) peace and joy in the Holy Spirit – those three are, in a nutshell, what the Kingdom of God brings to our lives. They are a fountain of blessing. And that little troika is put together not by me, but by the Apostle Paul, in dealing with the controversy over religious rules to do with food and drink that was raging back in the first century church. And in responding to that in his letter to the Romans he is saying, "Guys, guys, you have got a hold of the wrong end of the stick! Don’t you get it? The Kingdom of God isn’t about food and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." That’s the context and that’s why we are focusing on it today because in exactly the same way as some people were taking a "human; worldly" perspective of God’s Kingdom, over a bunch of religious rules, back then, you and I can easily take a worldly view of this promise of an abundant life, through our consumer oriented, twenty first century mindset. I mean, when you hear the promise of an abundant life, what’s the first thing that springs to mind? Enough money to get by? Being able to have a few of those luxuries? Aaah, easy street! I mean, that’s the natural reaction, right? But is not what Jesus was saying. As I said earlier, this promise of an abundant life, comes set in a parable of a shepherd and his sheep, who lived in a difficult and dangerous world out there in search of pasture, where thieves often came and wild animals came to ravage the flock and where sometimes, the shepherd had to lay down his life for his sheep. There is nothing "easy street" about that, I can tell you. But if we stopped and thought about this whole ‘abundant life’ thing for just a little while and thought, well, if I want an abundant life, what would be right up there … right up on the top of my list, numbers one, two and three, I think we might come up with the same list. 1. Righteousness – a right standing with God, finally; the enmity between us and God is gone. Finally, the threat of eternal judgement is gone. Finally, we are where we are meant to be – back in relationship and right standing with God. That is righteousness. 2. Peace – is there anyone here who doesn’t want peace on every side of their lives; the absence of strife? 3. Joy – a deep delight that springs out of our relationship with God; a joy that transcends the ups and downs of life - a deep joy that’s there 24/7. But right now we are going to focus on the second one of these, peace! And again, remember, we are not talking here from a worldly perspective, we are taking a godly view. And that’s exactly what Jesus instructed His disciples to do when He gave them His peace. He was about to be crucified. The disciples knew that – they were in fear for their own lives as well. It was a scary, scary time. They had been following this amazing Jesus around for three and a half years – the miracles, the teaching, the crowds and now, all of a sudden, the dark cloud of death hung over their decision to follow Jesus. And Jesus says to them – He says, in John chapter 14, verse 27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not let them be afraid. Do you see this "peace", not from the world’s perspective; not the way the world gives it to you. He says, "Take My peace; My deep inner peace." The security; the safety that comes from being one of Jesus disciples - the sort of peace that sheep have when they are safe in the protection of their one true shepherd – the shepherd who is prepared to lay his life down for them. And the clear thing that Jesus is saying to them is, Look, My peace isn’t the same as the peace the world offers you. That’s why your heart shouldn’t be troubled; that’s why you don’t have to be afraid. And as I have said previously, that promise of an abundant life – John chapter 10, verse 10, comes set in this story of a difficult, dangerous journey in the existence of a shepherd with his sheep. It comes set in the realities … the cold, hard reality of life and it’s for that reason that you and I need peace because life is not always what we want it to be. Without that sort of peace we can’t have an abundant life, can we? As I look back on my decade and a half now of walking with Jesus, through thick and thin, through some great places and some places that look very much like that valley of the shadow of death, that the Psalmist talks about in Psalm 23. His peace is one of the things that I value most about my relationship with Jesus – a peace that lasts, through every situation because it’s His peace; it’s His way, not the world’s peace; the world’s way. Paul, the Apostle, in Philippians chapter 4, writes about a peace that surpasses all understanding; the peace from God that guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Can I tell you – I so relate to that because so often this peace from Jesus just doesn’t make sense? It completely defies logic and surpasses understanding because there are times when I should be afraid; I should be panicking; I should be running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but instead … instead I have a deep peace. Psalm 23, verse 4: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. That’s the peace that Jesus brings! Friend, it is better … better than any bauble or any trinket that this world has to offer – this deep inner peace from God. A peace delivered into our very beings by the Holy Spirit, Himself. And it’s a peace that only comes when we first have a right standing with God, through Jesus. That’s why Paul, in his list of three things that the Kingdom of God is about, kicks it off with righteousness first, then peace because peace flows out of the relationship that we have with God, through Jesus. And then … then, once we have the relationship with God and the peace that comes out of that, the next thing; the icing on the cake is joy – the joy of the Lord. The Blessing of Joy You ask people this question: "What do you want out of your life?" And ninety nine percent of them will answer, "Well, you know, I want to be happy." And why not? After all who wants to be sad all the time? Who wants to live out their lives in darkness when the light of happiness beckons, just around the corner? But, you know, happiness isn’t always what life dishes up, is it? As much as we want to be happy all the time, it just doesn’t work out that way. In fact, happiness can be illusive because it depends on our circumstances; things going on around us. I mean, we are not happy when we are sick or when someone is giving us a hard time, or when we are struggling financially or when we are having an argument or a fight. I mean, you can’t be happy at those times. So as much as it is something just about everyone aspires to, happiness is not all that it is cracked up to be. Happiness is linked to our circumstances and when we say we want to be happy all the time, what we are really saying is that we want all of our circumstances to be favourable – easy street, that’s happiness. Well, my friend, life isn’t like that. Mine isn’t and yours isn’t. We might have short times on easy street, but most of life isn’t like that. And so, then we come back to looking at this promise that Jesus made about an abundant life and it’s easy to imagine it’s a sham; it’s an unrealistic promise – the sort that politicians make before an election, only to renege once we have voted for them. I’m not saying all politicians’ promises are like that, but you understand what I’m saying. In my country, at least, many promises are made during an election campaign, which never eventuate. And so happiness is a bit like that – a mirage in a desert. It can be illusory. John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. But I came … I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. Surely, if I am going to have an abundant life just as Jesus promises here, surely I have to be happy, right? Well, in unpacking and understanding this promise so far today, we have been looking at how Paul, the Apostle, summed up what the Kingdom of God is about. People back then, when Jesus and later the disciples, were going around talking about the Kingdom of God, well, people kind of imagined that it was something physical, there was the Roman Empire - that was THE kingdom. But there had been other kingdoms before that so they were expecting Jesus to come, riding in on His shiny white steed, with His sword held high, leading a mighty army to boot the Romans out of Israel. That pretty much is what the Kingdom of God kind of painted to them; the picture that they thought of but Jesus had a completely different take, as Jesus often does. Luke chapter 17 and verse 20 – have a listen to this: Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God was coming and he answered, “The Kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” for in fact, the Kingdom of God is among you. So when it comes to Jesus coming to this earth in order that you could have a life and I could have a life, that we could live out abundantly, it makes sense to me not to look at from that human perspective, the way the Pharisees were, but from the perspective of God’s Kingdom. And this is why we have been unpacking Paul’s nutshell of what the Kingdom of God is all about – Romans chapter 14, verse 17 – Paul writes: For the Kingdom of God is not about food or drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Well, so far today on the programme we’ve looked at the first two of those: righteousness – a right standing with God, we live out in our relationship with Him and peace – the sort of peace that Jesus brings; the sort of peace that doesn’t make sense; that surpasses all human understanding. But what about this third one; what about joy? You know what? I spent the first thirty six years of my life looking for happiness. I left no stone unturned in my quest for this happiness thing – wealth, a big house, expensive cars, marriage, children, status, career, fame, recognition, winning at everything I set my hand to – it was all about winning for me back then. Believe you me, I looked under every rock. I was persistent. And other than some fleeting experiences of happiness, I never found it. Why? Because unbeknown to me, I wasn’t so much yearning for happiness, I was yearning for something much deeper; something more lasting and abiding. What I was after was "joy" . And joy is different to happiness, in that, it doesn’t rely on our circumstances. It doesn’t come from out there, joy comes from within, from among us, from in our midst. It’s a well inside us that bubbles up, no matter what is going on, on the outside. I have experienced joy on some of the darkest days in my life. Now you can’t experience happiness at those times. To be happy, things out there have to be on the up and up – the sun has to be shining. But I have experienced great joy, right, smack bang in the middle of great pain. How? Why? Because it’s a joy that comes from God and that well never runs dry. Let’s listen again to what the Apostle Paul wrote, that the Kingdom of God was all about – Romans chapter 14, verse 17: For the Kingdom of God is neither food or drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. You see, the righteousness, peace and joy come when we are immersed in the Holy Spirit. They come from God through the Spirit, not from us. And Jesus describes how this works in John chapter 7, beginning at verse 37: Jesus was standing there and he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me, drink. As the Scripture has said, ‘out of the believers heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. The joy of the Lord, which comes from His Spirit within us, is like that. It bubbles up and then it flows out of the centre of who we are, out of our hearts, like rivers – not a tiny little stream, not even a modest or large river but rivers, a Nile and a Ganges and a Mississippi and a Rhine and an Amazon – rivers of living water. The Holy Spirit, with His righteousness, peace and joy, flows up out of us like a … like a flood tide of blessing from rivers of living water, into the lives of other people when we yield our lives; when we turn them back and live them for God. That’s what the Kingdom of God is! And do you know what this overflow sounds like to me? It sounds like life in all its abundance and that’s exactly what Jesus promised.…
With all that life throws at us, not to mention our own foibles and quirks, it’s easy to end up with quite a distorted view of what God our Father means when He talks about His blessing in our lives. What Jesus means when He talks about giving us an abundant life. The Child in the Father’s House We are chatting together this week on the programme about living out the abundant life that Jesus promised us, a life overflowing with His grace and mercy and love and peace and joy and blessing. By that we don’t always mean abundant finances or complete safety. God has a tendency not to wrap us in cotton-wool but to be with us out there in the middle of life – in the good times and the bad – with His presence, which is what gives us that sense of overflow; that sense of abundance. It’s funny how most of us, in our heart of hearts, desire a life that’s, well, perfect, blessed in every way: every relationship perfect, finances perfect, home-life perfect, our own sense of self perfect … everything perfect. But life just isn’t like that. In fact, as you and I think back on our lives thus far, chances are that there are very few times, if ever, where we could tick the box in every part of our lives as having been perfect. And yet somehow, we yearn secretly, even subconsciously, for this time in our lives when everything will be just perfect. And the mere fact that it isn’t can be so disappointing to many. And yet, I come back to the fact that Jesus promised this abundant life, not wrapped away somewhere in cottonwool, but out there in this precarious, sometimes threatening place that we call ‘life’. This is in fact, what He said – beginning at John chapter 10, verse 1: Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Look, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. As we saw last week, the life of a shepherd and the lives of the sheep back there in the first century, were indeed, precarious. As the shepherd would take his flock out onto the rocky plateau of Israel, in search of pasture, there were many threats – thieves, wild animals – and it wasn’t unusual for the shepherd to have to defend his sheep; sometimes with his own life. And interestingly, in that beautiful prayer that Jesus prayed just before He was crucified, He actually said this about you and me, to His Father: John chapter 17, beginning at verse 12: While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them was lost, except the one destined to be lost so that the scripture might be fulfilled. Verse 15 : I am not asking you to take them out of this world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. In other words: Dad, let’s not take them out of all these situations and wrap them up in cotton-wool but rather, let’s be with them and protect them from the evil one. Do you see how different God’s perspective is? His promise is for an abundant life not a perfect one. And I have to tell you, as I have sat and thought about that a lot; it makes an enormous amount of sense. I’m a father; I have children – I love them very dearly. When they were young they lived with my wife Jacqui and me in our house, under our care and protection and with our provision. And that’s right: that’s why God gives us children, that’s why He gives children parents. But there comes a time, in fact, it starts quite early, where as they grow up, we as good parents give them more and more responsibility for themselves, because one of the main parts of growing up is shifting the responsibility for their care from their parents to the children, as they become capable of accepting that responsibility. It’s not always easy. It’s one of the reasons that those teenage years can be so stressful because often teenagers – I know this was true of me – want to behave like children but still be treated like adults. In other words, they still want parents to do all the things that the parents ever did for them when they were little children, whilst at the same time, giving them all the freedoms that an adult has. Now there is tension, with a capital "T" . They, in effect, want the best of both worlds – the perfect life. Sound familiar? And it’s the same often, in our relationship with God. We want Him to fix everything; make everything perfect in our lives, whilst at the same time, we do things that don’t honour Him that have consequences. And yet He is the perfect Father. Have a listen again to Romans chapter 8, beginning at verse 12: So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father”, it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ — if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. One of the most beautiful passages in the Bible, because it puts everything into perspective to me. Sometimes in the cut and thrust and the hurts of life, we lose our heavenly perspective; we lose sight of the fact that God is indeed our Father. In fact, Jesus called Him, “Abba”, which literally means, “Dad”. If we live our lives for Him; if we choose to be led by the Spirit of God, rather than by the desires of our own flesh, then we are indeed children of God and deep down, if we will let Him, the Spirit of God witnesses to us that we are His children – the children of the living God – and that means something. It means what Jesus prayed for you and me, back there in the Garden of Gethsemane. It means God’s protection from the evil one rather than being wrapped in cotton-wool. I have to tell you, I for one would hate to be wrapped by God in cotton-wool, because I want to experience life and all that it’s meant to be. That means sometimes we get hurt; that means sometimes it’s hard; that means sometimes we are challenged. But, all along, God is our Father. Fathers know this – when our children are growing up, we don’t stop being their fathers. We don’t stop being there to help and advise when they need it. We don’t stop caring and one day they will receive their inheritance from us. And it’s the same with Dad, God! We are and always will be His children and His protection is always available to us. Can I tell you something? Somewhere in that knowledge, deep within, lies the source of abundance in my life – His abundance, not mine – His abundance in my life. He loves me, He wants me to know Him and to honour Him and to be all that He made me to be. To experience every day that He wrote down in His Book for me, before any of them ever existed. That’s where the abundance begins – in our relationship with God; out there in the middle of life. See that story that Jesus told of the shepherd and his sheep: they were out there in this dangerous place, not wrapped away in cotton-wool, not sitting in a business class seat in a plane but out there in the cut and thrust of life. And it’s out there that the knowledge of the faithfulness of my God, my Father gives me a sense of abundance that nothing else can give me. Above and Not Below We are looking today at the promise that Jesus made to give us an abundant life. Here it is in case you missed it earlier in the programme, John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. It’s a beautiful promise and it’s one that’s always … it’s always really touched my heart. It’s a promise from Jesus that I take seriously. He came so that you and I could have life and not just have life, but have it abundantly. Now, "abundance" is an amazing word, isn’t it? It means "plenty" ; it means "overflow" – a very large quantity of something. But what if I told you that the original Greek word used here for ‘abundance’ in John chapter 10 verse 10, literally means "super-abundance" – more than abundant; over the top abundance? Because that’s exactly what it means. That’s Jesus promise. And yet the promise is made here as a point of comparison – the promise is the second part of the verse. The first part of the verse is about someone else – the thief, he’s called here in the story: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And, in fact, as we have seen, this whole story where Jesus teaches us that He is the Good and True Shepherd of us, the sheep, is about the authenticity of who Jesus is as that Shepherd, verses the sham of the thief. Question is: why did Jesus make this beautiful promise in such a context? Well, of course the thief in the story is the devil and the original Greek word for the devil is "diabolos" , which is the word from which we get our English word "diabolical" . It means a slanderer; a false accuser. And elsewhere in the New Testament, in Revelation chapter 12 verse 9, the devil is also called "the deceiver" – someone who tricks people and leads them astray; away from the right path; away from truth, into error. That’s the devil, here in the story – the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And so here Jesus presents us with an alternative – the thief or the True Shepherd. Now, you might say to me, "Well, that’s no real alternative at all, is it? Who wants a thief who comes only to steal, kill and destroy? I’ll have the Good Shepherd thanks, who came to give me a superabundant life." Of course, it’s an obvious choice in the light of Jesus parable of the Good Shepherd here – He means for it to be an obvious choice because it is so obvious when you stop and think about it. Problem is we often don’t stop; we often don’t think about it because the devil doesn’t always come to us looking like a thief. You know, like in a black beanie like he just broke out of prison. Quite on the contrary, in fact Second Corinthians chapter 11 verse 14, says: Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Isn’t that true? The whole point of temptation is that it’s tempting; it’s seductive. Evil comes to us, wrapped in a wrapper that cries out to us, "Go on, open me, follow me, take me. I’m good, I’ll bless you." The very first deception and temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden was exactly like that. Evil was dressed up as having benefit. That’s why it’s so diabolical – that’s why the devil is a liar and a deceiver and so we are seduced by his lies and all of a sudden we are in the hands of a thief who truly came only to steal, kill and destroy – to rob us of the superabundant life that Jesus came to give us. Do you see the power of this parable? God wants to bless us. God wants to heap His superabundant blessing into our lives, but like any father, when His children are rebelling, He can’t bless us because the blessing would reward the rebellion. When my children played up sometimes when they were young, the tap of father’s blessing turned off. Sometimes they were punished by the removal of a privilege – no internet access for three months. Why, was I being mean? No! Because I was teaching them right from wrong and the basis of that lesson is that blessing comes when you do right and you lose it when you do wrong. Parents do that because, a) they love their children and b), we are wired by God to be like that. One of the very worst things that we can do – and you see it a lot these days – is to continue to bless our children when they are doing wrong. I want you to have a listen on one of the best explanations linked between obedience and blessing that I ever found in God’s Word. It comes from Deuteronomy chapter 28, beginning at verse 1. If you have a Bible, can I encourage you to open up here – this is a really powerful passage – listen carefully to what God says to His people. Deuteronomy 28, beginning at verse 1: If you will only obey the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the Lord your God. Blessed you shall be in the city, and blessed you shall be in your field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed you shall be when you come in, and blessed you shall be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing upon your barns, and on all that you undertake; he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. The Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you. The Lord will open for you his rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. The Lord will make you the head, and not the tail; you shall be only at the top, and not at the bottom—if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, by diligently observing them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today, either to the right or to the left, following other gods to serve them. But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees, which I am commanding you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in your city, and cursed shall you be in your field. And then he goes on to list this whole bunch of not very nice curses. Do you see the causal link between obedience and blessing? Do you see that? And disobedience and the removal of that blessing - just as in any relationship between a parent and a child. But the thing that really strikes me here is the magnitude of the blessing – look at verse 2 again of Deuteronomy 28: All these blessing shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. Don’t you love how the blessing will come upon you but it will also overtake you – they will chase you down the street? This is the superabundant life that Jesus spoke about. Verse 13: The Lord will make you the head and not the tail – you shall be at the top and not the bottom if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you today, by diligently observing them. Friend, listen God wants to bless us. And that doesn’t always mean being rich and wealthy. Jesus wants to bless us with a life that is superabundant and rich so that His blessing chases us down the street and overtakes us. Do you get it? But that blessing happens when we are close to the Good Shepherd, safe in His care. It does not happen when we follow the thief and let him plunder our lives through deception and temptation because remember, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy but Jesus came that you and I might have life and have it abundantly. Our Dad in heaven truly does want us to be the head and not the tail; the top and not the bottom. I mean, what dad wouldn’t want that for his children? A Different Perspective You know what I think happens as we grind away at life or at least, life grinds away at us? I think we lose our sense of perspective. We hear these promises from Jesus about an abundant life and then we look at the reality of our own lives – all the trials and temptations tearing away at us – and we come to the conclusion that, well, it may have been possible two thousand years ago to have this so called "abundant life" , it may even be possible for other people but this promise definitely is not for me; I mean, can’t be! Look at my life, I mean, really!! I said it before and I am going to say it again: His promise is for an abundant life not a perfect one. His promise is that we can have His blessings in the middle of the ups and downs of life. Deuteronomy 28, verse 2: All these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. Verse 13: The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall only be at the top, not the bottom if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I am giving you today by diligently observing them. And how does that work? Well, Jesus told us – John chapter 17, verse 15: I am not asking you Dad, to take them out of this world. I am asking you to protect them from the evil one. See, we are blessed not by God taking us out of this world and wrapping us in cotton-wool, we are blessed in the middle of our lives, just as they are at the moment. We live in an "aspirational" world – by that I mean we are always hoping for something better out of life; we are always expecting things to improve. Sometimes they do but sometimes they don’t and sometimes it takes much longer than we would like and so people … many people spend much of their lives grumpy and down and complaining and, before you know it, life has slipped away and we haven’t enjoyed the life that God has given us. Friend, God’s Word says that the joy of the Lord is our strength – Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 10: The joy of the Lord is our strength. Friend, it’s time to start enjoying what we have – like those sheep in the story of the good shepherd. They still had to walk miles over rocky plateaus in search of pasture. Some days it was hot, some days it was cold, some days it was wet and windy and blowing – it wasn’t always comfortable. But no matter, that’s life; it’s how it is. The point was that they were safe because they were with the good shepherd; the one true shepherd who they knew was prepared to lay down his life for them. And so they had peace and security and the deep knowledge of the life-giving love of their shepherd. Friend, that’s what an abundant life is. So often in my life, in the past and yes, even now, I am confronted by circumstances that are difficult; circumstances that sometimes are painful; circumstances that I certainly wouldn’t have chosen for myself. And the temptation … the temptation is either to curl up in a ball in the corner and give up or to come out punching and hurt other people. Have you ever felt like that? I do some days. I was sitting with a man just yesterday, over coffee, chatting about this very thing. He was going through some difficult things and I shared with him how, in my life – because I choose to spend time each day with Jesus; because I choose, albeit often imperfectly, to believe in Him with my life – I have this constant joy. Okay, sometimes I’m downcast, but it can’t last long because the joy of the Lord is my strength. Friend, God is such a good God! He is the True Shepherd and He laid down His life for us. It’s a totally different perspective on life and it’s a perspective that, to me, has only come as I have developed a real, intimate relationship with Jesus. I believe it’s a gift from Him. I believe it’s the normative Christian life. I believe that it’s not just for the so called ‘super-spiritual’ but it’s for everyone and the reason so many are missing out is because they haven’t taken the step of faith to believe this promise from Jesus with their life. Listen … listen very carefully, Jesus meant it for all the sheep. He meant it for you, He meant it for me. Listen … John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. But I,” said Jesus, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Friend, that is God’s promise for me and for you!!…
C
Christianityworks Official Podcast
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Life’s full of its ups and downs. You and I we know that. Jesus knows that. That’s why when He promised us an abundant life, He made that promise in the context of a story, a parable, about life’s ups … and downs. The Shepherd and His Flock As we race through life day after day, one of the things that happens is that we somehow get conned or duped into the great lie of our times: if you earn lots of money and you spend it on this and this and this and this – this toy, these clothes, that holiday, this dining experience – if you live your life like that, then you are going to be happy. So, we try it again and again and again. Many spend their whole lives chasing happiness, only to be disappointed at every turn. And before you know it, they are looking back on a wasted life. I mean, how tragic is that? So, what’s the answer? I think, as we head into yet another new year, now is not a bad time to be asking that question. What is life all about? What’s my life all about? Am I going to be happy this year? And so, that’s why today, we are kicking off a new series of programmes that I have called, “An Abundant Life in Jesus”, because so many of us have spent so much of our lives chasing happiness – me included. That’s what I was looking for and that’s what I could never find. So many of us wish we could be happy and yet we don’t really know what happiness is, so we go looking for it in the wrong places. Jesus promised something outrageous to His disciples – to all those who follow hard after Him – He promised them an abundant life. In fact, a super-abundant life! Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Someone once asked me, ‘What does that mean, an abundant life?’ That’s a good question. I mean, ‘super-abundant’ sounds fantastic but what is it? What does it look like? Well, let’s kick off by having a listen to what it is that Jesus actually says, so if you have a Bible, come with me please to John chapter 10 – we are going to begin reading at verse 1. Jesus said: Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep then follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 'The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 'The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.’ That’s a really interesting passage. It’s a beautiful picture of a shepherd and his flock. Back in those days – let me explain the shepherd. The shepherd normally had a small number of sheep, fifty or a hundred sheep and literally, he knew each of them by name. Now sheep aren’t stupid animals; they are actually quite bright but they are short sighted so the shepherd calls them and they hear him, they follow the voice; he leads them; he goes ahead of them and his job is to find them pasture and water and keep them safe. Now, being a shepherd was a tradition handed down from father to son. A real shepherd; the true shepherd who owned the sheep would literally protect the sheep with his life from wild animals and robbers. We will look at that later. And they would wander this rocky plateau and in winter he would bring them into the sheep fold, into the town or village by night and all the different shepherd’s sheep would be in the one pen. And the next morning, each shepherd in turn would come and call his sheep. And he had a personal relationship with them – the sheep knew his voice and so they would follow just their shepherd, not anyone else’s shepherd, just their shepherd and they trusted him and they felt safe with him. So this is the picture that the people had in their minds in the first century as Jesus was telling this story. This winsome picture of the lonely shepherd tending his flock, protecting them with his life - that’s what Jesus was drawing on in this story. But did you notice they didn’t understand what He was saying. Verse 6 of John chapter 10. Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they did not understand what He was saying to them. You and I, we wander through some difficult places in life – we truly do. When we are young, we think we are invincible; we think we can conquer every mountain, but life soon teaches us that we are more of a small boat on a great big, mighty ocean. And yes, Jesus promises an abundant life – we had it there in that passage. Again we will look at what that means, over the coming weeks. But look at the context … the context of that abundance, is as one of His sheep in His flock under the safety and the care of the True Shepherd. It’s this picture of safety and protection and of a Shepherd who did, in fact, lay down His life to save us … to save us from the ravages of the devil; to save us from our own sin; to save us from God’s judgement. Storms will come and go, wild animals will come in life and tear at our flesh, thieves will come to steal, kill and destroy, bad things will happen to good people. Is there any one of us who doesn’t have something going on in our lives right now, that’s hurts - something we wish wasn’t there? Is there? Jesus never, ever, ever promised His disciples a comfortable ride - in fact, quite to the contrary. He said to them, at a time when there was fear in their lives, in John chapter 16, verse 33. He said: I have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will face persecution but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world. The promise of this abundant life comes not as a promise to make all our circumstances, all our relationships, all our finances, all our futures rosy – that was never, ever what He promised. No! The promise of this abundant life comes to us in the context of the rough and tumble of life; in the context of a shepherd leading his sheep through a rocky plateau to find pasture and dangers all around. As we live our lives under the protection and the safety and the sacrificial love of this One True Shepherd, Jesus, then He says to us, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.” And because of the world in which we live, that abundant life was purchased for you and me at a price … at a very great price. The Thief and His Plan I was speaking recently with a group of people. It was a church service on a Sunday morning and I asked them this question. I said, “Is there anybody here in this room today that doesn’t have at least one thing going on in their lives that hurts? One thing that they wish wasn’t there? One thing that they want God to heal or to change or to solve or to take away? If you don’t have at least one such thing in your life, raise your hand up in the air." There would have been, I’m guessing, over a hundred people in the room. Absolutely silence! I cast my eyes around the room – I just allowed the silence to hang there for a moment and not a single hand when up in the air – not one. These were people who believed in Jesus, these were people who had all heard Jesus say: John chapter 10, verse 10, that: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. They had all heard Jesus promise an abundant life to them. Literally what Jesus says here – the original Greek language – it means a ‘super abundant life’ and yet, everyone had something in their lives that was troubling them. And you know what it’s like: your whole body can be healthy but you jam your finger in a door and the excruciating pain in that one finger is all that you can think about. The fact that the rest of your life is just fine at that point, is pretty much irrelevant. It’s all about the bit that hurts – that’s what we focus on. It’s true isn’t it? It’s so easy to live our lives, focusing on that one bit in our life that hurts just at the moment: that difficult relationship, that financial pressure, that problem at work, the worry about what other people are thinking about us. It’s pretty much different for each one of us. But when we have that one thing, or perhaps even two or three, that ache, that we wish would just go away - then it can consume us. It actually robs us of life. And as we saw earlier, the context of this promise of an abundant life was the story; the parable of the Good Shepherd - Jesus the Good Shepherd, we the sheep in His flock. Now this was a really familiar metaphor to those who were listening. They knew that the profession of the shepherd was one of honour, one of protecting his sheep. They knew that as a shepherd led his sheep out over the stony plateau of Israel in search of pasture, thieves would come and often attack and try and steal the sheep. Wild animals would sometimes come and attack and steal a sheep to eat for dinner. It was the reality of life for a shepherd and a true shepherd’s job was to defend his flock. But let’s focus for a moment in this story, on the thief. John chapter 10, verse 10: The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus is telling a parable here, a parable that’s meant to reach into our lives – and the thief in this story is the enemy; the devil; the tempter; the deceiver He had referred to elsewhere. The one who dangles glittering baubles under our noses – trinkets and treasures that are so alluring, so seductive. They appear to promise so much. Can he get us to wander off? And other times … other times he simply comes to attack us: through circumstances, through other people. We see that in Job’s story in the Old Testament, how the devil uses financial collapse, sickness, family breakdown, to attack Job. Paul the Apostle gives us a glimpse into the spiritual realm to tell us what’s going on when we are under attack from this enemy, this thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 12. He says: ... our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. See, there is a spiritual dimension to life and we ignore it at our peril. There is a devil who is our enemy; who sometimes comes dressed as an angel of light to deceive us. Other times, he sneaks up like a thief or attacks us openly, like a wolf. All that is in the Bible and we ignore it at our own peril. But look with me again, if you will, at what Jesus says about Himself: So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come and go and find pasture. In summer, the shepherds would stay out overnight with their flocks and dotted around the place, were pens that had been built using really dense hedges. So by night, the shepherds would lead his sheep into one of these pens. But those pens had no gate, so he would sleep across the opening and, in effect, the shepherd became the gate – to keep the sheep in overnight, to keep them safe and sound so that none would wander off and to keep the thieves and the wild animals out. He would fight any that came, with his shepherd’s staff and with his rod, a kind of club with spikes. He was the gate. He was their safety, so that they could come and go in peace. He gave them protection and so, safety and peace. And that is Jesus in our lives today, my friend. Make no mistake about it. The thief will come to steal and to kill and to destroy, to rob us of the abundant life that Jesus has planned for us. The wild animals will come to tear at our flesh, to corrupt our flesh. And yes, we can wander off in our own directions, but out there on our own, we are sitting ducks. The place of safety is with Jesus. The place of safety is close to our Shepherd – the one true Shepherd who would lay down His life for His sheep. Think about it. If we are constantly being ravaged by the devil, how can we have an abundant life? There are going to be struggles in our lives, and when they come, when things hurt, the place to go is Jesus – the One True Shepherd, the One who lays down His life for His sheep. He is meant to be our refuge. He can and He will protect us. What a pity that so many suffer through things alone when all along Jesus is waiting for them? The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. "I came,” said Jesus, “that you might have life and have it abundantly.” A Super Abundant Life Happiness is great – it’s great to feel on top of the world but then, some of the most satisfying moments in life don’t always involve happiness. You can be exhausted; a complete wreck and yet experience a deep sense of satisfaction at what you have just been through or achieved. Or we can experience a deep sense of contentment in life even if all our circumstances and relationships and finances and all those things aren’t quite what we want them to be. And we can experience a sense of peace knowing that we are safe, even though we might have some things going on in our lives that might be a threat. Or we can experience fulfilment at being comfortable with who we are and what we are able to do with our lives. And even more, being happy to let go of things that we aspire to, that maybe we are not able to do. Do you see my point? Happiness ain’t everything! There are so many other things that go into making a rich and abundant life. And it’s that abundance that we are taking a look at today on the programme. And with good reason – an abundant life is something that Jesus promised to His disciples. For me, one of the most fantastic revelations of God and this promise from Jesus of an abundant life, is that everything in my life doesn’t have to be going perfectly well for me to be living an abundant life. Let me say that again because I believe it’s incredibly important: everything in my life doesn’t have to be going perfectly well for me to be having an abundant life. Now, this was a huge revelation because I don’t think I can ever remember a single time in my life – maybe a week or two or a month or two, here and there – but over all very few times in my life where absolutely everything was perfect: every relationship, everything to do with my finances, everything to do with my work, everything to do with my hopes and dreams and aspirations and sense of self worth. Do you know what I mean? There is always something there to take the shine or the gloss off life. The Apostle Paul found that too. He had a thorn in his flesh. Now, we are not quite sure whether that was a physical ailment or a spiritual ailment, the Holy Spirit in His wisdom chose not to tell us that. Good thinking too! But have a listen to Paul. Second Corinthians chapter 12, beginning at verse 7: To keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’. So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Humph! And this, from a guy who wrote almost half the books in the New Testament! See, there is always something, isn’t there? And I wonder if that isn’t God’s plan. I wonder if everything was always going swimmingly well in my life, whether I would even bother seeking God out at all! I wonder if everything in my life was perfect, whether I would be of any use to you in these programmes. Much of what I talk about, in fact, pretty much all of what I talk about, is born out of the struggles and realities of life, bringing God’s wisdom to bear in our lives. And interestingly, this passage where Jesus talks about His promise to give us an abundant life is set amidst the story of a struggle – the struggle of a shepherd to protect and feed his sheep. We read through it earlier in the programme. The life of a shepherd was a hard one – thieves, robbers, wild animals – the shepherd was called to protect those sheep with his life and many a time it cost the shepherd his life back then. Without the shepherd, the life of a sheep was precarious. A sheep out there on its own would be a sitting duck, to be picked off by a wolf or stolen or fall down some ravine. Jesus is telling a story here about life and death struggles. It’s a parable that reaches deep into the realities of our lives. It’s a story about a life lived out there in a challenging world in which Jesus Himself, through His death and His resurrection, becomes our True Shepherd. A pastor friend of mine told me a story once. He was ministering in a country area and one of his parishioners was a farmer, of sheep. Now the farmer told him, when he was a young lad, he always observed how the sheep would be standing grazing, but as soon as his father would go into the field, they would often lie down. So he asked his dad about that and his father told him that sheep only lie down when they feel safe and that when the shepherd is close, they know that they are safe, which is why they will often take that opportunity to lie down and have a rest. Brings a whole new meaning to Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me by still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. “He makes me to lie down in green pastures ”, which means I feel safe. And even though you and I can end up in the valley of the shadow of death, we don’t have to fear any evil because God is with us – His rod and His staff comfort us. So often, friend, an abundant life is not about being taken out of the difficult circumstances of life. It’s about experiencing the peace and the protection of Jesus – that One True Shepherd – right there; right in the middle of the difficulties of life; right there, smack, bang in that valley of the shadow of death. And the incredible power of that is this: if we choose that sort of abundance of life; the one that Jesus has to offer – the true one, not the imposters, not the false shepherds, not the ones that come to rob and to kill and destroy. If we choose the TRUE life, with the TRUE Shepherd, then it doesn’t matter much what our circumstances are – good, bad, up, down, positive, negative – it doesn’t matter, because even though we may walk through the darkest valley, we fear no evil because He is with us. People sometimes ask me, "How can you be so upbeat in the middle of a trial?" and my answer is: this is how – it’s not me, it’s Him because I have decided to live my abundant life through Jesus. The abundant life that Jesus promised – my One True Shepherd!…
This whole Christmas celebration thing is of course a birthday celebration. And birthdays are all about celebrating new life. Would it surprise you to know that that’s exactly what God has in mind for you to celebrate? Your new life. SILENT NIGHT 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. IT'S ONLY JUST BEGUN Today, as they say, is the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s a funny time this time of year just after Christmas and just before we step into the hurly burly of a new year. It’s a time of rest and reflection for most of us. For some, it’s a time of regret. For others, it’s a time of celebration. For some, it’s a time of anticipation over what next year will bring. And yet for others, it’s a time of fear and worry. 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 '. Let's 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. YES IT'S FOR YOU As you look forward to the rest of your life, I know that some of what we’ve spoken about today isn’t easy to swallow. Especially if you’re in the middle of a rough trot. But remember, Mary and Joseph didn’t have the big picture of what God was up to back then. They were immersed in trial after trial. But the beauty of it is that you and I do have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s accounts of what they went through. We know the big picture, we can stand back and see what God was up to in a way that the players back then simply couldn’t. To them, it felt like they were being swept along by events completely out of their control. On top of everything, of course, Caesar had declared that a census was to be taken, which in the absence of today’s modern technology, meant that Mary and Joseph, like all the other people, had to travel back to their ancestral homes and that was a long slog. But from God’s vantage point, these weren’t unconnected, random events. These were all part of His plan to usher a Saviour into this world. A Messiah that nobody expected. See, God is the God of the unexpected. There are no events or circumstances that are beyond Him. There are no events or circumstances in your life that escape Him or pass Him by. He’s across everything, in absolute detail, in the minutest detail, everything that’s going on in your life. And I’m here to tell you that if your Christmas wasn’t quite what you wanted it to be, wasn’t quite what the advertisers said it should be, if you didn’t quite get the standard issue Ho, Ho, Ho kind of Christmas this year, then your God is still with you today. Your God just showed up through His Word. Your God is with you in that place you’re in right now. And nothing, not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of your God in Jesus Christ. And that my friend, is worth celebrating not just at Christmas time, but for every day for the rest of your life. And just as He was with Mary and Joseph, even though they didn’t have the full picture, even though it was uncomfortable, so He is and forever will be, with you. I’ve called this series of messages "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 on your rocky road from this moment forward, this God who is above all your circumstances, this God who is in all your circumstances, this God who sent 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 the rest of your life with the joy and the anticipation and the excitement of a new life in Christ for you? 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 worth celebrating at Christmas … and beyond.…
C
Christianityworks Official Podcast
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Christmas is supposed to be a lot of things these days. And yet it doesn’t always deliver all that it’s meant to deliver. But then, the very first Christmas, it wasn’t all sweetness and light either. If nothing else, it was a decidedly uncomfortable Christmas. OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS There are times in our lives when it feels as though circumstances or events outside of our control have completely taken over our lives. We've all been there and some people I know are there right now. Perhaps you were looking forward to a family Christmas and your marriage or somebody else’s marriage in your family is starting to fall apart. Or perhaps, you find yourself completely alone or maybe sickness has struck and you're wondering how to get through it. And at this point, the whole idea even of celebrating Christmas seems completely irrelevant, off this planet. Despite what all the happy Christmas ads on television would have us believe, Christmas is not a happy time for many people. It's sad but true. Now, that's not to say that we're all going to have a lousy Christmas, no. But when we scratch the glitzy veneer of what Christmas has become in the twenty-first century, when you go below the surface, most people have something going on in their lives that takes the shine off what should be (according to what everybody else is telling us) the celebration of Christmas. Season's greetings, peace on earth, merrrryyyyy Christmas, ho ho ho. Yeah, right. Somehow the umpteenth re-enactment of the Christmas pantomime at Church and that nativity scene in the store window (if you can even find one anywhere these days) just doesn't seem to connect with life's realities when we've been swamped by a wave of whatever it is in our life, in your life, this year. I've had many a Christmas like that over the years. Truly, I have. Life can be tough sometimes. And when you're involved in ministry in any way, shape or form, you'll know that it's even tougher because the devil is on your case. You run into opposition and attacks sometimes seemingly from every direction and on those Christmases the pantomime version of Christmas simply isn't enough. You with me? But let's wind the clock back to the old, old story, to the days leading up to the birth of Jesus, the Christ. Because when I go back to that story, there's nothing safe, there's nothing comfortable, there's nothing pantomimey at all about it. The road to that very first Christmas was a hard road and it's on that road that we discover a God who's prepared to get on the journey with us. Think about the circumstances that had overtaken Joseph and Mary's lives to that point. Firstly, they'd fallen in love. Hey, that's a good thing, that's a great thing, that's a special thing. But then Mary falls pregnant to the Holy Spirit, out of wedlock in a day and age where that was a scandal. You can imagine how Joseph felt, right? – robbed, betrayed, dismayed, hurt, alone, disappointed, angry, the full gamut of emotions. Events had overtaken his life. This one painful event which was completely outside of his control. It hurt so much but being the good guy that he was, he planned to cut off the engagement and to dismiss Mary quietly so as not to make a big thing of it in public. Events, circumstances, things out there that were going to rob him, unbeknown to him at the time, of the very first Christmas. You see if you're in that boat, you're not the first one. This old, old story has a modern twist in its tail, does it not? The truth of that first Christmas (even though it happened two thousand years away) is here and now when you get behind the pantomime version and you check out what really happened. So there's young Jo about to be robbed of that first Christmas and then God. Whenever circumstances are about to roll over the top of us, it's always, always a case of 'then God' because this God who loves you beyond any measure that you would care to apply to His love, He always shows up. He showed up back then for Joseph. Let's have a listen: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph but before they lived together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the Prophet, 'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel which means God is with us'. When Joseph awoke from his sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son and he named him, Jesus. (Matthew 1: 18-25) I wonder how many times you and I have skimmed over that old, old story with the attitude, "Oh yeah, I know that one. Yeah sure, it's fine," without ever really thinking about what it meant for Mary and poor old Joseph. The stress it put on their relationship, the glances and the whispers of scandal that happened in their tight-knit little community. And just when Joseph was about to do what he thought was the decent thing out of his pain – God showed up. God showed up in a mighty way to speak truth and comfort and love and destiny into Joseph's heart. I don't know how real that dream felt to him at the time, probably it was a really powerful dream if it was from God. But when he woke up it was still only a dream but it was enough for Joseph to act upon. He didn't have the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John to rely on back then, like you and I do have now, he didn't know how it was all going to turn out. But when he heard the voice of God he acted on it. Christmas is about difficult circumstances. Christmas is all about God breaking into this world in an exquisite blend of love and power and humility. Christmas is about God and it's about you. A LONELY JOURNEY 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 and 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. NO ROOM AT THE INN Well, here we are on Christmas Eve and I’m guessing you know where I’m headed with this story, right? 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.…
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? CHRISTMAS IS A CRAZY IDEA 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. At 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? YOU WON'T DIE ALONE 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 of 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 1:10-14. 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. A QUIET REFLECTION I just want to pick up on something really insightful my pastor said last Sunday, about being with someone who is dying. He made the point that one of the most powerful things that we can do is simply to touch that person. Whether it’s holding their hand, or giving them a hug. I remember when my dad was in intensive care just before he died, that’s exactly what the nurse told me to do. Why? Because that sort of intimacy brings a powerful comfort and reassurance to the person who is dying. You know yourself, just knowing that someone is here, standing with you, caring for you when you’re going through a difficult time, is in and of itself truly powerful. It may not make the problem go away, but it brings a comfort that nothing else can bring. And in many respects, that is what the physical Presence of Jesus, which began on this earth on that first Christmas, is all about. Of course, you and I can’t touch Him physically right now, but one of His great promises, just before He ascended into heaven was that He would pour out His Holy Spirit on every man, woman and child who believes in Him. I just want you to quietly reflect on that powerful, powerful truth. Because according to Jesus, that’s even better than having Him around physically. Speaking about His departure and the Holy Spirit, He said this: John 16:7: Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. The Holy Spirit, better than Jesus, according to Jesus. More intimate than Jesus, because when the Holy Spirit fills us, He never leaves us. He is always there to empower, to comfort, to guide and to give us wisdom and power. With Jesus, if the disciples were in another place, then He wasn’t there physically with them. But with the Holy Spirit there is no place that you or I can go to flee from His Presence. As the Psalmist writes: Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness isn’t dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12) What we tend to do is we chop God’s great story up into little bits. We separate the birth of Jesus from His death, from His resurrection, from His pouring out of the Holy Spirit, from the powerful things that were ushered in through the early church. But you can’t do that. All of those things happened because Jesus stepped out of the Spiritual dimension into the physical dimension, onto this planet to be close to us. That closeness, that intimacy, is like touching a dying person. You and I, until Jesus touches our lives, we are dying people. And then, He brings new life. And then He fills us with His Holy Spirit and then, you and I are never, ever, ever alone again for the rest of eternity. That’s what Jesus’ coming has given you. That’s why Christmas is such an amazing time to remember this radical plan of God’s to show us His love by being close to us, by touching us, even though we were dying in our sin until He came. My prayer for you … is that as you drink in this wondrous message of Christmas. As you reflect on it in your heart, the Holy Spirit will do an amazing work of joy in you, to cause your spirit to soar into heavenly places – and receive this amazing Christmas present that we call Jesus.…
Question – When is Christmas not Christmas? When is Christmas anything but Christmas? Answer – when we just follow the well-trodden paths of the Christmas ritual, and forget completely what God was saying to us on that very first Christmas. THE PROBLEM WITH 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? Luke 2: 8-14: 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 ." 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? THE PROPHECIES OF OLD 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. THE REALITIES OF LIFE There is something incredibly powerful about "business as usual" . If you think about how your life has played itself out, so far, I suspect that it's been ninety nine percent humdrum and about half a percent of wonderful mountain top joy and another half a percent of tragedy and loss. Sure, some people seem to have better lives than others. Some are born rich, some are born poor and very sadly for some people life is one long tragedy. I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all that away for those people who find themselves in that boat. But I just can't and yet for most of us, most of our lives are occupied by the normal every day, business as usual, monotony which consumes most of our time, most of our attention and most of our focus. Am I right? But beneath that monotony there is always, always, always a sneaking suspicion that there must be more. You've had that feeling, right? This sense that something is oppressing you, something is sidling 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. Luke 2: 8-14: 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. 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. Luke 2: 15 – 20: 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?…
When I first started reading the Bible, it seemed to me that it was all about the things I had to give up - what I was going to lose. But what I discovered is that actually, actually God wants to bless us. His Wisdom brings blessing to our lives - as counterintuitive as it may seem, when we’re sitting there wrapped up in our selfish desires. The Fruit of Discipline I can honestly say, as I look back on my life, that there is not a single time ... not one, where I have enjoyed being disciplined. I remember as a child – I was a lively sort of a lad as you can probably image. I was into everything and inquisitive and full of beans and since I was old enough to sleep in a bed, rather than a cot, I’ve been getting up at four or five o’clock in the morning – that’s just the way I’m wired. I was never shy or retiring – I was always out there and into everything. So it’s not surprising that growing up, I had more than my fair share of discipline – more than the odd belting when I grew up. Not that I am necessarily suggesting that’s always the best way of discipling a child. And then as a teenager and a young adult when I was studying at the Royal Military College Duntroon, to become an officer in the Australian Army, that’s where you learn what discipline is all about. And then later on in the workplace. I can honestly say there is not a single time that I have enjoyed being disciplined. But looking back on it, without that discipline, I think I would have grown up to be a horrid person, completely unbearable. See, discipline is never fun at the time but it’s an important part of our lives. And I think it bears some thinking about so today we are going to spend some time unpacking this whole thing of "discipline" . There’s not one of us, I suspect, who can’t think back to the time when we lived with our parents – those of us fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to grow up with our Mum and our Dad, or at least one of them. As we think back to those times what we remember is being disciplined and some of those memories are frankly, not very happy ones. I can remember how unfair discipline felt at the time – how much I hated being disciplined. Aw, man, why do things have to be like that? Why did God have to invent a world where we would have to learn by being disciplined? Well, today we are continuing on with this series that I have called “Wisdom that Works.” And right in the next passage of the Book of Proverbs, a book of wisdom, written by a wise old King Solomon to his young sons – right in the next bit that we are up to, we get an answer to this question: Why do we need discipline? So let’s have a listen – we are looking at Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 20: My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart always; tie them around your neck. When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you. For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life. Can fire be carried in the bosom without burning one’s clothes? Or can one walk on hot coals without scorching the feet? So is he who sleeps with his neighbor’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished. Thieves are not despised who steal only to satisfy their appetite when they are hungry. Yet if they are caught, they will pay sevenfold; they will forfeit all the goods in their house. But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. For jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he shows no restraint when he takes revenge. He will accept no compensation, and refuses a bribe no matter how great. Now, the example that Solomon uses here to his sons is that of adultery. He kicks off by talking about the huge investment that he and the mother of these young men have made in them, through their commandments and their teaching and their wisdom and their reproof. And their council is to hang on to that – to bind it round their hearts, to tie it round their neck – why? Because the things that you have learned when you are young through discipline will protect you – they will watch over you, they will council you. When we head off and we want to do something stupid like adultery – but it could be anything – it could be dishonesty or it could be dissension or back biting – it could be anything – when we want to head off in the wrong direction, the wisdom given to us by our parents will be like a lamp and a light and show things for what they are. The wisdom of our parents and, for you and me, the wisdom of God, will protect us. Now wisdom always involves discipline – it always involves us being taught the hard way not to head off in a certain direction because that’s where we are going to get hurt. You and I, we naturally shun discipline, but have a listen to what Solomon says to his lads and what God is saying to you and me, here and now: For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life, to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. Did you pick that up? “… the reproof of discipline is a way of life.” – to preserve us from the consequences of wrong doing. And then, of course, Solomon goes on to lay out the horrible things that happen to a young man who commits adultery, notwithstanding the seductive nature of what’s on offer. Discipline is a way of life. Ouch! You see, we have this idea that if we are succeeding, things should always be getting better, things should always be on the up and up and we should be getting more influence and more success and more this and more that. That’s the picture we have of life! And then all of a sudden, when things take a turn for the worse, we think to ourselves, "Oh, woe is me! Has God forsaken me? Where’s God – what’s He doing? Why is this happening to me – ME of all people – me?" Right? That’s how we want to carry on. Come with me to the New Testament – a thousand or so years later on, after Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs to the Letter of Hebrews chapter 12. Have a listen to what God has to say about discipline: Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 7: Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later on it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. See, discipline is a way of life, as God’s way of helping us to grow. Jesus said, “Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it to make it bear more fruit.” So the next time God is disciplining you – and this is not about punishment and justice – that happened at the cross when Jesus died for us – discipline is about teaching and learning and pruning so that we will be able to bear more fruit. So the next time God is disciplining you and disciplining me, let’s remember there’s a purpose that goes way beyond our desire for comfort and convenience – that purpose is that God has a plan. And instead of flapping around, wondering what the blazes is going on here, here’s God’s advice: Discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time. So, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight the paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. In other words, don’t fight it! Go with what God is doing – don’t get your nose out of joint, instead, be healed. Now that … that’s wisdom that works! Our Heart’s Desires To be frank, when I first started reading God’s Word in the Bible, my expectations of that stuffy old Book were pretty low. I thought it was pretty much irrelevant – truly! And that, "Well, if I am going to call myself a Christian, well, I suppose I’ll have to pray and I’ll have to read the Bible, just one of those chores; the price you have to pay to get eternal life!" Seriously, that’s what I thought! So the last thing I expected was to discover this vibrant, living thing – God speaking His love and His grace and His wisdom into my life, in a way – get this – in a way that actually works. In a way that radically, makes my life better. And the last thing I expected was a God who wanted to bless me and having taught me His ways, to give me the desires of my heart. But that’s exactly what I discovered. Page after page, verse after verse, as I read it and thought about it and how it might work in my life, I met a God; a Jesus, who wants to make my life better by getting rid of the sin out of my life. The stupid things that we all want to do and they end up robbing us of life – the life He always planned for us. And then, by taking our hearts and filling them with His love and humility and showing us the depth of joy that comes from living our lives for Him – living our lives with love for other people. My friend, let me tell you – with all that I am, that was the very last thing I expected to find. See, the funny thing is, the reason I held back my life from God for the first thirty six years of my life was that, I was afraid of what I would have to give up. I have always been pretty clever – I’m fortunate I have a quick, sharp mind, I have always been industrious and resourceful and so what I had done in my life was to take those natural talents (other people have different talents, but these were mine) and to use them for … well, to use them for me, of course. I’d figured out that I could use them to make lots of money. I knew that because I was strong and articulate and driven, I could crash through just about any obstacle that got between me and my objective of getting the sort of career and recognition and wealth that I hungered after. And deep, deep down I knew that if I invited God into my life to be my Lord and my Saviour, I’d have to get off my throne – I’d have to surrender that to Him! I’m not sure if I could have quite put it in those words back then but that was it. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God – I believed pretty much for most of my life, that He was out there somewhere. Yet I had this uneasy dread that one day, the day of reckoning would come. It’s just that I duped myself into believing that my brand of evil and frankly – let’s call a spade a spade – that’s what my selfishness was – that my brand of evil was somehow, okay. It was good that I was driven; it was good that I was getting wealthy and recognised in my field and industry – it was good that I was making it. And that con job, my friend, is a con job that the devil is working out in countless people’s lives walking this earth today. ‘It’s not evil what you are doing – it’s good; it’s fine, it’s okay; it’s good that you are making it – sure, go for it. And if someone gets in your road, just roll over the top of them – squash them like a fly.’ I wonder if, perhaps, you don’t relate just a little bit to what I’m saying. This is a universal human condition. It’s the condition that God calls ‘sin’ and the worst thing is … the most dangerous thing is that we end believing that it’s okay; that it’s good. So have a listen with me now to God’s wisdom on the difference between good and evil. It’s wisdom that shines light on this oh-so-important subject and it’s the sort of light I think, that makes us see evil for what it is. And my prayer is that it makes us desire good over evil. Let’s have a listen – Proverbs chapter 10, beginning at verse 22: The blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it. Doing wrong is like sport to a fool, but wise conduct is a pleasure to a person of understanding. What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever. See, God being God, He always starts off by telling us about the blessing He has in store for us. God reveals Himself to us as our Father – Jesus literally called Him “Dad” . Listen to me, every dad wants to bless his children – we do! We love to bless our kids. God’s no different. Look at verse 22 again – Proverbs chapter 10: The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it. Friend, God wants to bless us and when He does, He makes us rich. I’m not talking about money – sometimes He blesses us financially – but money isn’t what makes us happy. There is something deep inside that makes us happier – a deep abiding joy; the sort I could never find when I was working out my particular brand of evil on this earth - the sort that always eluded me. I thought I’d have to give something up, by giving up my evil ways, and sure, in a sense, I did. But the reality was that the prize was that one thing I’d been looking for all my life. I was living in the first part of this next verse without realising the blessing in the second part. Doing wrong is like sport to a fool but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding. As I said earlier, I always had this deep dread down inside that one day this would all come unstuck – that one day something bad would happen – that one day this whole house of cards would come crashing down and that is exactly what God says is going to happen next verse: What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. I proved the first bit of that in my life because that’s exactly what happened – it did all come crashing down. But I’m also discovering the profound truth of the second part now that I am living my life for Him, that “...the desire of the righteous will be granted.” God grants the desires of our heart when we are living our lives for Him. Elsewhere: Psalm 37, verse 4, he tells us to: Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. God wants to give us good things, like any father. And now the desires that I have going on in my heart – for the most part – spring out of a delight that I have in God. My point is, we all have things still to deal with – you do, I do – but more and more my desires flow from God’s desires. You know what? God is a great Dad; a fantastic Dad! I am discovering that He really does wants to bless me with His joy and His peace and His love, right in the middle of the storms of life; right in the middle of the trials and the challenges. A lot of those haven’t gone away, in fact, the more we step out onto the spiritual battlefield, to weigh in with our lives for God on this planet earth, the more things are going to come against us; the more our enemy, the devil, is going to come against us. But in the middle of all that, God wants to bless us. Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. That’s the point! And how does it all end – this story of life, when we either live out a life of rebellion against God or a life of honouring God – what is the end game? Proverbs chapter 10, verse 25: When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more but the righteous are established forever. Friend, all those years I was conned, I thought to myself, I was going to lose something; I had to give up something to serve God. What a fool I was because what I have discovered is when we do lay our lives down; when we do give everything we are and everything we have to God, WOW! The blessings of the Father, God in heaven, flow in our lives and they make us rich and He adds no sorrow with it. That’s who God is! That’s the wisdom of God – lay down your life and you will find it. Try and hang on to it and you will lose it. Back to the Beginning Well, over these last four weeks – isn’t it amazing how much wisdom there is in God’s Word, as we have stepped through the Book of Proverbs in this series that I’ve called, “Wisdom that Works” ? But we have only stepped through just a few chapters – there is so much more there. And that’s the thing – people sometimes ask me – they say, "Berni, you produce hundreds of episodes of your radio programmes every year and you write books and all that stuff, don’t you ever run out of ideas; don’t you ever run out of fresh content?" And my answer to that is a huge NO! Absolutely not! If I get to do this every day for another hundred years, I’ll still only have scratched the surface of God’s wisdom. Is that because it’s big and complicated, so that you need a PhD in Theology to understand it? No! God’s Word is actually simple, practical and straight forward. It’s just that, well, I’m such a slow learner – I need to feast on God’s Word every day. And little by little He changes me. And you know, the more time I spend in God’s Word each day, the less of it I read. Now, that sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? Let me explain. I used to try and plough through several chapters each day as though somehow, it was a race to see who could get to the end first. But then I stumbled on a passage written by Paul the Apostle. He was old and experienced and much wiser for it, writing to his young ministry protégé Timothy. This is what he said. First Timothy chapter 2, verse 7: Think over what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. In other words, stop and think over what is in God’s Word. That’s when it makes a difference. I had a young listener email me recently and she said, ‘I have a problem – I am trying to read my Bible but by lunch time I can’t remember what I read this morning.’ So I said to her, ‘I had that problem too so what I started doing was reading less – not less often, but less in volume. And I started thinking and praying about it more. See, that’s when it came together for me. God’s wisdom is so powerful! But just like good food, we need to chew it over and swallow it for it to do us any good. So I encourage you to do that – to take His wisdom, chew it over, think about it and then, in prayer, swallow it. Let the Spirit of God write it on your heart – that’s when it becomes part of us. And over a decade and a half of doing that I can honestly say that God’s Word has become part of the fabric; the essence of who I am. That’s what transforms us – that’s how His wisdom starts working in our lives. We take it in little by little and the old maxim is true, we discover that "we are what we eat" . And the place where I think is the best place for us to draw this four week series to a close, is the place where we began four weeks ago. Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. If we read this stuff with a proud heart; if we are full of pride that we know better and we should be able to hang on to our own attitudes and our own sin– my friend, that is so often how we at first come to God’s Word. So often! If that’s how we approach God’s Word it will profit us nothing! The beginning of wisdom; the starting point is the fear of the Lord. The beginning of wisdom isn’t a hard, prideful, puffed up, a "full of myself" heart. The beginning of wisdom is a humble heart, a soft heart, a teachable heart, a heart that knows that without God it is poor, wretched, feeble and naked. A heart that seeks first to honour God, that’s the place, my friend, where wisdom begins. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” – nothing else! And unless and until we are ready to humble ourselves at God’s feet; unless we are ready to say, "Lord, I know I have been trying it on my own; I know I have been doing all this stuff; I know it doesn’t work. Lord, I am going to lay my way down. I am going to lay my life down at Your feet. I am going to lay my pride and crucify it and lay it down." Unless we go that way then we are not demonstrating the fear of the Lord. And without the fear of the Lord our heart is hard and the wisdom can’t get in. That’s sad, because without God’s wisdom; without His wisdom – let me tell you because I have been there, without His wisdom, frankly, it’s a lousy life. My friend, I am going to bring you back to this verse – Proverbs chapter 9, verse 10 and ask you to consider in your heart where you are at. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. May the Lord soften your heart and open your heart and pour His wisdom and His love and His power and His grace into you.…
God is a God of love and so we don’t often think about Him hating things. But He does - He clearly tells us so in His Word. So - what are the seven things that God hates … things that are an abomination to Him? Do you know - because my hunch is … they’re worth avoiding. Proud Eyes and a Lying Tongue One of the most common responses we receive from people who listen to this programme around the world is: well, how they’ve been blown away by how practical and down to earth God’s Word actually is. Many people have never realised that God, in this thing that many consider to be a stuffy old book, the Bible, gives us such incredible, practical wisdom that makes our lives better. It’s pretty sad because He does; God loves us. He reveals Himself to us as our Father. To the shock and the horror of the religious leaders of the day, Jesus actually called Him "Abba" , which translated means "Dad" . So if God’s our Dad; if He loves us so much, why wouldn’t He want to give us down to earth, practical advice? Well, He does and He has. That’s why we are continuing this week in the Book of Proverbs; a father’s godly wisdom and advice – King Solomon to his sons; God our Father, "Dad" , to us. And today we are going to take a look at seven things that God hates. Now we don’t often think of God hating anything; we think of God as the God of supreme love; a love so great that He would send us His only begotten Son. And that’s the point: He loves us so much and He hates our sin so much that the way He sets us free from this sin; the sin that ruins our lives and separates us from Him, is through the supreme act of love in all of history – the death of Jesus Christ, His Son on the cross to pay for my transgressions and yours. So, does God love us – you and me right now, given all that we have done to rebel against Him? Right at this instant, in Jesus Christ, the answer to that question is a huge, resounding YES! Of that we can be absolutely certain. Believe in this Jesus who came to die for you and me, to pay for our sin and to rise again to give us a new life – believe in Him and we are forgiven. Full stop! End of story! But does God hate our sin? Well, in Jesus Christ, the answer to that question is also a huge, resounding YES! So gravely does God view our sin that He deals with it by letting His Son die for us to deal with them. And through King Solomon, God tells us the sorts of sin that He really hates. We will have a look at just two of the seven, right now. But first have a listen to them all – Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. Now, for much of my life, I thought of all this religion stuff, "God stuff" , as being a whole bunch of outdated moralising but the list we just read out there – the seven things that are an abomination to God – well, I’d have thought that none of those, well, we wouldn’t have a problem with any of them. Take the first of them: haughty eyes – fancy God hating haughty eyes! But have you ever been around someone who looks down on you? I remember before I became a Christian, I visited a woman’s home; an elderly lady, the mother of a friend of mine and I looked around it as if to say, "Well, this isn’t decorated to latest fashion." And years later when I was in a desperate time in my life; when God had brought me down low, she was the person who gave me somewhere to live and encouraged me and strengthened me. And it turns out that she had noticed the way I had looked around her place all those years before; she had noticed my haughty eyes and remembered them. Why? Because haughty eyes are a sign of arrogance and superiority in the heart - looking down on people belittles them in order to exalt ourselves. I remember a woman, a Christian, who would every now and then would stick her head into our office here at Christianityworks and instead of engaging with our staff – asking them how they were, how things were going – instead of caring for the people, she looked around with haughty eyes. And those haughty eyes have brought her so much grief since that time – much, much grief. Listen to me – that sense of arrogance and superiority that some people have because of their ability or their position or their status or their wealth or ... or just their own distorted self-view, or all of the above – this is an abomination to God. God hates it! The original Hebrew word for "haughty" means "to lift up, to raise up, to exalt on high" and the only person we are meant to exalt on high is Jesus, God Himself. God doesn’t share His glory with anyone and those people who look down their noses at others, for whatever reason, are doing something that is an abomination to God. It’s something that God really hates. Now, number two on this "hit parade" , on this list of things God hates, is a "lying tongue" . Let me ask you, do you like it when someone lies to you? Do you like it when someone deceives you? Of course we don’t! Lying equals deception; deception equals dishonesty and dishonesty makes a person rotten to the core. They purport to be one thing on the outside – sweetness and light – but on the inside they’re something completely different. And so that we don’t notice, they tell us lies. You know, I don’t even like lies where people are trying to protect me and not hurt my feelings. Back in the days when I was in business, if we bid on a job and then missed out, ninety percent of those prospective clients – well, they wouldn’t even give you an answer as to why. Me, I’d really like to know why even if it’s because the CEO of our opposition was a friend of the senior manager and the client. That’s okay, but tell me the truth so that I know; so that if there is anything that I can do better next time, I can take steps to improve. The lying tongue takes all sorts of different forms – from not telling the truth; in other words a bald faced lie – to (as a character in one very funny British sitcom, "Yes, Minister" once said,) being economical with the truth. In other words, not telling the whole truth! Even telling the truth in theory, but playing on the situation and the context so that the recipient gets the wrong impression – that is dishonest. We can be so clever in hiding the truth; we can think we are so smart, but listen to me: a lying tongue is an abomination to God; it is something that He hates. Now, let’s just say – humour me – let’s say that God is in fact God; that He is all powerful; that one day He is going to judge the living and the dead and that that judgement will have a huge eternal impact on us – you and me. Well, maybe the things that God hates are things we should avoid! God Hates Evil Now, as we continue looking at the sort of wisdom that works, God’s wisdom, I’d have thought that it makes a lot of sense to look at things that God hates. So let’s have another look at the things that God hates – the next two on the list. Earlier, we looked at haughty eyes – the sign of a proud heart - and a lying tongue. Right now we are going to look at the next three on that list, in fact, not two, three, that I read out earlier from Proverbs chapter 6: ... hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans and feet that hurry to run to evil. Those three seem to go pretty naturally together, don’t they? “Hands that shed innocent blood” – I can’t tell you the number of times I have seen this. Of course, I’ve never seen bloodshed – thank God for that – I’m absolutely sure there are many, many people listening around the world today who in fact have. In my experience what I have seen through, is people who lord it over and punish and riot and bully other people ... other people who don’t deserve it. It’s exactly the same – bullying is something that takes place all the time amongst kids at school, in the workplace. Someone who is strong, either because of their personality or their position or both, decides to start playing with someone else the way a cat toys with a mouse. It’s so incredibly cruel. And sometimes the perpetrator doesn’t even realise they’re doing it – they are shedding innocent blood because the pain that this behaviour is causing the recipient, is beyond anything words can describe. Can I tell you: bullying; just toying with someone; treating them this way isn’t some sport; it’s a sin. It’s something that God hates; it’s an abomination to Him. It’s something I used to do before I became a Christian – it’s something I don’t do now because it’s wrong and because I don’t one day want to be a sinner in the hands of an angry God. And some people ... some people in their hearts devise wicked plans – Proverbs chapter 6, verse 18. There are people who scheme: "How can I get back at this person; how can I make it so that they will never, ever do this again?" Now that old adage, "don’t get angry, get even". Or, "How can I get my hands on something that I don’t deserve or haven’t earned? Perhaps if I do this and twist that and lie this way and deceive that person that way, perhaps then I’ll be able to trick them out of that thing that I want for me." Jesus said, “Murder begins in the heart.” If you are angry with someone it is the same as murdering them in God’s eyes. If you look at a woman or a man who is not your wife or your husband, with lust and desire, it’s exactly the same as committing adultery. That’s what Jesus said. What we do in our hearts and in our minds – what we think, the anger, the resentment, the vengeance we harbour, the scheming and the planning and devising in our hearts – that matters an awful lot to God. And wicked plans in our hearts are an abomination to God. Sometimes people make us angry and sometimes we want revenge or at least, justice which ultimately involves some form of recompense. It’s a natural reaction but if we let that brood in our heart, bubble away instead of forgiving the person, the more it takes hold of us and grips us and takes over our lives, well, ultimately it turns into wicked plans. That’s why the Apostle Paul, centuries later, wrote to his friends at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 26. He said: Be angry but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. In other words, don’t let it fester because if we do something else happens. There is a natural consequence to that and it’s the third thing on our list that we are looking at right now, of the things that God hates – things that we do that are an abomination to God – it’s “feet that hurry to run to do evil.” What happens in our hearts, overflows into our lives. The thoughts turn into actions, just as sure as God made little green apples and the more we allow some injustice or some evil desire to fester in our hearts, the more prone we are to devising wicked plans and the more likely we are to go and run towards evil, as a moth flies into a flame, to its own destruction. It’s exactly what James writes in the New Testament, centuries after Solomon wrote this wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. James chapter 1, verse 13: No one, when they are tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God”; because God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not tempt any one. But we are tempted by our own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived. It’s a natural cycle: cause and effect. Think evil, devise evil plans and ultimately our feet are going to run towards doing evil and towards our own inevitable destruction. This isn’t some reluctant sinner here – let’s understand – this is someone who is running towards sin; embracing sin; launching themselves into an evil act because of the darkness that they have allowed to fester and to brood in their hearts and their minds and ultimately, a darkness that controls them; a darkness that causes them to run to towards evil. This is such great wisdom from God. There are things that God hates – He hates them to the point where they are an abomination to Him. That’s why our hearts are so important to God. That’s why it is so important that we spend time each and every day with God, alone – to let Him direct our hearts; to warm them, inspire them, lead them, fill them with His Spirit and goodness and love and peace and mercy, because where our hearts are set upon God, friend, there’s no room for evil desires to take hold, to conceive sin. Whatever it is in our lives – we are all different – whatever it is, this is wisdom from God that works and I implore you to heed this wisdom. If there is something going on in your heart – some unforgiveness, some evil, something you want to do that you know is rebellion against God – I want to encourage you, right now, to lay it down at God’s feet. To go to God and say, "God, You have just spoken to me through Your Word. You don’t tempt me, I am being tempted by my own evil desires and I know that that’s going to lead to destruction. Father, I repent, I turn away from it and I come back to You because You are my God." I want to encourage you – this is God’s Word; this is God’s wisdom and it works. Lying and Dissension Today so far on the programme, the third message in this series that I have called, “ Wisdom that Works ”, we have looked at the seven things that God hates. Let’s just recap - Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16: There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. And we have managed to chat about all except the last two in that list: “the lying witness who testifies falsely and the one who sows discord in the family.” Now, law courts are not a place where I have spent a whole bunch of time. Once for a car accident I was in when I was nineteen years old, several times with soldiers who had been charged with this or that, when I was an officer in the Australian Army and once to be sworn in as a Justice of the Peace. I have never, for instance, been at a murder trial or anything like that. But I can imagine the gravity of proceedings in a serious trial. There is a lot at stake. I mean, justice itself in at stake – that there should be a fair trial with the burden of proof resting on the prosecution. The defendant is on trial – his or her whole future depends on the outcome. I mean, imagine if an innocent person were convicted. And to some extent the victim or the victim’s family or both are on trial, depending on the nature of the alleged crime. In a sense, they feel as though they are on trial. For them, a large part of the healing and recovery process involves seeing justice being done. So, imagine in a highly charged; high stakes trial for a major crime with so much at stake, imagine that a crucial witness gets up on the stand and lies; that bears false witness and as a result there is a miscarriage of justice - either in one direction or in another. That’s something of an abomination, isn’t it? We can totally understand why God hates this and yet, people lie all the time, in day to day life. They say and do things in the workplace that will get their work colleagues into trouble. They tell the boss one thing and something else entirely is the truth. "Aw, well, you know, that’s not the same as lying under oath in a murder trial." But what God is saying to us here through Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs ... what He is saying is "Yes, it is! It is exactly the same thing. It is an abomination to Me and it is something that I hate.” I trust that you find this bit of insight into God’s nature and God’s wisdom as sobering as I do. Last week we saw that Solomon kicks off this wisdom Book of Proverbs with a statement that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ”, I trust that is becoming so clear why he said that. You know, we start bearing false witness pretty early on in our lives. Of course, I never once blamed my sister for something I did wrong! Not much! Of course I did! And I’m sure if you have brothers and sisters; you have been on the receiving end of that and the dishing out into that as well. And that leads us to the last of the seven things in this list of things that are an abomination to God – “... someone who sows discord in a family.” Families are such a precious thing – hard sometimes, isn’t it, to be a part of a family? Whether it’s husband and wife, with the stresses and strains of modern life, tearing away at the marriage and conspiring, seemingly, to pull them apart. Or the pressure of bringing up children, or holding down a job and paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. And as I remember, it’s not that easy being a child and growing up in a family either. As we move into those teenage years, we want to spread our wings and have our own way and we are yet we are still subject to the authority of our parents, which is why there is so often conflict in families. Guess the point that I am making here is that there is already so much going on in life that puts pressure on families, the last thing that a family needs is pressure from within. The last thing a family needs is a husband; a father who is so domineering that his wife’s personality is being suffocated or his children are being provoked. The last thing that a family needs is a mother who doesn’t show respect to her husband and who undermines his authority in front of the children. And the last thing a family needs are children who deliberately set about rebelling and dishonouring their parents. In each of those cases it’s about sowing discord into the family. And it’s like sowing seeds for weeds – those weeds grow and thrive and take over the good fruit that should be growing in the family. I know that relationships in families can be highly charged and that’s why God hates it when we sow discord into our families. Husbands - love your wives. Wives - honour and respect your husbands. Mums and Dads - nurture, love and discipline your children. Children - obey and honour your parents. It ain’t complicated! And in living our lives that way in a family, that’s how we honour God – that’s how we show that this family who says it believes in Jesus; who professes a faith called Christianity, is different from the rest. Is a family ever going to be perfect? No! Am I ever going to be a hundred percent perfect father or husband? No! I’m me – I make mistakes, just as you do. But friend, when we set about being peacemakers in the home; when we turn the other cheek; when we discipline our children out of love rather than out of anger and resentment, then what we are doing is sowing good seed that will bear good fruit. I know it’s a journey, this wisdom thing. I know it frustrating and I know that to sow peace rather than discord, involves sacrifice and pain sometimes. But it’s pretty obvious isn’t it - all seven things in this list that God hates, this list of abominations, is so obvious. Let’s just look at them one more time. If you’ve got a Bible, go there and open it up. Proverbs chapter 6, beginning at verse 16: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him; haughty eyes (which are the sign of a proud heart), a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely and one who sows discord in a family. It’s quite a bundle of things! And let’s make no mistake about it – God hates them. They are an abomination to Him and as much as we might want to sweep them under the carpet; as much as we might want to tell a little lie here and maybe upset the family there and look down our noses at this person there, and as much as we think, "Ah, no one notices – none of that matters," friend, these things are things that God hates. They are an abomination to Him and as we saw earlier, the beginning of wisdom; the place where wisdom starts, is with a fear of God. One day you and I will stand before God and we will be judged. One day we will have to stand before Him and give account for our actions. Now, I believe that I am saved and I am forgiven through Jesus Christ – it is pure grace; it has nothing to do with my works – but once we accept that, God calls us to start living in obedience to Him. Not many things – I mean, there only seven on that list - not many things He says, “Don’t do!”, but there are a few. He loves us, He cares for us and the very few things He says, “Don’t do”, are the things that are going to hurt you and me and the people around us. It is not rocket science – it is wisdom. It is wisdom that works.…
C
Christianityworks Official Podcast
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Well this week we’re kicking on with our second message in a series called Wisdom that Works - looking at some of God’s mighty wisdom through the Book of Proverbs. And we’re going to be chatting this time around, about trust, truth … and temptation. Trust and Honour God Welcome to the programme again this week and yes, we are continuing in a series that I have called, "Wisdom that Works" . Now wisdom is an amazing thing – a seductive concept. I mean, who doesn’t want to have more wisdom; who doesn’t want to be wise? That’s ridiculous isn’t it? Of course we all want wisdom; of course we all want to be wise, but wisdom ... well, it’s a double edged sword. Sure, it’s about having the knowledge that comes from experience but theory is aren’t enough. Someone who knows that treating other people well and loving them and sacrificing for them; someone who knows that but spends most of their lives not doing it, well, we wouldn’t call them wise would we? In order for someone to be wise, they need to know it and do it. That’s wisdom! And the sort of wisdom that God shares with us is the sort of wisdom that actually works. So we are spending some time again this week ransacking the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, written by King Solomon – one of the wisest men that ever walked the earth. And my encouragement to you is that we take this wisdom from God and actually apply it to our lives. Why? Because it works! Bottom line is that if we will take God’s wisdom to heart; if we will take God’s Word to heart it will make a real difference in our lives. God will make that difference in our lives through His Spirit and through His Word. And if we don’t take it to heart, He won’t! Can I say that again? If we don’t, He won’t! So let’s get back into this great Book of wisdom; the Book of Proverbs and see what wisdom Solomon has for us about trusting and honouring God. Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. He says: My child, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and of people. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body. Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. So we’re chugging along through live, stuff happens and we get impatient and we want to head off our own way and here’s Solomon with the wisdom of age telling his sons, "Guys, this is just going to happen. You’ll want to drift away from God – you just will – but don’t do that. Don’t forget what I told you: be loyal, be faithful. I know it won’t always make sense to you but listen to me, write these words on your hearts." So, stuff is happening and life is not going the way we planned it and it’s not making sense and so we have a wisdom decision point here in that place. We can flap around, we can carry on, we can head off our own way – most people do – or we can say, "Hang on a minute; hang on! Remember what God told me through Solomon?" That was wisdom that works: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all you ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. You see how we have a decision to make? Either we can believe this stuff and take God at His Word or we treat it like some useless theory lesson. Here’s the promise: trust in God – don’t try and figure it all out because you can’t – just acknowledge God in how we live our lives. And listen, here’s the promise; here’s the dividend; here’s the return on investment: if you do that God will straighten it all out. Listen to me, if we just honour God through the difficult times in what we say and what we think and what we do, God will straighten it all out. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don’t rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Now, let me ask you: which bit of that don’t we get? Why do we have to make everything so complicated? Are we going to be like those people I was telling you about the other week? Are we going to spend hours and hours and hours studying the Bible for studying’s sake, as though it was some intellectual exercise, without ever really believing that it is meant to be true in our lives or are we going to take God at His Word? Are we going to take God’s wisdom to heart? See, he goes on to tell us what it means to honour God: Trust the Lord with all your heart, don’t rely on your own understanding, acknowledge him in all your ways and he will make straight all your paths. Don’t be wise in your own eyes – instead fear God and turn away from evil. It will be a healing to your flesh and refreshment to your body. How often do people pierce themselves with many pains by turning away from God – by going and doing it their own way; by being proud; by being greedy; by being selfish? Honour the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce. In other words, put in first with all that you are and all that you have: ... and then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. My child, don’t despise God’s discipline and get weary of his reproof? He loves you! He reproves the one whom He loves as the father does the son in whom he delights. See, this is such simple wisdom ... it is so simple. We want to go off and do it on our own and flap around and carry on and wander away from God and then we wonder why it is all falling apart. This is about trusting God and honouring Him – and the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love how practical God’s truth actually is! And when we just simply put this into practice in the everyday things that happen in life – in the tense relationships, in just forgiving people, in moving on, in honouring God, in blessing other people when they curse us, in the simple things of life – they might be simple but often they are difficult – if we will just put this into action in our lives; when we choose to stop mucking around, flapping around, complaining, doing the "woe is me" bit and just sit down and decide, "God, come hell or high water, I am going to trust in You. I am just going to do the best I know how, I am going to honour You the best I can with what I have and who I am", do you know what happens? God honour that; God springs into action; He starts sorting out the mess. My friend, this is not – let me say this in capital letters – N-O-T ... this is NOT a theory lesson. God’s wisdom is imparted into our lives when we take His truth into our hearts and live it out. Don’t forget His teaching, let your heart keep His commandments because there is a blessing at the end of that – for length of days and years of live and abundant welfare they will give you. Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart so you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God. As you sow so shall you reap. Do it God’s way and you reap the blessing – do it your own way and you reap the pain. This is not complex; this is not rocket science. True Wealth Now the next thing that Solomon talks about in the Book of Proverbs is money and wealth. Now a man that I have come to have a lot of respect for is a guy by the name of David Bussau. For a good many years we have attended the same church as David and his wife Carol. He is the founder of a ministry called Opportunity International; an organisation that now creates a new job in the developing world, something like every twenty second, or something outrageous like that. I heard David one day talking about the "economics of enough" . Now he lives in a comfortable home and they constantly have people staying who are visiting for ministry reasons. He drives an ordinary car, dresses in ordinary everyday clothes. And he said he came to the conclusion many years ago that he had more than enough "stuff" – he just didn’t need any more. It was the "economics of enough" . Remember we are talking this week and the next few weeks about God’s wisdom; wisdom that works. And we are doing that by taking a step through some of the powerful wisdom that we discover in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs which was written by King Solomon to capture the wisdom that he was handing down to his sons. And not surprisingly, fairly early on in the piece he talks about money – not so much money but wealth. Have a listen to what he says – Proverbs chapter 3, beginning at verse 13. He says: Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy. Now, there was a time in my life, in fact, for much of my life where I would have scoffed at this suggestion. "Aw, give me a break please. How can wisdom possibly be better than silver or gold and precious jewels? How can wisdom be better than anything that my little heart desires? No, I’ll just have the cash thanks – show me the money." And for all that to make sense there are two things we need to know about Solomon. Not only was he blessed with great wisdom – he was one of the wisest men that ever lived – but he was also one of the richest men in all of history. And it all comes to Solomon when he prays to God – have a listen – as a young man. It comes from First Kings chapter 3, verse 5 right through to verse 13, so grab your Bible. First Kings chapter 3, beginning at verse 5: At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked for, both riches and honour all the days of your life; no other king shall compare with you. Right from the beginning, as a young man, Solomon had preferred wisdom over riches so he asked God for wisdom. What a brilliant thing to ask for! I wonder what you and I would have asked for if God had said to us, “Ask what I should give you?” So, all of his adult life, Solomon had both great wisdom and great riches. And having lived his life with both, out of his experience he was able to say to his sons: wisdom is so much better than anything else that you can imagine. Why? Why did he say that? Because the dividend; the return that this wisdom gave him was huge. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy. You know, that’s a dividend statement that Solomon makes after a life of wisdom. As much as we try and kid ourselves, we know – we know through experience, we know deep in our hearts – that riches can never deliver that sort of dividend. We chase after money alone and it’s a lonely, unhappy life. Believe you me, I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt and I can tell you ABSOLUTELY that wealth simply doesn’t deliver that sort of dividend – a dividend of riches and peace and pleasantness and joy and happiness. Wisdom ... wisdom means that we learn God’s truth and we put it into action in our lives. Even though sometimes; in fact, most times it involves sacrifice up front, like any other investment. We live out God’s truth in our lives – that’s what wisdom is – and we reap the rewards – peace, life, joy. Why? Because we know how to avoid the dumb things we used to do that caused us so much pain; because we know how to make good choices that bear good fruit. True wealth is living a life of abundance in Christ. True wealth is having the wisdom to build strong relationships and enjoy serving others and getting over our pride and our stupid tantrums. Wisdom is about ultimately enjoying life – whatever life throws our way. Friend, this is such great advice! But it only becomes true wisdom in our lives when we put it into action and the thing to put into action here is to seek after wisdom above and before riches, because nothing ... NOTHING compares to the dividends paid by wisdom; God’s wisdom. The sort of wisdom that works! Impurity and Infidelity I remember back in college one of our lecturers in a subject about, I guess, the foundational issues of Christian living – said to each one of us who were training for some form of ministry or another - he said: there are three things that can bring you unstuck: girls, gold and glory (or in the case of women, guys, gold and glory.) In other words, people whom God calls to serve Him, often stumble in infidelity or because they start loving wealth too much. We spoke about that last week. Or because they seek the glory and they fall to pride. It’s not a bad executive summary, is it? Girls or guys, as the case may be, gold and glory. Well as we roll on to the next piece of wisdom from Solomon in the Book of Proverbs, we are going to chat a bit about the girls, guys thing, or impurity and infidelity, because it’s huge. Statistically, almost half of all marriages fall apart – and in fact, of those that remain, only fraction are what you would call happy marriages – the sorts of marriages where people really thrive. The facts about marital infidelity – sexual unfaithfulness to a spouse are astounding. Polls in the U.S. show that, although ninety percent of married people disapprove of extramarital affairs, fifteen percent of wives and twenty five percent of husbands have experienced extramarital sex. Now those numbers increase a further twenty percent when emotional affairs and sexual relationships without intercourse are included - so thirty five percent of women and forty five percent of men have been unfaithful to their spouse. That’s frightening, isn’t it? Marriage is supposed to be the most wonderful relationship - fulfilling, lifelong soul mates and yet, almost half of all men and over a third of all women have some sort of extramarital affair. That blows me away! But it’s nothing new! Almost three thousand years ago Solomon, when instructing his young sons with the wisdom of his years, spends a whole chapter, in fact, a couple of chapters – the 5th chapter and another chapter in the Book of Proverbs, on this very subject. It’s one of the first subjects he deals with comprehensively – maybe the stats were pretty much the same back then as they are today. Let’s have a listen to what he had to say to his sons about infidelity. Proverbs chapter 5, beginning at verse 1: My child, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her steps follow the path to Sheol. She does not keep straight to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it . In other words, the grass may well appear greener on the other side, guys, but this seduction that promises so much is going to kill you. Even though the thought of an affair may be oh so seductive, oh so tempting, it leads only to bitterness, pain and destruction. I remember a man I used to work with back in my days in the I.T. industry and he had two affairs outside his marriage – two that I know of anyway. I knew the husband and the wife quite well. He was lured into this trap; he followed his desires and his emotions and it almost destroyed both of them. By God’s grace his wife was a godly woman and strong and with great faith and their marriage weathered the storm. But the pain and of course, as much as all may be forgiven, the memory never, ever, ever, goes away. And the crazy thing was, they had everything. And here’s the advice that Solomon has for his sons – here’s the wisdom that really works – Proverbs 5, beginning at verse 7: And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your ways far from her, and do not go near the door of her house; or you will give your honour to others, and your years to the merciless, and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labours will go to the house of another; and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly. The advice - the wisdom that works? Keep away from relationships that can lead to infidelity. “My child, listen to me, keep away from her door.” Don’t go there! Don’t put yourself in a position of temptation. Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. Don’t form close bonds and relationships that could head in the wrong direction. Keep yourself to yourself – just don’t go there or it will ruin you and you will spend the rest of your life regretting it. And the alternative? Well, it’s pretty obvious – Proverbs chapter 5, verse 15: Drink water from your own cistern; flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord, and he examines all their paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin. They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost. My friend, if you have a wife, enjoy her – if you are a woman with a husband, enjoy him. Do not be enticed into an extramarital affair, like almost half of all men and over a third of all women who are married are. Enjoy each other – God has given the wife to the husband and the husband to the wife so that they may truly enjoy each other, emotionally and physically and spiritually and be the best of friends and live their lives together for one another. Find fulfilment husbands, in arms of your wives; wives find fulfilment in the arms of your husbands. Sure, they are not perfect! Let’s get a revelation here today – they never will be, ever – but they are the lifelong soul mate that God has given you and that ... that is the right place, the only place in God’s eyes, to discover and to experience and to enjoy and to revel in the beauty of intimacy. Remember, forty five percent of men and thirty five percent of women – now you may think this is an odd subject for us to be discussing today but judging from the statistics, Solomon was right to make this one a high priority. My prayer is that you will never; never know the pain and the bitter regret of adultery. Please listen to God’s Word today; please heed His warning! This is God’s wisdom - it is wisdom that works.…
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