Christianityworks Official Podcast

Easter isn’t just a time for looking back at what Jesus did, but forward at what He purchased for those who believe in Him. The amazing eternity that we have to look forward to and three new things, that will be ours. A new body, a new heaven and a new earth. Now that deserves a Hallelujah!

No More Tears

Over the past little while on the program we’ve been talking about the importance of having hope in our lives. Hope is like a photo album in our hearts and in our minds … images of the good things that we hope are going to happen to us and for us in the future. And when we run out of positive images, that’s called … hopelessness.

But the important thing that I’ve learned over the course of this series is this: that the sort of hope that the Bible talks about is entirely different to the sort of hope that we talk about. For us, hope has a dimension of uncertainty to it.

You’re sitting in the doctor’s surgery, you’re waiting to go in to be told whether the x–rays reveal cancer or not. You hope that it’s going to be okay, but … well, you just don’t know. Or you hope that next week, you’ll receive that promotion at work. The bosses are getting together over the next couple of days, to evaluate the candidates. You’re hoping that your name will be at the top of the pile, but … you just don’t know.

There’s a kind of a tension involved in the way that we think about hope. I hope it’s going to be okay. I hope it’s going to be great. I hope my marriage doesn’t fall apart. I hope my teenage kids are going to be okay at the party tonight.

And when things don’t turn out the way we want, often there are tears. The disappointment that ensues when the hope that we had proves to be misplaced, is really, really tough. It often leads to tears. Think about the last time that you shed tears. What was it about? A betrayal? A relationship breakdown? Missing out on that promotion? A scary prognosis from the doctor?

I read on Wikipedia that according to the German Society of Ophthalmology, which has collated different scientific studies on crying, women cry on average between 30 and 64 times a year. Men cry on average between 6 and 17 times a year. Men tend to cry for about two to four minutes and women cry for about six minutes. Crying turns to sobbing for women in 65% of cases, compared to just 6% for men. But these differences don’t start to occur until adolescence.

Inevitably, these tears are related to the disappointment that comes when hope has failed us. Think back to the last time that you cried. What was it about? Why did you cry? What was the trigger?

Sometimes it’s physical pain, but mostly, it’s when there’s some trigger or breaking point that brings lost hope to a head; that thing we’d hoped for: a good marriage, an obedient child, trustworthiness in a work colleague, good health. Whatever it is… that thing that we hoped for… has failed us.

Do you enjoy crying? No. I don’t think there’s a single person on the planet who enjoys crying. And if you or I had our way, we would never, ever, ever encounter another situation that causes us to cry anything but tears of joy, for the rest of our days on this earth. Right?

The things we hope for on this earth don’t always happen. But the sort of hope that the Bible talks about is completely different, and there’s no better passage to tell that story than in Romans chapter 5 verses 3 to 5:

And not only that, (writes Paul) but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Did you pick it? The sort of hope that the Bible talks about is the sort of hope that doesn’t disappoint us. It never disappoints us, because God is faithful; God’s Word is true; God’s promises never fail and so we can hope in Him with absolute, rock solid, certain hope. No ifs. No buts. No maybes.

Even, as is the case here, during times of suffering. Because during that suffering, God is building our character and our endurance and through that, He grows a godly hope in our hearts, by pouring the Holy Spirit into us.

So, when it comes to the tears that you and I shed from time to time there is a promise that I want to share with you today that you can have a rock solid, unfailing hope in. Revelation chapter 21, verses 3 to 5. This passage tells us what our eternity with Jesus is going to be like. Have a listen:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’

Just think about that. Whatever sadness and tragedies that you’ve had to travel through, whatever disappointments and losses that you’ve experienced in your life, God Himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes. Death, suffering, sickness, pain, mourning, loss, tragedy, disappointment … none of those things will ever be again, because those things will have passed away.

All the things that matter today, all the things that cause you hurt today, every single thing that brings a tear to your eyes today, will be gone because those things … the first things … will have passed away.

It’s hard to imagine isn’t it? I know there’s someone listening today who has lost a child. Another whose life’s work was taken away from them. Another whose wife or husband has just died and was suddenly taken away from them. And there’s no doubt someone listening whose marriage is a complete mess, not at all what you’d planned when you walked down the aisle together all those years ago.

One day, all those things will be gone. And if you believe in Jesus, all that will be left, will be you, with countless others, in glory with the Lord your God for all eternity.

Billy Graham once said this: ‘I’ve read the last page of my Bible. It’s all going to turn out all right.’ That’s the rock solid truth in which you and I can place our hope … and never, ever, ever be disappointed.

So let’s bring that hope now, into the middle of the situations and circumstances that you’re travelling through at the moment. The things that you have uncertain hope about. The thing that last moved you to tears and to sobbing, the pain so deep, that you don’t have words to express it.

What difference does God’s hope, this certain hope make? What difference can it make? Does it completely take away the pain and the tears now? No, I don’t think so. Probably not. Some hurts are incredibly deep. But what it does do, is it puts them into a whole new eternal perspective. Just stand back and look at the whole picture. What you’re going through now in the context of the hope that you can have for where you’re going to be and what you’re going to be doing and what God will have done on that day that you go to be with Him.

And listen to His Words again, as He speaks them personally to you:

‘I will dwell with you; and you will be mine, I myself will be with you; I will wipe every tear from your eyes. Death will be no more; your mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for those things will have passed away.’

And my friend that very same God, the God that speaks those words of love and hope to you now, is with you, now. Through your faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit … the very Presence of God … dwells in you. He feels your pain. He knows your tears. He is there to comfort you. And He is there to pour his rock solid certain hope into your heart, so that you will know beyond any shadow of a doubt, that one day, these things will come to pass.

The Word of God is able to do things that no man can do. May His Word and His Spirit bring deep comfort and great hope to you today.

What Will We Do for the Rest of Eternity?

Have you ever tried to imagine eternity? It’s a bit like infinity. You and I are these tiny specs in the cosmos. In fact, we live on a tiny speck hurtling around the sun at 30 kilometres a second. So we’re tiny, tiny, tiny in the overall scheme of things. At least a hundred trillion stars out there, and those are just the ones we know about.

Of course day to day, we don’t think too much about that at all. As I sat at my desk this morning pecking away at the keyboard it seemed totally incongruous to me that I was hurtling through space at 30 kilometres per second. (Actually it’s a whole bunch faster than that, because as well as flying around the sun at breakneck speed, our solar system is whirling around the centre of our galaxy at the rate of 220 kilometres per second. That’s 792,000 kilometres or 490,000 miles per hour … but I try not to think about that).

So when it comes to our sense of space, we cope with these ridiculously, unimaginably large numbers, by retreating into our few square miles in which we live, and somehow fencing our mind and our imagination to live in that space, because it’s much more comfortable that way, right?

And the same is true with our sense of time. I’m now 54 years old and every now and then I think to myself if I live to what is an average life expectancy for a male in Australia … say to my mid-eighties, that’s what, another thirty years. Could be more, could be less … only God knows. I’m pretty fit, I’m pretty healthy, I’m hoping it’ll be more, but who knows?

Thirty years left. Thirty birthdays. Thirty Christmas’. Thirty Easters. Thirty summers. That’s not that many is it when you think about it. Basically I’m almost two-thirds the way through an average lifetime.

And yet, every day, it can be a long time. I look back on yesterday. Hey, I got a lot done yesterday. I tend to pack a lot into my days, because I love living life to the full. It’s just me. So, thirty years, is another 10,950 days. Well, I tell you something if I get as much done on each of those as I did yesterday, then that’s an awful lot. So now, I turn my mind to the lyrics of that wonderful old hymn – Amazing Grace:

When we've been here ten thousand years. Bright shining as the sun. We've no less days to sing God's praise. Than when we've first begun.

Hang on ten thousand years! That’s three million, six hundred and fifty thousand days! (I’m assuming we’ll have given leap years the ditch by then). What do you do for that many days?! I mean after a three week holiday, I’m raring to go to get back to work, back into harness, back to do stuff.

And yet 10,000 years is a still just an infinitely small drop in the ocean, when it comes to eternity, which by definition, is infinity years. Have you ever wondered what we’re going to do for all that time in heaven? Well, when we talk about heaven, we’re really talking about the new earth that God is going to create. When God creates that new earth, heaven will literally be on earth as God makes His home with us.

Okay, so if you believe in Jesus today. If you put your trust completely in what He did for you on that cross. If you’re living out your life for him … then you’re going to be spending eternity in the new heaven on the new earth, with Him. As we’ve seen in this series, the effects of our sin will be rolled back. As one author writes, we’ll effectively be picking up where the garden of Eden left off.

Will we be working in heaven? Or will it be one long holiday? Will we get bored? Is that pain in the neck, busy-body, gossip, Mrs so and so from down the road going to be there to bend my ear for all eternity? Come on, eternity is an incredibly, unimaginably, long time. What are we going to be doing?

The last book of the Bible, Revelation gives us the best indication of what we’ll actually be doing. Now it’s written in a style of literature called apocalyptic literature, for which we have no real equivalent in our culture today. The best way to describe it is picture language. So, here are the words, let them paint a picture in your heart. Revelation chapter 5:

Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:

‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood, ransomed for God, saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on all the earth.’

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and living creatures and elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!’

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the elders fell down and worshiped.

I don’t know … I don’t know about what else we’ll be doing, but one of the main things that we’re going to be doing is worshipping Jesus. What? For all eternity? Sure. He is an infinite God … He is an amazing God and when you and I stand in His Presence, I have to tell you, our instinctive reaction will be to worship and to worship and to worship. Have you ever been in a great time of worship at your church and wished it would never end? Well that … was only a shadow, just an inkling, of what is to come. We will be in His Presence and worship Him. Forever.

There’s a great song by Mercy Me called I Can Only Imagine. It goes like this:

I can only imagine what it will be like, when I walk by your side.

I can only imagine, what my eyes will see when your face is before me. I can only imagine. I can only imagine.

Surrounded by your glory what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?

Will I stand in your Presence, or to my knees will I fall?

Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all?

I can only Imagine.

I don't think that you and I can begin to imagine what it will mean to be in glory with Jesus, knowing that we are only there by His grace, through His suffering on that Cross. And because of His great love, God is our God, and we are His people and the home of God is amongst us.

Friend, do you believe in Jesus? Then this is the certain hope that is in you. This is absolutely what is going to happen. And it will go on forever and ever and ever, AMEN!

And that hope my friend is meant to fill your heart today. That hope is meant to overflow out of you into the lives and the hearts and the hurts and the fears and the failures and the sin of the people around you today. That hope is meant to spill out and flow out and touch them with the love of your God today.

Are you a follower of Christ Jesus? Then you are meant to be a merchant of hope. An ambassador of Christ. We don’t see people around us coming to Christ through the condemnation that we hurl at them, do we? How well has that ever worked for you?

We see them come to the Christ when they see the hope that is in us, and they ask: why are you so up-beat? How can you be so happy? Why are you so strong through all the trials that you face? And you turn to them with a smile and you say, let me tell you about the hope that is in me. You and I are meant to be … merchants of hope.

Cross Roads

Over these last few weeks we’ve talked a lot about the future that Jesus has planned for you. A future so great, that it doesn’t bear comparing to the suffering that we might have to travel through in this life. That’s what the Apostle Paul said, right in the middle of a time of great suffering, in Romans chapter 8, verse 18, he said:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.

But I know that there are some people who struggle to imagine that this eternal future, being in glory with Jesus for all eternity, could possibly be meant for them. I get that. In fact, the more you’re struggling with the issues of life at the moment, the harder it is for you to lay hold of the truth that this eternal glory is actually meant for you.

Jesus’ disciples were struggling when He was telling them about what lay ahead for them. They were struggling because there was a plot afoot to assassinate Jesus. They were struggling because they weren’t just afraid for Him, they were in fear of their own lives. All these amazing things they’d seen this Jesus do … would all be lost? Would He indeed be assassinated? So Jesus said to them:

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. For in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it weren’t so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may also be. And you know the way to the place where I am going. John chapter 14, verses 1 to 4.

And my friend just as He was preparing a place for them, He was preparing a special place for you and for me. That’s how personal this is. That’s how real this is. So, do you know the way to the place where He was going, where He is today?

Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we possibly know the way?’ and Jesus said to them, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ John chapter 14, verses 5 and 6

Friend, there is only one way. And that way is Jesus. All the things that we’ve talked about these past weeks, all the amazing blessings that lie ahead are only available to those who have put their trust in Jesus, the Son of God; who have given their lives over to Jesus.

Now, if you haven’t done that yet, if you’ve been listening to the amazing things that lie ahead in eternity and you want those for yourself, I am going to invite you right now to pray this prayer with me. To accept Jesus into your life as your Saviour, to hand your life over to Him as your Lord, to receive forgiveness and to receive eternal life. If you would like to do that, then please, pray this prayer with me in your heart:

Dear God, thank you for Jesus. Thank you that you sent Him to die on that Cross to pay for my sins. Thank you that He rose again to give me eternal life. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And so I give my life to You, Lord Jesus, today. Forgive me please for all the things that I’ve done wrong. I turn away from those things today. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit, so that I can know you personally and have your power to live my life for you. From this day forward Lord God I belong to you and I believe in Jesus. All these things I’ve prayed in His name. Amen.

Friend, if you just prayed that prayer with me, then you are forgiven, you have received the gift of eternal life freely given through Jesus, and all the things we’ve spoken about in this series about your eternal future belong to you. It’s time for you to be filled with the certain hope that you have in Jesus Christ. It’s time for you to become a merchant of hope, to share that hope with others around you.

So let me encourage you to become part of a Bible believing church. In fact, I’ve recorded a series of messages called So Now What for anyone who just prayed that prayer. You’ll find them in the Jesus section of our website: christianityworks.com. So go and have a listen and be blessed in your new life in Jesus Christ.

As we start to think about Easter this week on the program, we’re going to take a bit of a different tack. It’s a time when we don’t just look back on what Jesus did, but when we also look forward to what Jesus purchased for us in this amazing transaction of grace, that we call … Easter.

Reunited with Jesus

Hope is one of the most important things to our wellbeing that there is. It’s a feeling or an expectation or a desire for good things to happen in our futures. You know when you sit there, and you daydream about this or that, it’s always about good things, isn’t it? It’s as though you’re creating a photo-album in your mind of the good things that you want to happen to you in the future. Worry and fear is pretty much the same, but that photo-album is full of dark and negative images. When we lose hope in the future, we often lose the will to go on. That’s why hope for tomorrow is such an important part of who we are.

It’s really interesting. The word hope appears around 133 times throughout the Bible, but it’s meaning is a little different to what we’re used to today. See, when we talk about hope, when we hope for something, it has that sense of uncertainty about it generally. ‘I hope I’ll get a promotion at work. I hope the scans didn’t detect cancer. I hope that my kids will grow up to lead healthy, productive, successful lives.’

When something is certain, like you know that you’re going on a 2-week holiday starting next Thursday, we look forward to that with anticipation, but when something is uncertain, then we hope that it’ll happen, but the Biblical word for hope doesn’t make any room for uncertainty. The moment you read hope in the Bible, it’s an indication of absolute certainty. As the article on Bible.org says, ‘The word hope in Scripture means a strong, confident expectation’. So you see, there’s a profound difference between the way that we use that word hope today, and the way it’s used in God’s Word. And if we transpose our meaning onto that word hope in Scripture, then we completely miss the point. Take this passage, for instance. Romans 8:24-25:

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he can see? But if we hope for that we do not see, we wait for it in patience.

Now if you read those words using our modern-day understanding of the meaning of that word hope, it’s not a very helpful passage at all. Let me give you the contemporary version: "For in uncertain hope you were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he hasn’t seen? But if we have a wishy-washy, uncertain hope for what we don’t see, then we’ll wait for it with patience". Now, not only isn’t it helpful, but it just doesn’t make sense because if we wait with a wishy-washy, uncertain hope, then there’s no way we’re going to feel patient on the inside.

So, let’s read it the way it was meant to be read when it was written: "For in a certain, rock-solid hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen isn’t hope, for we don’t hope for what we can’t see. But if we have a strong, certain hope for what we do not see, then we can wait for it with patience". Now that makes sense! Now it’s a help!

So the hope that God talks about, the hope the Holy Spirit puts into our hearts, is a rock-solid, guaranteed, done-deal, it’s going to happen, certain kind of hope. It’s more akin to our understanding of anticipation. You know you’re going on holidays next Thursday, so you anticipate and savour that certainty. That’s what the Biblical word hope actually means, and one of the things that we can hope in with absolute certainty is that when we die, and when Jesus comes again, we will be reunited with Him.

In those days before He was crucified, Jesus told His disciples that He was going away. Now that was a scary thing for them because they could sense the assassination plot, and they were wondering if they were going to be next, but this is what Jesus said to them. John 14:1-3:

‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me, for in My Father’s house, there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be.’

So this Jesus who was born as a babe onto the earth for us, this Jesus who died for us and who rose again, this Jesus who sits now at the right hand of the Father, this Jesus whose name is above every other name, to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, this very same Jesus is the one with whom we’ll be reunited on that day. The apostle Paul puts it this way. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18:

For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangels’ call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Forget the dramatic happenings around Christ’s second coming for a moment, as glorious and as wonderful as that day’s certainly going to be. The bit that grabs my heart is this: That we will be with the Lord forever – forever! We will be reunited with Jesus and we will be with Him forever, and ever, and ever, without end. ‘Therefore,’ writes Paul, ‘Therefore encourage one another with these words’.

That’s exactly what I want to do today – to encourage you with these words. Because whatever your present circumstances are, and the disciples when Jesus told them that He was going away – their circumstances were terribly desperate; they were in fear of their very lives ... So, whatever you’re going through at the moment, if you believe in Jesus, then you have the absolute, rock-solid, it’s-a-done-deal hope that one day, you will be reunited with Him. You will dwell with Him forever and ever and ever, amen. Now that’s what I call something to really look forward to.

A New Body

Eternity, as things turn out, is rather a long time. Right now, the oldest person I know in my circle of friends has just turned a hundred years old. This woman is a great lady with a sharp wit; I love her dearly, but at aged one hundred, her body ... Well, it’s starting to show the signs of her age, you understand.

She walks with a walking-frame and she’s kind of stooped over, her eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be and of course, she has just a few more wrinkles than the rest of us. Her body is in pretty good nick for her age (a hundred years old), but as you’d expect, age is taking its toll. One day, she (like you and me) will return to dust. That amazingly complex, finely-tuned body that we’ve all been given, that has served us all so well, one day will be no more.

So the question then arises, ok; we die, so what happens then? The Bible promises resurrection. That’s the point of Jesus rising from the dead. The writer of the book of Hebrews puts it this way. Hebrews 1:18:

He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.

So, how does that work? You’re dead, your body’s decayed either in a coffin or through cremation, and then one day Jesus returns. You and I are raised with Him, but what do we do for a body? It might on the one hand seem like a bit of a strange esoteric question for us to ask and answer, but hey; it’s a very real question, because this resurrection thing isn’t a theory.

I know, I know; most of us think that our death is a long, long way off, unless (I guess) we’ve just celebrated our hundredth birthday. We push these things way off to the side because it’s all about living life today, and the things we can buy and the fun we can have, and the things we need to tick off our to-do list today and tomorrow and all the busyness of life.

But friend, listen to me. One day that will stop dead, if you’ll pardon the not-so-gentle pun. One day, none of those things will matter any more and indeed the only thing, the only thing that will matter, is our relationship with Jesus or not. Full stop, end of story.

So, on that day, what are you and I going to do for a body? Well, here’s the answer. The apostle Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58:

But some will ask, ‘How are the dead to be raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies, and as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed perhaps of wheat or of some kind of grain, but God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed, He gives its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is entirely another. There is one glory of the sun, and there is another glory for the moon, there’s another glory for the stars – indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, but it’s not the spiritual that is first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth (a man of dust); the second man, Jesus, is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have been born in the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: Flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will 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 be changed, for this perishable body must put on imperishability, and the 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 victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immoveable, always excelling in the work of the Lord because you know that in the Lord, your labour is not in vain.

So you and I, if we believe in Jesus, will receive an imperishable spiritual body, through which we will inherit the kingdom of God – a body that won’t age like the one we have today. We see that in Jesus: His resurrection-body, the body He had after He was crucified and rose again ... He had a body; he ate food; His body bore scars of His crucifixion, and yet, He didn’t seem particularly bound by physical restraints like locked doors and distances.

Will our bodies be exactly like His? Will we look the same as we look now? Those things, we don’t quite know, but this we do know: That the body we receive will be a new body, and one that will be good enough to last us for ... well, pretty much all eternity.

So those of you with a few aches and pains, I think this is pretty good news. Don’t you? A new body that’s completely imperishable. One that won’t decay, won’t wrinkle, won’t get sick, won’t hurt, won’t give up over years, decades, hundreds of years, millennia, billions, trillions of years – eternity, that you and I are going to need it for. My friend, I don’t know about you, but I think this is absolutely brilliant news.

A New Heaven and Earth

We tend to think and live and behave as though this life we’re living right now is going to go on forever and ever. Here’s a little tip: It’s not, and in fact the things we take for granted (this great planet we live in, the sun getting up every morning, the moon), one day, all those will be gone too.

So then what? Some people find these sorts of discussions a little ... well, unsettling, the idea of Armageddon. We’re all wary of those doomsday cults, all preparing for the end of the world next Thursday or the week after. How many times have you seen one of those on the evening news? And of course, they’re always wrong. We’re still here, right?

Well, don’t worry; I’m not one of those. That’s not what I’m going to be talking about today. I’m simply going to the point that the Bible tells us that at some stage, all this stuff we take for granted is going to come to an end, and those who have put their trust in Jesus will spend the rest of eternity with Him in their new resurrection-bodies, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

So how does this all turn out? Well, fortunately, we know to some extent how it’s going to end. Have a listen to what God says to us from the last book of the Bible, the second-to-last chapter. Revelation 21:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the One who was seated on the throne said: ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also He said: ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns of fire and sulphur, which is the second death.

See, there’s the good news, and the bad news. All throughout the Bible, you see God talking about the fact that He wants to be our God, and He wants for us to be His people, and yet over and over again, His people rebelled against Him until eventually, He sent Jesus to dwell in our midst, and then the Holy Spirit to dwell in each man and woman and child who believes in Jesus. But look at how it ends! We are reunited with Jesus. The old earth and old heaven pass away. All things are made new: No pollution, no tsunamis, no earthquakes, no disease, no pain, no suffering, none of that. Jesus, God Himself, in our midst.

And those who persevere and conquer, those who trust in Christ, all of those will inherit this new, perfect creation. And those who don’t, won’t. And then John, the writer of this book of Revelation, goes on to paint this most amazing picture of what this new heaven and new earth will look like. We don’t have time to read it all, so I really encourage you to grab a Bible, grab a cup of tea or coffee over the next couple of days sometime, and sit down, and just immerse yourself in Revelation chapter 21 and 22. The picture that God paints for us there of what’s coming is utterly amazing! Anything we have today, any joy, any beauty, any trials, any pains, just pale into insignificance when you compare them to this. John goes on to write:

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the LORD God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of a sun or a moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations, but nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practises abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

I don’t know what you’re looking forward to the most in the future, but this is what I’m looking forward to. As big and as important as all the things going on in my life today and tomorrow seem, they will be completely meaningless when I stand one day, on that day, in the presence of God.

We’ve been given a beautiful world to live in. We’ve been given amazing bodies. God has given us the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and the animals and the beasts and the insects, and the weather and the wind and the sunshine and the rain and the moon and all these amazing things! But friend, one day, one day those will all pass away. They will all be gone: The good, the bad, the ugly, it’ll all be gone, and it’ll be replaced by this. Revelation 22:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the Tree of Life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month. And the leaves of the tree are the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads, and there will be no more night. They need no light of lamp or sun, for God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. And He said to me: ‘These words are trustworthy and true, for the LORD, the God of the spirits of the prophets, He has sent His angel to show His servants what must soon take place. See, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’

What are you looking forward to in your future? I’ve said this a few times in this series that without hope for the future, our lives cease to have value and meaning and purpose. People who take their own lives do so because they’ve completely lost hope, but look at the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Have you given your life to Jesus yet? Would you like to? Well, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give you the opportunity to do just that, so if you want to step into the hope that you can have through Jesus and what He did for you, then why don’t you pray this prayer with me in your heart right now?

Pray to God. Lord, as You’ve shared this amazing picture of what is to come with me today through Your Word, I can’t put this off any longer. I’ve been running from You, and running, but it hasn’t been working, so today Lord is the day that I’ve finally come to my senses. Today, I want to say sorry for all the things that I’ve done wrong, and turn my life over into Your hands. Please forgive me, through the price that Jesus paid for me on the cross, and give me a new life. Put Your Holy Spirit in me. Give me the power to live my life for You. Lead me wherever You will. Call me to whatever You would call me into, and give me the courage to take up my cross and follow You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Friend, if you’ve just prayed that prayer with me, then you are forgiven. You have a new life in Christ. All the old things have passed away; the slate is wiped clean, and all things are new, and you have just stepped into the certain hope of resurrection after death, and a life eternal in the very presence of God. Welcome to the rest of your eternity with Jesus! Let me encourage you to find a Bible-believing church. Become part of a dynamic, vital faith-community to worship and to serve God, and to grow in your relationship with Him. Get ready! Eternity’s coming.

It doesn’t matter what’s going on in your life right now, the good, the bad or the ugly, one day soon, Jesus is coming back. And when that happens, the dead will be raised first, and those who are alive and believe in Jesus will be taken up in glory. Now that … that’s something to look forward to.

The Dead Will Rise in Christ

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? What’s going to happen to you when your time on this earth is done and dusted? That will happen in one of two ways. Either Jesus will return – at which point everything on this earth will be over.

Or – and perhaps you consider this option to be more likely – your body is going to give up the ghost when you breathe your last breath and your heart stops beating. And it’s that latter option that we’re going to talk about right now.

We’re in the middle of a series of messages that I’ve called Merchants of Hope. Hope is such an important thing. Without hope, today’s not worth living – and tomorrow … well who cares? So many people – can I say, even people who believe in Jesus – are living without hope.

And that’s crazy. Because our lives – whether we believe in Jesus or not – don’t end with a beep. There’s life after death – either in the presence of Jesus for all eternity – hallelujah – or apart from Him, in a place of eternal punishment and anguish and regret – that place with Satan and his demons that we call … hell. Hmm.

So … where are you going to go after your beeeeep? Well, I believe … in fact I know … that last heart beat is not the end. It’s just the beginning of where you’re going to spend the rest of your eternity. And there are two parts to that eternity for anyone who believes in Jesus. The part between when you die and when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead, and the part after Jesus’ return.

Let’s talk about the first part first. If you believe in Jesus, here’s what  will happen to you. Immediately upon your death, you will go to be in the presence of Jesus, in conscious blessedness – having escaped your punishment because you have put your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus – in the fact that He paid for your sins on that cross. Just like the criminal who hung next to Jesus on that fateful day. Have a listen to what happened to him Luke 23:39–42:

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

So … exactly when would this man be in paradise with Jesus? Today. The Apostle Paul knew it too, that straight after his death, he would be in the presence of Jesus. Philippians 1:21–23:

For to me, 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.

What happens to him when he departs this life? He is going to be with Christ. So if you and I die before Jesus returns, and if we believe in Jesus, we go immediately to be with Him, in His Presence. Just sit there now for a minute and look at all your present circumstances – all your pressures and worries – through the lens of that truth. See that hope, that certain hope – is meant to make a huge difference in your life.

Paul the Apostle wrote that letter to the Philippians while he was in a Roman dungeon on death row. Have a read of it some time. It’s full of hope and rejoicing – because it’s written by a man who sees his present bleak circumstances through the lens of his certain hope in Christ. And at some point, Jesus will return and we will all – those who believe in Jesus and those who don’t – stand before Jesus in judgement. We’ve already talked about that.

And when that happens, those who believe in Jesus who have died, will rise in Him. Have a listen – 1 Thess 4:13–16:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Now we’re going to talk about what happens after that next week on the program. I’d love to go there right now because it’s awesome, we just don’t have time, so you and I are just going to have to wait.

Just picture this glorious day. The dead in Christ will rise first. I was in a hospital a few months ago, visiting a friend who has since died of cancer. Hospitals have always seemed to be impersonal, sterile places. He was in a room of three other men who were also dying. The smell of death is a powerful thing, in this sanitised, brightly lit place with linoleum floors polished so much that it squeaks when you walk on them. There’s something stark and confronting about death.

It’s inevitable. It’s not pleasant. And yet at the other end of that, is this triumphant, jubilant day when all those who have died in Christ will rise again with Him. Hallelujah. That's the hope. That’s why you and I and anyone else who believes in Jesus can look at our present day circumstances through the same lens as the Apostle Paul on death row. That’s why Paul wrote:

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? Hallelujah!’

I know there are some people listening today who have lost a loved one … and you miss them terribly. Perhaps your wife or your husband. Well the good news is that if they believe in Jesus, one day you will see them again – because they will be raised in Christ.

Or perhaps you’re getting pretty close to the end of your life, through old age or sickness – and you’re staring death down the barrel and that’s a scary thing for you.

Wherever you and I are on our journey through life and towards death, the important thing to know, the thing that Jesus wants you to know – not just in your head but in your heart is this. Death is not the end, it’s just the beginning.

It’s the beginning – for anyone who believes in Jesus – of an eternity praising Him and worshipping Him and celebrating with Him. It’s the beginning of an eternity without fear or tears or sickness or pain or illness.

It’s the beginning of an eternity, that compared to our fleeting lives on this earth, is so awesome, so forever that you just can’t compare the two. That’s why Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote this to his friends in Rome – Chapter 8 verse 18:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.

Friend, the eternity that lies ahead for you is as glorious as it is certain. That’s what Jesus wants you to know today. That’s the hope, the certain hope that He wants to fill your heart with … today.

The Living Will be Taken Up

So you get up tomorrow, it’s a day like any other day – or so you think – but completely unbeknown to you – it’s not just any day. It’s the day that God decides to send Jesus back to this earth. The thing that Christians call … the second coming.

Jesus Himself described what it would be like. Not some guy on television claiming to be Jesus. But a huge, cataclysmic event that none of us – not you or me or anyone else – will possibly be able to miss:

Immediately after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew 24:29–31)

I’m imagining – that’s going to be kind of hard to miss isn’t it. You’re getting ready to go to work, you’re brushing your teeth, thinking about what the day holds. If you’re anything like me, you’re mind is already running through your to–do list and then … this.

Friend, that’s what it’s going to be like. Your mundane, every day reality, totally interrupted, totally disturbed, totally come to an end – together with the day that all the other 7 billion-plus people on planet earth had planned – it’s going to be over. Because Jesus has just returned. The 24-hour news cycle is over. The newsreader on TV – nothing left to read. Can you imagine? Are you ready? Because it can happen at any moment. 1 Thess 5:1–5:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you, yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

So here’s the question, if you believe in Jesus and you are still alive on that day when Jesus returns? What’s it going to be like? And more importantly, what’s going to happen to you on that day? That’s worth knowing I think. Well, the Bible has the answers. In fact, Jesus has the answers:

Then he said to the disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! ’ or ‘Look here!’ Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation.

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them —it will be like that on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

On that day, anyone on the housetop who has belongings in the house must not come down to take them away; and likewise anyone in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left.’ Then they asked him, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.’ (Luke 17:22–37)

It’s pretty dramatic. Do you see the picture that Jesus paints – it’s a business as usual day. Everybody is going about their normal business and then … one will be taken up and the other left. Whoo! The Apostle Paul describes it this way:

Listen, I will 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. (1 Corinthians 15:51–53)

Friend, are you ready for that? In your heart of hearts are you looking forward to the day when the Lord returns?

There are two things that I’m sick of. I’m sick of these doomsday people who keep predicting the day on which Jesus will return. I think to myself – What are they nuts?! Jesus made the point, you’re not meant to know when … just be ready.

But at the other end of the scale I’m so desperately concerned about people who believe in Jesus and yet don’t seem to believe in the imminent return of Christ. We behave as though this life is going to last forever. We behave as though the rest of eternity is a million years away. Friends, it’s a lot closer than you think. In the context of eternity, it’s just around the corner. It could be this very day, this very hour that Jesus returns. That’s the certain hope that you and I have if we believe in Jesus. That’s the future that lies ahead.

Jesus could come back – today, tomorrow, next week. I don’t know whether you’re enjoying your life so much that you’re completely immersed in it – or whether you’re having such a rotten time that you’re drowning in your misery – or whether you’re somewhere in between. Wherever you are, whatever’s going on in your world, if you believe in Jesus, you have a certain hope that Jesus is coming back for you soon. And that … that’s meant to make a difference.

Just as I sit here chatting with you, I’m about to head off on a couple of weeks’ leave. I love doing what I do – but it’s hard work and I need a break. So with my wife, I’m heading off for 12 days – away from emails and writing and recording radio programs, and managing a global team and all that stuff that I love – just to take a break and have a rest.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to that these past weeks, how much I’m looking forward to it now. The sun, the ocean, the rest, the time with my wife. Awesome.

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about – if Jesus returned the day before I head off on my holiday, would I feel robbed … or rewarded? Would I want to say to Jesus – Look Lord – I’ve got a 12 day holiday planned, can you please come back at the end of it. In fact Lord as I look at my diary, hmmm, busy that day, meeting, speaking engagement – I’m thinking next month would be a much better time. Does that work for you? Let’s get it into our diaries and it’s a date.

Do you se my point? So many of us are so caught up in the things of the world, in our day to day reality that our hearts aren’t filled with the hope of Jesus’ imminent return. And I have to tell you – that is such a tragedy.

Listen to what Paul says Colossians 3:2:

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Come on. Set your gaze, your vision on the things that are above, on the certain hope you have. Because Jesus is coming – ready or not.

A Chance to Repent

I’ve said a few times in this series that without hope for the future, our lives cease to have value and meaning and purpose. People who take their own lives do so, because they’ve completely lost hope.

But look at the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Have you given your life to Jesus yet? Would you like to? Well, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give you the opportunity to do just that. So if you want to step into the hope that you can have through what Jesus did for you on the cross, then why don’t you pray this prayer with me in your heart. Pray it to God:

Lord God as you’ve shared this amazing picture of what is to come with me today through your Word, and I can’t put this off any longer. I’ve been running from you and running but it hasn’t been working and today Lord is the day that I’ve come to my senses. Today I want to say sorry for all the things that I’ve done wrong and turn my life over into your hands. Please forgive me through the price that Jesus paid for me on the Cross and give me a new life. Put your Holy Spirit in me to give me the power to live my life for you. Lead me wherever you will. Call me to whatever you would call me to. And give me the courage to take up my Cross and follow you, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

If you have just prayed that prayer with me then you are forgiven, you have a new life in Christ, all the old things have passed away, the slate is wiped clean – and all things are new. And you have just stepped into the certain hope of resurrection after death and a life eternal in the very Presence of God. Welcome to the rest of eternity with Jesus.

Let me encourage you to find a Bible believing Church and become part of a dynamic, vital faith community to worship and serve God and to grow in your relationship with Him. Because none of us can walk this walk with Jesus on our own.

Sure the moment that we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, He pours His Holy Spirit into us. But He also means for us to learn and to be encouraged and held accountable by other members of his family. I can be a bit of a loner sometimes, and I have to tell you sometimes the people at church can drive me a bit batty. And so the easiest thing in the world would be for me not to belong to a church.

But over the last almost 20 years, what I’ve learned is that the transformation of my life has happened in the community, as I’ve been part of God’s family. That’s why being part of His church is so incredibly important. Giving your life to Jesus isn’t a one-time thing, that you do for a few weeks and then forget, any more than permanently losing weight is about a 3 week crash diet.

Giving your life to Jesus is about living the rest of your life for Him. Jesus promised that that wouldn’t be an easy thing to do. He promised us that the path would be narrow and hard. He promised us that we would be persecuted. He promised us that taking up our cross and following Him would be a tough gig. So – here’s the thing. If you have just given your life to Jesus, get together with some fellow believers and let them help you on the journey.

In fact, if you’ve just given your life to Jesus – I’ve recorded a series of 10 messages called So Now What? and probably the best thing that you can do right now is have a listen to them, because they’re all about the thing that you need to do and to put in place to lay some solid foundations early, in your relationship with Jesus.

You can get a hold of those messages online, in the Jesus section of our website – at christianityworks.com. I really encourage you to get along and have a listen – establish a prayer life, get into God’s Word and read the Bible every day. Become part of a vibrant Bible-believing church. Because I want to see you in eternity. I want to hear you say to me – "Hey Berni, remember that day you shared that message on the radio? It changed my life. I’m here now because God used that message in my life."

I want those promises of eternity to be for you!

Most of us are so busy getting through the day, that we’ve forgotten completely that Jesus is coming back. In fact the reality of today, and the promise of Christ’s imminent return almost seem … incompatible.

Is Life Tearing You Apart?

Great to be starting a new series on a subject that pretty much all of us are really interested in: Hope. I don’t know how much you’ve thought about this, but having hope for the future is fundamental to our well-being today. Think about it. If you don’t have any hope to look forward to, if you have no hope for the future, then you and your life are what we call hopeless and hopelessness, if you’ve ever been there, is the place where people start thinking about taking their own lives because they’ve got nothing left to live for. The future looks so bleak that we come to the conclusion: ‘Well, what’s the point?’

I once read a book about a holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, and he makes the point so powerfully when he recalls an experience from a concentration camp. Have a listen to what he writes:

The prisoner who had lost faith in the future, his future, was doomed. With the loss of belief in his future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually, this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis – the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends. It usually began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash and to go out on the parade ground. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect: He just lay there hardly moving. If the crisis was brought about by an illness, he refused to be taken to the sick bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up, and there he remained lying in his own excrement, and nothing bothered him any more.

What a devastating picture of hopelessness, but a lack of hope in our lives takes many different forms. Sometimes, it’s not quite as desperate as that. It’s just that we’ve had this numbness because we’re so buried in the minutiae. We worry about this and that; we worry about ... well, we worry about just about everything really.

I saw a great quote the other day on Twitter that went something like this: Worry is nothing more than your imagination creating negative visions of the future. It’s true, isn’t it? We create all these negative snapshots of how things could turn out, as though that’s any way to live your life.

Hope is the complete opposite of that. Hope is about creating positive snapshots. It’s about a vision in our heads and in our hearts of having a life that’s worth living, and the sort of hope that God’s into is the sort that makes a powerful difference in the good times and in the bad. We don’t find it particularly difficult to have hope for the future when things are going pretty well. The time we struggle is when things aren’t going well, and it’s right in that place that God wants to pour His hope into your life and mine. Romans 12:12:

Rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation; be consistent in prayer.

Did you pick that up? God’s hope is right in there, in the mix, next to, butted up against tribulation – a word which, in its original Greek language, literally means to have the life squeezed out of you. So, when you’re being squeezed and crushed, when it feels like your life is draining out of you, it’s right there that God plans to give you hope.

Our problem is that the hope that we’re all too often looking for is way too short-sighted. We hope that the pain will go away. We hope that the thing that’s causing us grief will go away: Not next month; not even next week; not even tomorrow ... We want it fixed now. It doesn’t always work that way.

I can’t tell you the number of letters and emails I receive from people who’ve been suffering for a long time – some of them a lifetime, and they want to know: What the blazers is God up to? How can I possibly have the hope that you’re talking about? Those are eminently reasonable questions for you and me to be asking, so let’s lift our gaze and take a much bigger, much more expansive view of the sort of hope that God has for each one of us today. Let’s have a listen to the apostle Paul, who was going through his own tribulations on death row in a Roman dungeon. This comes from Philippians 1:18-26:

And I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in any way, but by my speaking with all boldness, Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me, and I don’t know which one I prefer. I’m hard-pressed between the two: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that’s far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.

So much hope does Paul have in the eternity that he’s going to spend with Jesus that instead of panicking about the consequences of being on death row, he’s actually torn – not between this and that in life, but between continuing in this life or moving on to the next.

Now, just stop and think about that there for a minute. Take a deep breath; let it sink in. Paul had so wrapped his heart and his mind around the amazing eternity he’s going to spend in the presence of God, with Jesus for ever and ever and ever, he’s completely torn between finishing the course that God’s set for him here on this planet, and letting it come to an early end so that he can be with Jesus. Wow!

So let me ask you this question: How different would your perspective on life be if you had that sort of hope within your heart right now, tomorrow, the next day? Well that’s precisely why we’re talking about this hope – the certain hope that we have in Jesus Christ for all eternity, in this series that I’ve called Merchants of Hope.

When Jesus Comes Again

Ok, tomorrow starts off like any other day. The alarm clock goes off, you roll out of bed, into the bathroom, breakfast, off to work ... You look out the window, but ... well, the sun’s not there. What’s the time? What’s going on? Here’s the picture that Jesus Himself paints of His return. Matthew 24:29-31:

Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet-call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds – from one end of heaven to the other.

Wow! So is that good news to you, or bad news? Is that something you’re looking forward to, or not? And what about this? Going on in that same chapter, Matthew 24:36-44:

But about that day and the hour, no one knows. Neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying, given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in a field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming, but understand this. If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Are you looking forward to that with a sense of anticipation, or not? Because it could happen anytime. When? Well, we don’t know. We’re not meant to know. It could be today; it could be tomorrow; it could be next Thursday, or it could be in another few thousand years’ time.

But are you looking forward to Jesus’ return? I have to tell you something: I am. I love labouring in His field to play my small part in bringing in the harvest. I love doing what He calls me to do. Sure, some days it’s hard. Some days you groan, right? But by and large, it’s a joy for me to be doing what I’m doing, but the more I read and think and pray about what it’ll be like to be with the Lord for all eternity, the more I yearn to be there with Him, despite how much I’m enjoying this life. Does that make sense? And let me tell you, God has a lot to say in His Word about the return of Jesus.

Here are some interesting facts. One verse in thirty in the New Testament relates to the return of Christ. One in thirty! For every prophecy in the Old Testament about Jesus’ first coming, there are eight in the New Testament about His second coming. In fact, there are three hundred and sixteen references in the New Testament to the second coming, so as much as we get lost in the present, God truly wants us to focus on what is to come because when we actually know what’s coming, when the wonder of spending eternity with Jesus fills your heart, can I tell you? This world, this life, and all its riches and all its tribulations, look completely different.

Have you ever been exhausted at work? It’s been a long year, and you could really use a break? Your nerves are frayed; you’re snapping at people at work; just the smallest thing sets you off and you get home, and you’re grumpy at home with your family too. It’s because the pressure of it all is getting to you, but then you remember: Hang on a minute! I’ve got a holiday break coming up, and all of a sudden, all your anxiety melts away because it completely changes how you face today and the next day, because you know something good is coming.

Well as much as this works on the micro-scale, knowing your destiny with Christ for all eternity, it completely changes how you look at your life from a big-picture perspective as well. Just listen to these words that Jesus spoke while hanging on that cross to a criminal who was also hanging on his cross beside the Lord. Luke 23:42-43:

The man said to Him, ‘Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.’

And Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.’

Just think. In the middle of that extreme suffering, that man hanging there on a cross next to Jesus, and the Lord (the miracle-working Jesus) – the same one who’d healed lepers and blind men and demoniacs and who’d walked on water and stilled the storm – that Jesus says to this suffering criminal, who by the way deserved every bit of his punishment, that Jesus says to him: "Truly, today, you will be with Me in paradise." Do you think those words pierced his heart with love and hope amidst his suffering? You bet they did, because Jesus spoke those words into the little that remained of his life on this earth. And when Jesus was telling His disciples (fearful and suffering as they were before the crucifixion) about heaven, He said this to them. John 14:1-3:

‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me, for in My Father’s house, there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also may be.’

Friend, those words are for you as much as they were for the disciples back then, and remembering right at that point those disciples were suffering. They were afraid for their lives and yet Jesus said to them: "In My Father’s house, there are many dwelling-places. If it wasn’t so, do you think I would have told you that I’m going to prepare one for you?" As you take up your cross and follow Jesus every day, He is already preparing a room – a room just for you.

Making What’s Wrong, Right

When Jesus comes again, something that I for one am really looking forward to, one of the things that’s going to happen is that we’re each going to have to give an account of our actions. Like it or not, it’s exactly what’s going to happen. Here’s how Jesus tells it. Matthew 25:31-46:

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at His left. Then the King will say to those at His right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when was it that we saw You a stranger and welcomed You, or naked and gave You clothing? And when was it that we saw You sick or in prison and visited You?’

And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of those who are members of my family, you did it to Me.’

Then He will say to those at His left hand, ‘You are accursed! Depart from Me, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and all his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you didn’t welcome Me, I was naked and you didn’t give me clothing, I was sick and in prison and you didn’t visit Me.’

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we didn’t take care of You?’

And then He will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do this to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to Me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

So, how does that make you feel, knowing that Jesus will judge you one day? A little nervous? A little uncomfortable, perhaps? Course it does! We’ve all done things wrong. We’ve all rebelled against God. Even though He gave His very life for us, we’ve rebelled. See, the idea of judgment really makes us feel ... twitchy. So, what am I doing talking about judgment in the middle of a series of messages that I’ve called Merchants of Hope? What does judgment have to do with hope exactly? Well I’ll tell you: The answer is, everything.

I was watching a news item on TV recently. They were interviewing a young woman who’d been deliberately set alight by some people who were drug-addicts. They’d poured flammable liquid all over this woman and set her alight. This beautiful young woman now had burns to most of her body. Even her face was covered with one of those body stockings. All you could see were her eyes moving around, and her mouth moving.

The perpetrators were given, wait for this, only thirteen years in prison. I was outraged! I mean, these people had laughed at her, when they set this beautiful young girl alight and ruined her life. I mean, they should have been given life, as far as I’m concerned. Someone should lock them up, throw away the keys, and never let them out. Would you agree?

There are many, many evil things done in this world on a daily basis: Extreme things like that; men beating their wives; women cheating on their husbands; people being enslaved; abused; tortured; demeaned. On the same night as that news item, they showed the trial of a union official who had embezzled over a million dollars from the members! None of that has escaped God. None of it! And all this evil going on in the world, evil that people seem to get away with, is not going to go unpunished. Listen to what God says. Proverbs 11:21:

Be assured, the wicked will not go unpunished, but those who are righteous will escape.

And then Romans 12:19:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the LORD.

See, one of the great hopes that we have for the future when Jesus returns, when He judges the nations and their peoples, is that finally, finally, finally, justice will be done. I get great comfort from the system of justice in my country which, as fairly as possible, punishes people for their iniquities. And I get a huge amount of comfort knowing that God will one day punish the wicked, on that day of judgment; not because I’m a mean person, but because I (like you) have in me an innate sense of justice. Why is it there? Because you and I are made in the image of God and God is a just God.

Now, so far as I know, I’ve never done anything particularly wicked in my life. I’ve never poured petrol over someone; I’ve never set them alight; I’ve never embezzled union funds; I’ve not committed any crimes, but can I tell you something? I have fallen so short of God’s perfect ideal for my life. In fact, I fall short pretty much every day, so on God’s scale of justice, I deserve to be punished on that day of judgment. Truly I do, and chances are, so do you. The difference is for me, (I don’t know about you) but for me, and anyone who puts their trust in Jesus, the difference is this. 1 John 4:10:

In this is life: Not that we love God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

See, my hope for justice is my hope in Jesus. I know that He’s already paid for all my wrongs, past and present and future, and whilst justice will be done, I am forgiven because in my case, through my faith in Jesus, justice has already been done. It was a done deal when Jesus died on that cross to pay for my sins. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? I get off Scott-free when others will have to suffer. You’re right; it’s not fair – it’s grace, and grace is never fair.

My hope on that day of judgment is in Jesus, and that’s something I’m looking forward to. How about you?

So when was the last time you fell for the devil’s age-old lie that you’re not worthy of God, therefore by clear implication you never will be? When have you worried about this? Well, now you’ve heard the truth: Perhaps again, perhaps for the first time; and knowing that truth, you are totally, totally set free from any condemnation the moment you believe in Jesus.

Martin Luther once had a dream in which he stood, in the day of judgment, before God, and (surprise, surprise) Satan was there to accuse him. And when the books were opened, he pointed to transgression after transgression of which Luther was guilty. Luther’s heart sank in despair, but then he remembered the cross, and turning on the devil he said: ‘There is one entry which you have not made, Satan.’

"What is that?" asked the devil.

"It’s this," answered Luther. "The blood of Christ, His Son, cleanses me from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

That’s the truth – the God-honest truth. If you’re one of those people who has given their lives to Jesus, I want you from this day forth to hope in the day of judgment, when justice will finally be done by God. And as you hope in that day, know that your faith in Jesus means that your justice has already been done.

But if you don’t believe in Jesus, and if you haven’t yet put your trust in His hands, then I don’t want us to part ways today without giving you the opportunity to pray this prayer of faith with me and to put your life in His hands. This is just too important to leave until tomorrow, so let’s pray now. Pray these words with me right now:

Father God, I’ve heard the truth today that You will judge the living and the dead, and I realise I’m in serious trouble. I confess to you today that I’ve sinned against You in thought, in word, and in deed, and I come to You today Lord God to declare that I believe in Jesus. I believe that Jesus is Your Son: That Jesus died for me, to pay for my sins; that He rose again to give me the gift of eternal life. Please forgive me through what Jesus did for me. I turn away from all that I know to be wrong, and I give my life to You. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit today, and give me the power to live this new life – this eternal life, completely for You. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

It seems that over and over again, the world teaches us to be self–reliant.  Life’s about succeeding and success is about who we are and what we do and in this day and age, surely we can be and do whatever we want.  Oh really?

A Part For God To Play 

I was sitting down with a group of businessmen recently for a breakfast that we’d organised and I was about to share a message called "The Battle Belongs to the Lord" with this group. It was interesting to listen to the discussion around the table as people drank their coffee and munched on a muffin.

Being men in business, the discussion was around the economic climate and it’s impact on their businesses. And as we chatted, it became pretty clear to me how self-reliant this group of men had been programmed to be.

They are after all, businessmen. They have businesses to run. They’re meant to succeed. And when the economy turns sour, it’s almost as though they are the failures because their businesses are struggling. In fact, during the economic crisis, I sat with a wise, older man and he was sharing with me how much of his time was being taken up counselling other men in his sector – financial services – who were contemplating suicide because they were facing ruin.

Whatever we do, whoever we are, it seems that society is programming us to be self-reliant. We have to rely on our wits and our abilities to succeed and if we don’t we’re failures. Never mind that some adversity that we could never control has swept in like a storm off the ocean. No – we’re meant to succeed. But here’s the thing – if we’re so self-reliant, what happens when the storm is so ferocious, we can’t deal with it? What happens when the mountain is so big, we can’t budge it? Then what? It’s scary. Really scary.

The hardest thing I think in overcoming fear in life is actually getting to that point where we have a high level of confidence in God. Who God is. What He’s done. His might and His power and His sovereignty. It all sounds great in theory. But what about in practice? What about when the rubber hits the road? Then what?

I used to think that it was up to me. And I guess in part it is, but not completely. That’s just as well, because you and I, we’re human. We can’t just conjure up confidence. We can’t take this theory about who God is and let the theory wipe away the fear.

Because fear is real. No, I need something more than that. I need something more than promises on paper. And fortunately, that’s exactly what God had planned to do. He didn’t want to leave it all up to us. Wants us to actually experience His peace – not our strength, but a peace and strength that come from Him. Let’s pick up the rest of what He had to say, beginning again at verse 28 of Isaiah Chapter 40:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40:28)

Great, there’s the theory again but watch now for what comes next.

He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31

Do you see the point? Where do the power and the strength come from? Do you or I conjure them up. No! They come from the Lord. And we need that, because even youths will faint and be weary and the young and the strong will fall exhausted. BUT – and here’s the BUT – the glorious, wondrous, powerful BUT:

but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

He gives those things to us when we wait expectantly on Him. And that’s literally what that word “wait” means. Not waiting grumbling and complaining. Not waiting with our hearts and our eyes downcast. Not trembling paralysed with fear. No, it means waiting expectantly. Waiting on God with the expectation that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He is going to do.

Looking up at Him and just expecting strength and assurance and comfort from Him. Right there in the middle of our fear. With our emotions on a rollercoaster ride, with our enemies around us, with disaster looming – but with an expectation somewhere deep inside that God is going to act.

And that what will happen is exactly what He has planned. Do you know what we’re doing when we’re doing that sort of waiting. We’re having faith that moves mountains! We’re living it right then and there.

Who knows – will God give us victory over our enemies or not? I don’t know. More Christians martyred in the twentieth century than in the two thousand years before that combined.

We all die some time. Is He going to heal this cancer or let it take its course? Is He going to give me victory over my enemies, or does He have a different plan? Sometimes, we just don’t know? But this one thing I do know, that …

… those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

God is saying to us through His Word today – indeed He is commanding us – DO NOT BE AFRAID.

And you know why it is that I am not afraid of death? Because I have eternal life through Jesus Christ. Sometimes He gives me victory over circumstances on this earth. Sometimes, He lets me suffer. But come what may – if I am diagnosed with terminal cancer tomorrow – I am going to put my confidence in the God who has given me a life eternal with Him.

Just before He was crucified and when His disciples were trembling in fear, this is what Jesus said to them:

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, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

So far as we know each of those disciples (other than Judas) went on to do mighty things for God … and then, they died for their faith. So often we’re focussed on the here and the now but God’s plan for your life and mine my friend is life eternal. That’s why I put my confidence in Jesus Christ who paid the price in full for my sin on that cross.

God gives us His peace and His strength when we wait expectantly on Him. Doesn’t matter how big, bad or ugly the enemy is. Doesn’t matter how fearful we are. God will take away our fear, when we wait expectantly on Him. That’s the sort of faith that moves mountains.

Your Mind Really Matters 

I want to share with you right now one of the most powerful things that I have ever learned about having the sort of faith that moves mountains.

We spoke the last week about the world’s template of success. The notion that if we would just have positive thoughts, we can have positive outcomes in every aspect of our lives. We can do anything and achieve anything, if only we’ll get a positive mindset. It’s a seductive idea. It’s one that we would love to pull up next to.

In fact, so popular is this notion that a whole school of positive thinking has grown up over recent years. But it doesn’t matter how positively we think, there are going to be things that we can’t overcome. It doesn’t matter how positively I think about life, one day, one way or another, this mortal body will give up its spirit.

And so, many a Christian will reject this notion of thinking positively, because it has been so intrinsically linked to the world’s template of success. Yet, God’s Word is very clear, that what we do with our mind actually matters. That instead of being locked into the patterns of thinking that pervade the world and just don’t work, instead of allowing ourselves to be squeezed into the world’s mould, we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. What we do with our mind matters.

Now, I am a naturally positive person. I just am. Probably my training at the Australian Army Office Academy – the Royal Military College Duntroon helped. But the way that I’m wired inside means that I see the glass as being half full and not half empty. And I guess it’s a great help too that much of my work involves me in studying and preaching God’s Word. I’m constantly listening to Him and hearing from Him. It’s one of the reasons I so love doing what I do.

Every now and then though, I get to feeling a little down or lost. Normally when I’m tired and I have a lot going on in my life. But that’s generally only a now and then sort of thing.

One day, I decided to take notice of my thoughts – a stock-take if you will, of the way in which I used my mind. I was absolutely shocked at the number of negative thoughts that I allow to occupy my mind. I mean really shocked. Because I’d always seen myself as Mr Positive. In fact those who know me well, would tell you that as well.

Here’s how it happens. We race around doing all the things we do in life. Getting the kids off to school. Getting ready for work. The long commute. The pressures at work. Go, go, go. And this intrudes on our schedule. Or that delays us. Or this person says something that annoys us.

And that’s before the guy in the car in front of us changes lanes without using his blinker. And so we honk the horn and we think bad thoughts. "How could that guy do that?!" "Oh no, I’m running late." "Oh! I forgot to put an apple in Johnnie’s school bag." "That idiot – how can he come up with that?" "She has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. Who do they think they are?"

Do any of this sound even vaguely familiar to you? And they’re just the tip of the iceberg aren’t they?

The salesman sitting there staring at the phone afraid to pick it up and make an appointment. "They’re never going to buy from me." The wife who looks at her busy husband and thinks to herself, "He’s never, ever going to understand me."

In fact, it doesn’t matter who we are, where we live, what walk of life we’re in – these negative thoughts creep in and then we begin to verbalise them. We start speaking them out to ourselves and to other and before you know it we’re wandering through life with a stinking attitude that is going to rob us of the blessings that God has planned for today and for tomorrow and for the next day. That’s exactly what Jesus said:

Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile. (Matthew 15:17-20)

These thoughts and these words begin to shape our reality. The shape how we see the world. And that shaping in turn defines the attitude with which we live our lives. And our attitudes are like the lenses that we see the world through.

That’s why some people are just mean-spirited and nasty and glum and negative. The pathetic character Gollum in the Lord of the Rings if you’ve read the books or seen the movies is a caricature of such a person. Gollum clung onto the one ring that ruled them for so long that in the end, it destroyed him.

And we’re prone to do exactly the same. The problem with all this is that these negative thoughts are insidious. They creep up on us and cloud our vision.

A few years ago, I was fiddling with my glasses over lunch at a friend’s house and they snapped in two. I was so annoyed – this was going to cost me some serious money. So I visited the optometrist to have the vision tests for a new pair. And one of the test that they routinely conduct is to check the eye pressure to test for glaucoma.

It was in that routine test that I was diagnosed with that very disease. It’s insidious because there are no discernible symptoms. The pressure inside the eyeball remains high and slowly damages the optic nerve at the back of the eye. Over a few years, it can send a person blind. By the time they notice that there’s something wrong, they’ve lost much of their sight and the damage cannot be reversed. Fortunately, mine was diagnosed very early and with routine treatment, my eyesight will be fine for many years to come.

This is exactly what happens to us when we allow negative thoughts to rule our lives. Our view of the world becomes clouded and distorted and we don’t even know it. Have a listen again to Jesus on this:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)

If our vision is clear then the light can get in. But if not, we end up in darkness. It robs us of the light. But it’s the very last bit of what Jesus says here that is the most damning: If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?

I Can Do This

Our thoughts can destroy us. Truly they can. We get all caught up in negative “gloom and doom” type thinking and before you know it, that’s what we’re living out. We close off the possibility that God is in this place. We close off the possibility that He loves us. We close off the reality that He can and will step in to help us in ways that we can’t even dream of. And we’re blinded by looking through faithless eyes instead of eyes of faith. Have a listen again to Jesus on this:

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22,23)

That’s the problem. We kid ourselves, we think we’re living a good life but in fact it’s a dark life because of our negative thoughts. So what’s the answer. This faith thing isn’t some theory lesson. It’s about God’s grace really making a difference in our lives. Especially when we’re struggling with negative thoughts.

The solution as it turns out is simple. So simple, I’m embarrassed to tell you that it wasn’t entirely obvious to me. I sort of knew, but not in a way that made me aware of my negative thoughts and empowered me to do something about them.

Here it is. Hold on to your hat. Here it comes. Every time we have a negative thought, we consciously and deliberately replace it with a positive one. And the best positive thoughts of all are what God says about us in the Bible. Let me give you just three examples:

Negative Thought Number 1: I can’t possibly put up with my husband for another minute! That could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 1: Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husbands so that, even if some of them do not obey the word they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
(1 Peter 3:1,2)

Solution Number 1: Do you see what just happened here? The negative thought will drive a behaviour of isolation. The negative thought will chill relations further. The negative thought is the pathway to divorce. Now replace it with the positive thought – right from God’s Word. Because it offers a solution. God’s solution. Hen-pecking doesn’t work, but as woman you have the power to change your man’s heart and his behaviour by who you are. When this woman chooses to believe that thought –God’s Word – over her negative one, she is in effect putting her faith in God’s Word. She’s hoping in God’s Word. She quietly, expectantly waits for God to renew her strength. The negative thought would end in destruction. The positive thought opens up the way to the solution. Which one is better do you think?

Negative Thought Number 2: How could that guy possibly do that? That could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 2: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Solution Number 2: The negative thought will never lead to a solution to the problem. The positive thought calls this man to see and think clearly. What have I done to contribute to this situation? Maybe that other guy as something else going on in his life that’s causing him to behave this way. Now, what can I do to help?

Negative Thought Number 3: I can’t make this phone call. I’m not made for selling. These people are never going to buy from me. I’m sick of being rejected. This could be replaced with:

Positive Thought Number 3: Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. (Luke 6:38) Well, I’m a giver. That verse is for me.

Solution Number 3: Fear immobilises. God blesses. And when this salesperson believes that God is in the blessing business, it changes his or her behaviour. It gives them the quiet confidence to believe that God has gone ahead, that God has seen their secret giving and the rest belongs to Him.

Do you see what’s going on here? This is about putting faith to work. This is where the rubber hits the road. The moment a negative thought comes to attack our confidence, we replace it with a positive one. And not just something we dreamed up. The Word of God. The Truth. Because when we know the truth, when we put it to work in our lives, it sets us free.

It’s time to wake up to this. Faith is this – faith is choosing to believe God’s Word over and above our circumstances. Irrespective of how daunting, fearful and overwhelming those circumstances may appear. It is a deliberate choice to believe.

And then when we believe, it is about doing God’s Word. Letting God’s Word replace the negative thought and then acting on it. Because there’s one thing for certain. If we retain the negative thought we will act on it. The wife will isolate her husband. The man will beat up on the other guy at work (idiot that he is!). The salesperson will remain immobilised in their fear and not make any sales.

We act on our negative thoughts! Isn’t that a wakeup call?!

Faith has two parts. Believing and doing. Sometimes, that “doing” standing still and letting God do His part. That’s still doing! And unless we act on the faith, it never moves mountains. In fact, faith without works is dead!

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead … But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works.’"Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. (James 2:14f)

In other words, what we do is the active demonstration of what we believe. If we believe the negative, destructive thoughts we will live them out and they will ruin our lives. If instead, we believe God’s Word, we will live those out and do it for God’s glory. Faith thus lived out in my life and yours my friend, that’s the sort of faith that moves mountains.

You know, most of us, when we hear about the sort of faith that moves mountains, most of us expect to move the mountains we want to move.  We expect to see the results, to benefit from them, to revel in them.  But that’s not always the way.

Well What Did You Expect? 

It’s great to be back with you again this week – and if you had a chance to join me over the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that we’ve been taking a look at faith – the sort of faith that moves mountains. And we’ve had a good look at a couple of real life stories – the story of Abraham and Sarah – man, they definitely needed faith and yet they made so many boo boos along the way. And then, the story of an incompetent king and these four lepers – that was last week on the program. And both of those stories – well they weren’t what perhaps you may have expected.

Abraham and Sarah were so imperfect in their faith. And then the story of the siege and God’s blessing – none of God’s people showed any faith at all, and then these four lepers with really no other alternative stumble out into God’s blessings. I wonder in a series called, "Having Faith that Moves Mountains" – what sort of stories did you expected? Stories about characters and people who’d shown this mighty faith? Stories of people, real people – who had such a mighty faith that they could single-handedly cast a mountain into the sea?

And when you and I – when we look at our own lives and our own situations, what do we expect of ourselves? What sort of faith, what sort of journey do we expect?

I’ll tell you what I expected when I gave my life to Jesus a decade and a half ago. I expected an easy ride. I expected that despite what the Bible said, despite what the preacher up the front said on Sunday mornings (and I was blessed with a really good teacher) and despite what happened to Jesus – I would have an easy ride of it.

That I’d crash through brick walls. That the problems would go away. That everything that I touched would turn to gold. And yet the more that I got myself into understanding God in His Word, and the more I discovered fantastic promises like:

In the world you will face tribulation (John 16:33).

I found those things and yet I still wanted to cling onto this notion that I would have an easy ride of it. That I was somehow special and different this tribulation thing was for the rest of you could go and travel your difficult roads, but not me.

The only direction for me was up. That’s it. I’m not accepting anything else. And as I look back on those years since I gave my life over to Jesus as my Saviour and my Lord, there are some fantastic stories to tell. He’s done such amazing things in me and around me. He’s involved me in things that I could never have dreamed up for myself.

But there have been long and winding roads. There have been storms. There have been times when I felt completely alone. There were times when I would not have dared dream up a title for a bunch of radio programs like "Having Faith that Moves Mountains."

And those times just didn’t fit with my plan. Because my plan was so much like the world’s plan. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. Success. Success is about bigger, better, faster, richer. Success is about other people looking at our lives and saying, "Oooh, he’s truly blessed." And at some point it dawned on me – I can’t remember exactly when – that my plan wasn’t God’s plan. (It’s tragic, but it’s true).

Even though I’d laid my life down at His feet as completely and as utterly as I was able, I still had a plan for “success.” For a long time, my plan and God’s plan were tearing me apart. But the problem was I couldn’t have described it as neatly as I just have to you now. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was but something wasn’t right.

I wanted to do great things for God – but it was on my terms and not His. I wanted to work hard and succeed at being a Christian. I wanted to make a difference in this world for Him. But there was something, something that had to give.

It’s that something that I want to talk about in this week. To put it under a magnifying glass. To hold it up and look at it from this angle and from that. So that together we can identify it and name it.

What exactly are we missing – could it be that our template of success – yours and mine – isn’t the same as God’s. Could it be that the pattern that you and I are carrying around in our heads and in our hearts – the glasses through which we see things – are kind of distorting our view – that we’re chasing after something that really isn’t there? Something that really doesn’t work?

One thing that I’ve discovered in life is that something that works well over here in this situation can be a complete failure over there in that situation. I worked as a consultant in the IT industry for many years. That took me into well over 200 organisations around the world. And it just never ceased to amaze me that whilst my experience and knowledge grew with each project and consulting assignment, it wasn’t possible to take the approach that we used for company X last year and use it for company Y this year.

Why? Because the context and culture were invariably different. Each organisation had its own unique blend of rules and relationships. This one was flexible and entrepreneurial. That one was more structured. This one was risk averse, that one was more open to risk taking.

This one had had a bad project two years ago that everyone remembered. Whilst this new one hadn’t. And so what I discovered after a few years of doing this, and with the benefit of a very wise mentor, is that the template for success was different in each organisation. In each circumstance. The most important thing to do was to figure out what success looked like for each client organisation, in order that we could shape a project and an outcome that was successful for them.

And after a while, I figured out that the template for success in the kingdom of this world, is different – I mean radically different – from the template of success in the Kingdom of God. And the tension that was going on inside me as I was striving so hard to succeed in this new Kingdom, God’s Kingdom was because I was striving for the wrong things. Things that in God’s eyes didn’t constitute success.

See, my context and the culture had changed. And I was still trying to be successful in the old way, the world’s way. In a way that was never going to be successful in God’s kingdom. As I said earlier, my model of success was base on the “onwards and upwards” idea. Always going forward. Never taking a step back. And to be honest, you see a lot of that brand of success is floating around the church of God today. It’s the world’s approach and not God’s.

It turns out that God’s template for success is based on something that I’d never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams thought would be related to success. A word that I’d never used in the same sentence as “success”. That word, is … vulnerability. And that – that’s what we’re going to talk about after this short break.

The Substance Of Things Unseen

Now here’s a scary thought – if I say I love God, if I say that actually, actually Jesus isn’t just the Son of God who saved me by dying on the cross – but He’s also the LORD of my life – if that’s what I hold out there as what I believe – well, what if I start hurling my faith at mountains that He doesn’t want moved? What if I’m pulling in one direction – and He’s pulling in the other. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out who’s going to win that little tussle do you.

And that’s the thing with faith – I see so many people exhausting themselves because – well, We want what We want and the Bible says I can have anything I want if I have enough faith – and so we kind of – well we abuse this whole faith thing – and I have to tell you from my own experience – it’s utterly exhausting pulling against God.

Where as when I’m going with Him – there’s a real holy ease about it. Doesn’t mean that things are always easy, but what it means is that it flows. Even when there are challenges and obstacles and mountains – it just… flows.

And to do that, we have to redefine what we mean by success. If we want to pull in the same direction as God – we need to figure out what success means for Him and go with that, don’t we?? The most power packed chapter on faith in the Bible would have to be Hebrews Chapter 11, but the only two verses people ever seem to quote are these:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 1:1)

And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

And to be sure these are mighty Scripture verses. But my hunch is that the reason we like to pluck these two out of Chapter 11 all on their own is that they fit kind of nicely with the world’s template of success. At least they don’t contradict it.

But let’s take a look at the rest of this chapter. It’s about faith, but maybe not quite the sort that we really want to hear about.

It goes on to list a whole number of Old Testament Bible Characters: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel and the prophets. Great men of faith

… who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. (Hebrews 11:33,34)

Now that is certainly the sort of faith that you and I are looking for, isn’t it? But look at what it says in the very next breath about these men:

Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:35-40)

Seems we would be quite happy to receive the first part of that equation – the accolades reserved for the heroes thus named. But which one of us – which win I ask, would be happy to be numbered amongst “the others”. Those other men and women of faith not named.

I mean which one of us kind of reads that passage and shouts – Hallelujah! No – we want to be on the Bible A List – like Abraham. We want to receive the mighty promises of God – and not in 20 years time, not next year – not even next week – we want it now – delivered like a hamburger through the shoot at the fast food outlet – don’t we?

Yet even Abraham one of the named heroes here didn’t receive all that was promised him. He never saw the great and mighty nation nor the Promised Land filled with his descendents.

These “others” were prepared for a template of success quite different to that which the world has dropped on our heads. A template based on complete vulnerability in the hands of God. Complete and glad surrender to His will, no matter where it may lead. Some, some tasted success. Some were called to conquer kingdoms, administer justice, obtain promises, shut the mouths of lions, quench raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, win strength out of weakness, become mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. And “others”, others were called to be tortured, suffer mocking and flogging. These were called to chains and imprisonment, to be stoned to death, to be sawn in two, to be killed by the sword; to go about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented.

Listen to me – even the biblical "A-list" – Abraham, Moses, David, the Prophets, the Disciples, Paul the Apostle – were hounded, rejected, suffered hardship and yet, they achieved mighty things in faith that glorified not them but God. Do you see how different God’s template of success is to our own?

And as I read Hebrews Chapter 11 and let God do His work in my heart by His Word and His Spirit, as I read of many of these men and women in the Bible who sacrificed their all for their God, I can only come to the conclusion that faith, faith is this: embracing the journey that God has set before us no matter what the cost, no matter what we may lose, so that He would be glorified in all the earth.

Do me a favour – take some time to read the Lord’s prayer in the next day or so. Because as we explore that simple prayer, what we discover that Jesus is teaching us is that the key that unlocks the power of prayer is the glad submission of the prayer to the will of God.

Complete vulnerability in the hands of God, complete submission to His will, a desire to see His name lifted up above all things – that’s what I discover the definition of faith to be as I read Hebrews Chapter 11. That’s the sort of faith that moves mountains. In fact, it’s the only sort of faith that moves mountains.

Embracing The Journey 

Let’s face it – we want life to be comfortable. Who doesn’t? In fact, people go into debt to have more to be comfortable and then, when the economy takes a massive nosedive – as it inevitably does – they lose everything because of their debt, and their world is shattered. That’s our instinct. It’s who we are. Very few people on planet earth ever learn to be content with who they are and what they have. And here it is, very few people ever embrace the journey that God’s got them on – with all it’s ups and downs.

You know why I think that is, because deep down, we’re still living our lives for us – thinking that’s where we’ll find satisfaction, rather than for God – which is actually where true joy and true satisfaction are to be found.

At some point in our lives, we need to wake up to the fact that living a life of faith is about living a life for God and not for us.

And it’s at that point that that sense that something’s not quite right goes away. It’s when we ditch the worldly template of success and embrace wholeheartedly, with every fibre of our being the template of success of the One who taught:

If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and 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, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? (Mark 8:34‑36)

I was listening to a man the other day, Tim, telling the story of the last decade or so of his life. In his early twenties he finally gave his life over to Jesus. With all his heart. And he set out on a journey of starting and growing a business with the intention of not only providing a living for himself and his business partners, but also for using the wealth and expertise of the business quite specifically and intentionally for the glory of God.

The business went from bad to worse. It didn’t make sense. He had a house to sell, but it just wouldn’t sell. It came to the point where they were relying on food parcels to get by. Tim spoke of having “dark nights of the soul” every night of the week. And in the middle of all that, as he was wondering what for the love of God was going on, he felt God say to him:

Tim – do you have the faith to live a life that doesn’t matter?

The question came at the point when he couldn’t take it anymore. He struggled with the question and he answer: Yes. It was the beginning of change. It was the point at which his business slowly started to turn around, little by little. And not long after, the call of God on both Tim and his business became clear.

Strangely, as he was sharing his story with me and a group of other men, he used that same word that had been going around in my mind in putting together this series of programs. Tim talked about being forever vulnerable in God’s hands and adopting a spirit of vulnerability. Here’s the bottom line – Tim embraced his journey.

So many people are struggling with the journey that they’re on because they’re applying the world’s template of success rather than God’s. And that’s something that tears us apart on the inside. Even if we can’t quite put our finger on it. It’s not until we understand that the journey is handmade for us that we can let go and be vulnerable. Listen to how the Psalmist puts it:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them – they are more than the sand; I come to the end – I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)

Here’s someone puts the two together. He realises that not only is he who God made Him to be but every step of his journey was planned even before any of them ever existed. Before time began. And in that knowledge, the Psalmist stands in complete awe of God. Who he is, fits perfectly with the journey God’s got him on – even if it doesn’t always seem that way. Listen to me – please listen…

It is time to embrace the journey. The particular journey that God has us on. You, yours. And me, mine. Faith isn’t about fighting that journey. It’s not about wrestling with God and commanding mountains to fall in the ocean that God planned all along should be there for a time. No doubt there are things in our lives that the Master would change. But first and foremost, He would have us forever vulnerable in his hands. As the Apostle Paul puts it:

… 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. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

Paul discovered that no amount of faith will undo God’s plans – however uncomfortable they might be. It is one such as this who is ready for a faith that can move mountains. Because it is one such as this who’s heart is to move only the mountains that God wants moved. The faith that Jesus spoke of is not a faith that wrestles with God’s often incomprehensible plans. It’s one that cooperates fully with the plans and purposes of God, no matter what it ay cost. And what a mighty life that will be.

Listen up: The world has dropped a template of success into our minds that’s all about achieving things that the world values. Fame. Fortune. Recognition. But God’s template of success is all about vulnerability. It’s about a life laid down at His feet to do His bidding no matter what the cost.

Until we lay down the world’s plan and take up His, we’ll be torn inside. Faith isn’t given to us to work against God’s plans. It is given to achieve the plans of God. A life thus surrendered is ready for the sort of faith that moves mountains.

When the going starts getting tough in life – you know what we often do – we look to other people to help. People more experienced than us. But what if they’ve lost the plot too.  Then what?

Things get tough sometimes. And at those times, We all know that we need faith. We all want to have faith. Yet all too often, right when we need it, it eludes us. we become downcast and afraid.

Starting At The End

You know something? I’m really excited today because today on the programme we are kicking off a four-week series on faith. I’ve called it Having Faith that Moves Mountains. Jesus once said to His disciples:

Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but you believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. (Mark 11: 22-24).

Now, if you take Him at His Word and I am one of those crazies who absolutely does, then this is an outrageous statement, right? Does He really mean that for you and for me? I mean, I for one have believed until I burst, for something and I didn’t get it. And I have seen people who take this whole ‘faith’ thing way too far, believing for outrageously selfish things. And yet this God who sent us His Son, He talks a lot about faith and the only sort of faith He seems to talk about is the sort of faith that moves mountains. I have spent a lot of time thinking about that, so if you are up for it, let’s kick off a few weeks, just chatting and exploring and let’s see what that comes up with.

I visited an elderly man recently who is in the last few weeks of his life. He was dying of cancer. I’d spoken to him on the phone a few weeks before and this is what he said. "Well, I have believed in Jesus almost all of my life but I’m not sure where I am going when I die." Well, what an amazing time that was. I frankly felt a little uncertain about visiting him – this whole pastoral thing isn’t really my strong point. I was telling myself that as I pressed the doorbell. He showed me into his lounge room. He sat in his favourite chair over in that corner, me in a dining chair over on this side.

As we began talking, I looked down at his feet – he was wearing a pair of slippers, both of which had holes in the toes. And you know, my immediate thought was, "Oh, he needs some new slippers. But then it struck me, at this point in his life, the very last thing he needed was a new pair of slippers. As the time passed I felt more and more at ease with this man.

Whereas before, I had been wondering what, if anything useful, I could share with him, (you can tell I’m a preacher). As the moments ticked by, I was overwhelmed with a sense of deep privilege of being allowed to be in this place with him. It was such a special time and you know, the last thing he said to me as we shook hands on the front porch in the bright sunlight was a confident, "You know we’ll meet again but not here."

Sometimes it’s just the little encouragement that we need to discover that seed of faith that God’s planted in our hearts has in fact, grown into a mighty tree. That’s exactly what he needed – not sage words of advice or a sermon on faith, just the quiet assurance that comes when we rediscover the faith within – a faith that had become clouded by the deep cares of the present. Because that’s what happened to him – he’d been walking all his life with Jesus – as long as he could remember, he told me – but with cancer ready to take his body, all of a sudden the realities of his circumstances started to take over.

I wonder how you and I will feel when, one day, we don’t need new slippers anymore. I wonder how we will confront the greatest reality of all – that one day we will breathe our last breath on this earth. How healthy will our faith be on that day? The things that we struggled so hard for; the things that we always took for granted; the things that somehow, we duped ourselves into believing would be forever, don’t matter anymore. Ever wondered why we need faith? For me, beginning at the end like this brings that into sharper focus.

It’s not just death that we have to confront one day, all of us, but life – today, tomorrow, the next day, next year – everyday life. And in that life that you and I lead, we know all too well that there are things that happen that are bigger than us – things that overwhelm us; things that are outside our control – everyday we face challenges – everyday. Things happen that can rob us of the confidence to live life.

And it seems to me, the central reality that demands faith is this: that there are things out there, outside our circle of control or influence; things that sometimes we can’t even see and don’t even understand, that can impact negatively on our interests – on our health, our wellbeing, our finances, our career, our relationships, on our very lives. You name it – any hope, any dream, any desire and there is something lurking out there that can rob us of the good things that in our heart of hearts, we have planned for ourselves.

And they don’t have to be particularly selfish or self-centred – just ordinary everyday very reasonable things. Sometimes they are really good things – the dreams we have in our hearts to serve God – the deep desire we have to be part of His plan for this world. It doesn’t matter what it is, there are things out there that can rob us of what we have planned.

And those things, they show up in a number of different ways. They can show up as fears and worries – we brood over things; we worry about them and the more we worry, the more fear grips and immobilises us. They can show up as insurmountable obstacles or barriers – things we just can’t overcome – doubts sneak under our guard. They can show up as challenges that we would love to meet but we can’t. Have you ever had that sense of, "WOW, I should be able to do this, but…" They can show up as a deep sense of inadequacy.

The man addicted to pornography who try as he may, simply can’t break his cycle of shame, so he lives in his secret shame – the woman who deep within the fibre of her very being, knows that she simply isn’t good enough and what’s more, she never will be.

They can show up as deep regrets from the past. So many people allow the past to destroy their present and rob them of their future. And here’s what I know: for each one of us there are one or two of those things on that list that resonate deeply and as we each examine our hearts and look into those darker recesses – that we try not to look into often – there’s an ache. "If only… if only I could be set free from these things." "If only those things out there, outside my control; those things I’m afraid of; those things that can rob me of the good hopes and dreams and plans of my heart – if only I could get rid of them, how wonderful my life would be."

Faith Brings Freedom

It turns out that when we apply faith to something we are concerned about; something that we have been worrying about, well, faith brings freedom. That’s where we were earlier but let’s unpack that together for a moment. Freedom is a commodity that many of us take for granted but if we stop to consider it, we would realise just how highly we value it. Freedom! But are we really, really free? That’s the question!

Jesus once had this to say on the subject:

If you continue in My Word you are truly My disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You see, they answered Him – they said, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying to us, ‘You will be made free?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ (John 8:31-36).

Isn’t it fascinating? Jesus said to those who believed in Him, ‘I will set you free,’ and instead of thanking Him or shouting ‘Halleluiah’, they took umbrage with what He said. ‘We don’t need setting free. We’re not slaves.’ Isn’t that the case with us too? So many people living their lives following hard after the success that this world offers, imaging somehow that we are free, when all the time, actually, we are slaves – slaves to this world.

We think that we’re citizens of this world – we behave as though this world is forever. Deep down we know that’s not true but we behave as though it is. We live as though it is – we make our financial decisions as though it is. We make our career decisions as though it is. We treat people as though it is because we want to believe that this lie is true. Oh no, really? Let me ask you about the last major financial decision you made – the last time you splurged on something for yourself – the last time… How much did the eternal consequences of those decisions weigh on your mind?

We are here for a time but "it’s not our permanent home. Our citizenship is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." Philippians chapter 3, verse 20. The reason so many people are slaves is because they have bought into the citizenship of this earth.

There’s a new term that has crept into the English language – it’s called "short-termism". It describes the reality that so many people spend so much of their lives thinking about the next plasma TV and worrying about the debt they’re in, that they have forgotten how to be free. We have forgotten how to dream, how to live, how to hope.

I have a beautiful park that I go walking in often. See, I love the exercise and this park has trees and fields and lakes and swans and flowers – it is one of the most beautiful places you would ever want to go walking. And I realised after a while, that I was walking, looking down, concentrating on my stride, looking at the pavement instead of God’s beautiful creation. What a waste, don’t you think?

So why is it so many people are living their lives like that – in slavery rather than freedom? Now what does this have to do with faith? It’s not a bad question – we do seem to have digressed a little, but if that’s the question you have rolling around in your mind just at the moment, here’s my answer – everything, absolutely everything because if the truth be known, this is how most people live their lives – as slaves to the here and now. As short-termists who can barely see the ends of their noses.

Conditioned by the advertising industry to react to this music and those images and that colour and this smell that they pump through the store to induce us to buy into a world where we really don’t belong. And then, here it is… here’s the link – then we reduce faith to being something that gets us out of the debt we are in so that we can spend some more money. We bring God down to our level instead of lifting up our eyes to His. And then we wonder why this faith thing isn’t working so well. Hello!!

I have heard faith reduced down to ‘name it and claim it’, "blab it and grab it". Isn’t that what Jesus meant when He said:

Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, if you say to this mountain be lifted up and thrown into the sea, if you do not doubt in your heart but you believe that what you have said will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

What did Jesus mean by that? Did He mean we get anything our little heart’s desire? I don’t think so, if fact, I know that’s not what He meant because this very same Jesus said:

Whoever comes to Me and doesn’t hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow Me, cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14: 26, 27)

In fact, the more you read of what Jesus said the more you realise that either He needed a better spin doctor to help Him get His message out or He never really intended to fit into our twenty-first-century consumerist short-termism. Now let me think, which one of those statements is true? And if Jesus wanted to plug neatly in our c ontemporary consumerism mindset then it would seem to me, the thing about believing and receiving on the one hand and losing our life on the other hand, was a contradiction. Either that or He never intended to pander to us in the first place and therefore, He meant something quite different.

Time To Raise Your Gaze

The more selfish we become, the more faith yields nothing. I learned that the hard way. "Oh God, please give me that latest flashy, shiny, new car." So He doesn’t! And then we go, "Well, that didn’t work, did it? Faith, pah! So if you were hoping for me to put some nice safe spin on this whole "faith" thing; the sort of spin that will pander to your every desire; the sort that will encourage you with the assurance that you can indeed have anything that your little consumer's heart desires for itself if you just believe – I’m sorry, but you are going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, if what you are looking for is to discover the truth about a faith so deep and so mighty that it can move mountains – if you hunger to experience the power of Christ Himself, working in you and through you to achieve mighty things… things that you are afraid even to dream about, then our programs over these next few weeks are definitely for you.

See, the last time I checked, when Jesus was brutally nailed to a cross, He didn’t have a BMW parked in the driveway of His mansion, nor was He wearing a Rolex watch – in fact, they even stole the clothes off His back. Because fortunately for us, He didn’t set His sights as low as that – He was after something so much more; so much better. Jesus wasn’t chasing the glory of this world – it was the glory of God that He focused on. There was a much bigger, eternal, glorious picture that His eyes were set on and in order to realise that picture, He sacrificed His life in the short-term – and what a sacrifice!

This is the upside-down perspective on faith that I believe He calls us to – not a "me" centred faith but a "Christ" centred faith and if we truly, truly, truly want to lay hold of the huge faith; the mighty faith; the powerful faith that Jesus spoke of, we can only do it one way – on His terms and not on ours. See, anything else is but a cheap imitation. It may delight us for a short while but then it will come down to earth with a mighty thud. It always does!

If we would lay hold of a mighty mountain–moving faith… the faith of which Jesus spoke – if that’s truly what we want, it’s time in our life to lift up our eyes. It’s time to raise our gaze. And I know no better way to do that than to take the God of the Bible at His Word. To take it that what He says in His Word, the Bible, He actually means – I mean, actually. Not academically; not at a distance; not in a safe little Bible study group hedging around God’s Word kind of way – "Oh, I think it means this!" "I think, well, I actually think it means that." "That’s nice. We had a pleasant evening. Would you like tea and coffee?" "Oh, that’s good, let’s go home."

No, that’s not what I mean! I mean that when we read something in God’s Word and it says it actually works, that we take this to mean that if we wrap our hearts around it and apply it in our lives and live it, that it will actually work in our lives. That’s what I mean! And that’s exactly what I would ask you to do with this beautiful and powerful Psalm – Psalm 121. If you have a Bible, open it up, go to Psalm 121 – have a read with me:

I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord; the Lord who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and evermore.

Have you ever been at a complete loss at what to do? A curveball comes at you right out of nowhere at a hundred miles an hour… now what? What am I going to do? Where can I turn?’ And what do we do? My hunch is we’ve all done this… is that we tend to look off in the distance – to the furthest point that you can see on the horizon – and you can just see the writer of this Psalm going through one of those things in his life that knocks the stuffing out of him; casting his eyes up to the hills, wondering where his help is going to come from.

Remember back then, false God’s, false idols – their temples were up on hilltops. Where will my help come from? The hilltops? The things of this world that I can touch and see and feel? No, because I know that when the chips are really down, they don’t have the power to help me. How many of us stop there, at the hilltops; wondering, worrying? That’s the place of fear, but the Psalmist, he doesn’t stop there – he goes further, much further. "My help," he says, "My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth."

The hills – why they’re nothing! No, no, my help comes from the Lord; the God who made the hills and not just them, the whole earth – every mountain, every valley, every ocean and not just the earth, but the heavens too – the vastness of the universe. That’s where my help comes from – the God who made the whole shooting match – the eternal, powerful, mighty God. How stupid would it be just to stop at the hills?

Do you hear something? Do you hear the Spirit of God crying out to us through this Psalm? Lift up your eyes! This is a cry to those caught up in short termism. This is a cry to those who are stumbling around in the dark, looking down at their feet; down in that miry swamp of…of self. We have even forgotten that we can lift up our eyes to the One who has the power and the love and the desire and the faithfulness to make a difference. Not just the power, you see, but the will.

Read the rest of that Psalm again, doesn’t it speak of a faithful God; a loving God; a God who remains so rock solid when everything else is crumbling, including us. A God who is awake and at work when we are asleep. A God who will keep us – you and me – for ever more. A God with both the will and the way. A God whose faithfulness is deserving of our faith.

Let me ask you this – where does your help come from? When one of those great big ugly things blocks your way and grips your heart with fear, where do you expect your help to come from? See, this is crunch time for faith – we can go through all the wonderful, good things in life and say, ‘Yes, I have faith!’ But it’s when there is a dirty great mountain in our road; when our finances collapse; when the world markets collapse; when our health collapses; when a relationship collapses; when there’s an obstacle we just can’t seem to get through – Jesus said, "You know what – all you need is just faith the size of a little mustard seed. "If you believe in your heart that what you say will come to pass, you can say to this mountain,'Get up, move over there and jump in the lake’, and it will be done for you."

Do you notice something? Jesus doesn’t demand huge faith – He just demands faith the size of a mustard seed; an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, little bit of faith and a huge, massive, powerful, omnipresent, all-knowing God.

That’s what faith is about!

Last time on the program, we talked about the fact that one of the best ways to discern whether an opportunity that’s before us is God–given or not, is to consider the fit between our natural gifts and abilities and the demands, or the requirements of the opportunity. Does this opportunity really fit with who God made me to be. But sometimes … God calls us to do things that don’t come naturally

The Challenge of Forgiveness

Over the past few weeks, we've been travelling along with young Joseph, son of Isaac in the Old Testament, on his journey through life – a journey that had some real downers, much like your journey and mine – and yet a journey that was heading in a direction that only God could foresee.

There was Joseph, one of 12 brothers, the youngest one and dad’s favourite. His father was Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham – although God had given Jacob a new name. He’d called him … Israel, and unbeknown to anyone, these 12 brothers were the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. That was a long way off.

Here is what the relationship between Joseph and his other brothers looked like Gen 37:1–4:

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

But things only got worse, because Joseph had two dreams which he shared with his brothers and father, that one day he would rule over them all. That was it. His brothers plotted to kill him, but ultimately instead, sold him into slavery. From there he’s transported, as we’ve seen to Egypt, becomes Potiphar’s slave, is thrown into prison, where he rots for a few years and finally, finally through a set of circumstances that only God could orchestrate becomes the ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.

And again under God’s hand, Joseph as the ruler has stored up in Egypt surplus grain that was produced in the years of plenty, so that when the famine hit, there would be enough to eat in the land. And not just in Egypt, people travelled from all over the known world to purchase grain in Egypt, because they were starving. And, as God would have it, some of Joseph’s brothers travelled to Egypt to buy grain.

They had no idea what had become of Joseph after they sold him. They’d told their father Jacob that he was dead. But low and behold, one day they stood before Joseph and bowed down to him, just as he had dreamed in that dream all those years before as a young boy. Gen 42:1–8

When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you keep looking at one another? I have heard,” he said, “that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Joseph’s brother Benjamin with his brothers, for he feared that harm might come to him. Thus the sons of Israel were among the other people who came to buy grain, for the famine had reached the land of Canaan.

 Now Joseph was governor over the land; it was he who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke harshly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” Although Joseph had recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him.

Now, we don’t have time to go through the whole story, of how he dealt with his brothers – it runs for several chapters, Genesis 42 to 46 – it’s really worth a read, so if you have a Bible, grab it in the next day or two and check it out for yourself. But can you imagine how Joseph felt – these mongrels, his brothers, who had plotted his murder and then sold him into slavery, now stood before him and bowed down to him, just as God had told him as a young lad in his dream.

He was the ruler of Egypt now, second only to Pharaoh and he had the power of life and death over them. Finally, a chance for revenge. Finally, here he is, justified, with God’s favour on him, and these men who did him such a terrible injustice were begging for food before him. What an opportunity. And, as you read the story, Joseph was seriously tempted; he was torn between his hatred for them and his love; between revenge and forgiveness.

He accused them of being spies, locked them up for three days, then he took one of them as a hostage in prison, to force them to go back and get their youngest brother, Benjamin. He played tricks on them, he gave them an incredibly hard time.

You see, one of the things that just doesn’t come naturally to us, is forgiveness. He had been so hurt and damaged by his brothers, he was tempted to kill them all, after he’d toyed with them in a dark and terrible cat and mouse game. This went on for quite some time, but …

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. (Gen 45:1–7)

Joseph took the greatest opportunity of all, he forgave his brothers not just in word, but in deed. He saw that God had sent him to preserve their lives.

Have you ever had the opportunity to harm or to forgive someone who has hurt you? Which way did you lean, naturally, in the flesh? Towards revenge right? Towards extracting your pound of flesh. That’s what Joseph wanted to do.

And yet, he’d been travelling too long with God to do that. God had been with him in the pit that his brothers had thrown him. God had been with him on the journey to Egypt in chains, in the slave market where he was sold, as a slave, in prison where he was thrown after being wrongly accused. God had been with him each step of the way.

And at each turn, God had placed an opportunity for Joseph to do good or evil. To behave well, or badly. To use his natural gifts and talents to grab hold of the opportunities or not. And at each turn, Joseph stepped up to the plate and took a hold of those God–given opportunities.

He didn’t realise it at the time, but it’s that consistent pattern of behaviour, that brought him to the place of power and privilege in which he now found himself. And it was in this place that he faced his biggest test; to forgive, or to take revenge.

Forgiveness goes against the grain. Forgiveness, when you think about it is unjust, because we choose to forego our right for punishment and recompense. But no matter how badly you’ve been hurt, no matter how unnatural that step of forgiveness appears to be to you in the place that you’re at, it is the greatest opportunity that God will ever give you.

So seriously does He take forgiveness, that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die for you, to pay for your sins. It cost Him everything to forgive you.

So, when this opportunity presents itself, will you take revenge, or will you forgive?

The Big Picture

I’m convinced that one of the hardest things in life, is to keep our eye on the big picture. Maybe it’s a project at work, that involves a lot of people and a lot of complexity. Maybe it’s a plan you have for your life, and yet time and again things happen to derail your brilliant plan.

Or maybe, it’s simply setting your life on a course to follow Jesus with all your heart, and yet you discover that the road is narrow and hard and inconvenient and uncomfortable and some days, downright painful. And when that happens, what happens to the big picture, the end goal, the reason that you’re following Jesus with all your heart?

It just kind of evaporates doesn’t it?

Here we are in the last message, in this series that I’ve called “Don’t Miss God’s Opportunities” – well, one of the main reasons we miss God’s opportunity to do good on those days when we feel that following this Jesus ain’t all it’s been cracked up to be, is that on those days, we lose sight of the big picture.

Now, to be fair, we can’t always see the big picture and that makes things even harder. When the Lord our God has us in one of those dark, scary, uncomfortable valleys on our journey, you actually can’t see far enough ahead to know what comes next; to know how it’s going to turn out; to know why He’s put you in this place to start with.

Often it’s only in hindsight that we can see what He was up to all along, and even then, sometimes, we don’t get the full picture. I was speaking at a businessmen’s breakfast fellowship just recently – all successful, high powered businessmen. They’d asked me to share my testimony – and it is a story let me tell you of as many low points as high points.

And as I retraced those steps, sharing the incredible things that God has done in my life, I again just had that quiet assurance from the Holy Spirit, that all along, I’d been on the journey that God had planned, even in those dark and difficult times; especially, in fact, in those dark and difficult times.

It’s the sense that Joseph, Jacob’s son in the Old Testament, had when finally he stood in the place that he’d dreamed of as a young teenager – a position of power and privilege as the ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. As we saw yesterday/ as we saw before the break, his brothers now stood before him. Those same brothers who had sold him into slavery out of their jealousy and hatred. Instead of exacting revenge, he forgave them, and he explained to them why God had allowed this to happen. Let’s take another look at this together – Gen 45:4–15:

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me.” And they came closer. He said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty. ’ And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.” Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

What a beautiful picture of reconciliation after such treachery and suffering. But the bit that I really want you to notice here is that Joseph finds meaning in the suffering, because he sees the big picture to explain what was going on.

God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

In other words, by looking back and seeing the journey through God’s eyes, he sees what God was up to all along. God’s purpose was to do his family good; to preserve and protect them, and for that purpose, a purpose that he couldn’t see in those dark places along the way on this journey that had taken over 20 years. That’s why he had had to suffer treachery, slavery, injustice and imprisonment.

God had had a plan, and now Joseph could see it looking back. And yet even at this point, can I say, Joseph had no idea – none whatsoever, of the important part that his small journey was playing in God’s overall plan for humanity.

In that passage we just read, did you notice, the brothers were to go back and get their father – Jacob, or Israel as God had renamed him, and bring the whole family down here and settle in Egypt. Out of that over the next four and a half centuries, grew the mighty nation of Israel, whom God saved through Moses, crossing the Red Sea and 40 years in the wilderness before he brought them to the promised land.

Through Judah, one of the 12 brothers, God started a lineage of generations that finally resulted in the birth of Jesus, who came to save you and me, by dying on that cross for us. Joseph’s story, Joseph’s journey is still having eternal ramifications, in your life and mine, through Jesus, of Israel. That’s mind blowing. The picture is so big that none of them really knew what God had planned through this terrible journey of Joseph’s.

Honestly, the only way to lay hold of the big picture when we’re immersed in the trials of our journey is by faith. Just believing that God has a plan; that God knows what He’s doing no matter how much it hurts along the way; that eventually, God will reveal to us through hindsight, that part of the big picture that He wants us to see.

Holding onto God’s big picture by faith, is what keeps us going, step by step, doing good, doing right, looking for the opportunities that God has set before us to do His will.

And faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible (Hebr 11:1–3)

When we lose faith in the faithfulness of God, in His Big Picture, although we can’t see it for ourselves, we stop doing what’s right; why stop looking for His opportunities; we stop hoping and dreaming; we stop doing what we know is right, even when the rest of the world seems to have gone stark raving mad and none of the pain and suffering makes any sense.

My friend I want to implore you, don’t give up. Don’t lose faith. Don’t stop looking for those God–given opportunities to use your gifts and abilities, to do what you know is right, to forgive those who’ve hurt you.

Don’t give up. Because one day, you will stand before God and you want to hear Him say, “Well done good and faithful servant”. That’s why Jesus died for you. That’s why Jesus sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in you the moment you put your trust in Him. That’s the big picture.

So … whatever you do … don’t miss out on God’s opportunities.

God Expects Us to Take Hold of His Opportunities

I want to imagine for a moment, that you’re a parent, some of us are, some aren’t. But just imagine for a moment, you’re a parent, and you have these children that you love with all your heart. What do you do for them?

Well, you work hard to give them new opportunities. You pay for their education, you run them to music lessons, or choir practice, or training for the sports or athletics team that they're on. What’s that all about? It’s about creating opportunities for them to discover who they are, what they’re good at and what they want to be doing with the rest of their lives.

All that we do for our children is about equipping them, and providing them with opportunities. Now imagine that this child of yours, for whom you’ve sacrificed so much, is lazy and disrespectful. Instead of grabbing those opportunities that you’ve given so much to create for you, they laze around, they don’t apply themselves, they whinge and complain about everything.

How pleasing do you find their reaction to the opportunities that you’ve created for them? That’s not a difficult question to answer. So, why do you and I imagine that God is any different? If we as parents know how to give good things to our children, even though we’re flawed and imperfect, how much more do you think your Father in Heaven, is prepared to give good things to you, and open doors for you, and create opportunities for you.

And He expects us to grab a hold of them, and do something worthwhile with them, not to be a lazy, immature, grumbling and complaining individual who never achieves anything with the abilities and resources that God’s given you, through the opportunities He’s prepared for you. So to bookend this teaching series, let me begin with the scripture that we kicked things off with a few weeks back:

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back. ’ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us. ’ When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities. ’ Then the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘And you, rule over five cities. ’ Then the other came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow. ’ He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest. ’ He said to the bystanders, ‘Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds. ’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds! ’) ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence. ’” (Luke 19:11–27)

Are you getting this? God’s blessed you and me with an awful lot, each according to our gifts and abilities. And His expectation isn’t that we waste it; His expectation is that we do something of eternal significance with all that He’s given us. His expectation is that we’ll live a life that counts and a life that bears much fruit for His Glory. His expectation is that we’ll grab onto each God–given opportunity and do something with it for Him. Are you getting this? Your life matters. You matter. And You can make an awesome difference in this world.

There are times in life when opportunities seem to have passed us by. You’ve done the right things while travelling the hard road, and yet still … things don’t seem to go your way. What is going on?

A Missed Opportunity?

We all have hopes and dreams – and you know how it goes. They bubble away in our hearts, we do a lot of day–dreaming about our dreams, we paint the picture, imagine what it will be like when our dream is realised. And little by little things seem to be heading in the right direction, and then things take a turn for the worse. It’s in that moment, that I’d like to spend some time with you today, because those moments are as difficult as they come.

I was in one of those places recently, it was a ministry thing, a relationship we were working on with another ministry organisation. It’s something we’d put quite a lot of effort into and we’d hoped that it would go really well, and then on the mourning, I was preparing today’s message in fact, things took a turn for the worse.

The details aren’t important, but you should know that we all go through this from time to time. I certainly do and I know you’ve been there too, right? And we’re going to find ourselves in that moment again one day.

Over the last week on the program/ over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been taking a look at how to make sure that we don’t miss God’s opportunities. And we’ve been doing that by travelling a way along the path with young Joseph, the son of Jacob or Israel as he became known, in the Old Testament. Because Joseph had more than enough reasons to give up on God’s opportunities.

Love by his father, his brothers turned against him and plotted to kill him because he was dad’s favourite. Eventually they sold him into slavery, whence he was shipped to Egypt, sold to one of Pharaoh’s officials Potiphar and made a slave. He did well at that and Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his whole household, until Potiphar’s wife, who fancied young Joseph, wrongly accused him of making improper advances, so Joseph was thrown into jail.

He did well there too, so much so that the jailer put him in charge of the prison. And it’s here in prison that we pick up the story, because it’s here, languishing in an Egyptian jail that Joseph has one of those moments – a very long moment actually – where it appears that his opportunity of getting out of jail passes him by. Let’s have a listen to what happened –it comes from Genesis Chapter 40 in the Old Testament.

Some time after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker offended their lord the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he waited on them; and they continued for some time in custody. One night they both dreamed—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison—each his own dream, and each dream with its own meaning. When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers, who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?” They said to him, “We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” And Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me.”

So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream there was a vine before me, and on the vine there were three branches. As soon as it budded, its blossoms came out and the clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” Then Joseph said to him, “This is its interpretation: the three branches are three days; within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you shall place Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. But remember me when it is well with you; please do me the kindness to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this place. For in fact I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should have put me into the dungeon.”

When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favourable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream: there were three cake baskets on my head, and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” And Joseph answered, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days; within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you! —and hang you on a pole; and the birds will eat the flesh from you.”

On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants, and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his cup–bearing, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand; but the chief baker he hanged, just as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

Not only did the chief cupbearer forget him, it was actually another two years before he remembered Joseph and things started to happen. Two years is a long time even when you’re having fun. Two years in prison, is unimaginable. I can’t imagine spending one night in jail. But two more years in prison when you’re there because you’ve been wrongly accused, and because before that your brothers turned against you and sold you into slavery and shipped you to a foreign land … I mean, come on – put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. How do you feel?

Everything’s piling up against you. Your family’s turned against you. Your master has turned against you because his wife lied about you – she was the one with evil things in her heart, Joseph was the one who’d done the right thing – yet here he was in prison. And now … now you do this wretched cupbearer a favour, I mean God’s given you this amazing spiritual insight and gift of interpreting this dream – God’s here right? So let me ask you – would you be tempted to give up on God in those two years?

A Step of Faith

I have a confession to make, I hate heights. I remember once standing on top of a 30-metre tower when I was training to become an officer in the Australian Army – it was a water jump on an obstacle course. The idea was simple, climb the tower and jump into the water.

Thirty metres doesn’t sound an awful lot does it? I can cover one meter in a single step. Easy. 30 metres, not that much. I was a little nervous as I queued that day at the bottom of the tower, watching my mates climb up and jump. But as I headed up the tower, I became more and more fearful.

By the time I stood on top of the tower, looking down, I was completely petrified. This was so unnatural – I still remember looking down and my stomach was in a knot. All I wanted to do was run. I couldn't of course. Everybody else so far had taken the jump, apparently fearlessly. Pier group pressure was overwhelming … so I jumped.

The fall seemed to take forever. Of course, not a single person died that day or was injured that day. We all survived to tell the tale. Leaps of faith can be scary can’t they? And sometimes God comes along and gives us an opportunity that is just as scary. Perhaps you’ve felt a call in your heart to go and do something and the fear of failure has paralysed you.

Or maybe you’ve been hit over the head by failure so many times that you’ve started believing that failures is your default mode of operation. The world, people, circumstances have been telling you that you just won’t amount to anything. You’ll never succeed.

That’s the place that young Joseph, son of Isaac (or Israel as he became known) found himself in, rotting for over 2 years in a prison in Egypt after being sold into slavery by his brothers and being wrongly accused of attempted rape by the wife of his master, Potiphar.

The reason that we’re taking a look at Joseph’s journey through life is that perhaps more than any other biblical character, he faced catastrophe after catastrophe in his life, yet at each turn he grabbed hold of the opportunities that God gave him. And that’s what made all the difference.

So, he’s rotting in prison, he interprets (correctly) the dream of a fellow prisoner, Pharaoh’s cup bearer and soon the cupbearer is released. But he forgets about Joseph in jail, and does nothing until Pharaoh himself has a perplexing dream that troubles him. Finally – two years on – the cupbearer remembers Joseph and suggests to Pharaoh that perhaps this Joseph could help interpret his dream.

Let’s pick up the story – Genesis 41:8–16

In the morning his spirit was troubled; so he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.

 Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “I remember my faults today. Once Pharaoh was angry with his servants, and put me and the chief baker in custody in the house of the captain of the guard. We dreamed on the same night, he and I, each having a dream with its own meaning. A young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. When we told him, he interpreted our dreams to us, giving an interpretation to each according to his dream. As he interpreted to us, so it turned out; I was restored to my office, and the baker was hanged.”

 Then Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was hurriedly brought out of the dungeon. When he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph answered Pharaoh, “It is not I; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.

And so Pharaoh told Joseph his dream and Joseph interpreted it for him. The outcome of that interpretation, ultimately, led to Joseph being appointed as ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. Now, it’s so easy to read this as one of those “and he lived happily ever after” stories – you skim over it and think, well, that turned out really well.

But imagine how Joseph felt after his shower and shave, whisked from prison, and now standing before Pharaoh, a man who had the absolute power of life or death over him. One slip up, one mistake, a bad or unfavourable interpretation, and Joseph could well have been relieved of his head. Executions at the whim of Pharaoh were commonplace.

There would have been a mixture of excitement and trembling in his heart. Excitement at the thought that finally, this may be his God–given opportunity to get out of jail. Fear at how Pharaoh might react. And it’s that very mixture of anticipation and fear that so often accompanies the God–given opportunities that come our way. Because when the opportunity appears, most time’s it doesn’t come with a guarantee of success.

The fear of failure in our hearts can outweigh the excitement and anticipation that also accompanies new opportunities. And it’s in that place, that we have a decision to make. We can succumb to the fear, fear which immobilises us, fear which stops us from stepping into the opportunity … or … we can take that leap of faith, at which point we are completely at God’s mercy.

Like jumping off that platform – I had absolutely no control on the way down – which, by the way, felt like it was taking forever. The longest couple of seconds of my life. When God next places an opportunity before you – what will you do? Turn back in fear, or step out in faith? The reason I’m asking you that question, is that it’s at this point, that so many people miss out on God’s opportunities for their lives. And in my book, that’s an absolute tragedy.

God’s Gifts in Action

Life is a mixture of appointments and disappointments. God has this funny way of setting up appointments for us, appointments that are part of his plan. The word anointing in the Bible means literally an appointment from God. God appoints you to do a certain thing, he anoints you to do that thing.

Other times, we see an opportunity to get ahead or to do something that apparently, on the surface, seems pretty good – but a little way into it, we come to realise that this appointment is, well, a disappointment. It wasn’t from God after all.

Have you ever felt that sense of regret after you’ve taken an opportunity and it hasn’t worked out and you’ve realised that it isn’t from God? Not that every God–given opportunity turns out to be successful from our perspective. Sometimes God puts opportunities in front of us to learn through our mistakes.

But some opportunities are God–given, and others are not. That’s just the way it is. And anybody who’s set their hearts to follow Jesus with their life, has been in that place of wondering – is this from God or not? Should I step into it or not?

Should I marry this person … or not? Should I take this job promotion … or not? Should I move to this suburb or town or village … or not? Should I …

Quite a few years ago now, I was involved in an IT consulting firm that we started way back in the late 1980’s. Graham, Mark and I were the partners who owned the business and it had grown internationally, and was a pretty successful and profitable outfit. To the points where a publically listed company sought us out and purchased the business from us, on the condition that we stayed on for at least 3 years to manage the transition.

At the end of the 3 years, Graham – the CEO, decided it was time for him to retire. I was the heir apparent. Everybody expected me to step up and take the reigns and drive the business forward. But … I had a deep unease about it. I thought long and prayed hard and finally God showed me why I was uneasy. There are many things that I enjoy doing, but managing people, managing detail – they’re not amongst what I like doing. I can lead, but I’m not a manager – there’s a difference.

I came to the conclusion that my gifts and talents weren’t a good fit to the opportunity to step up into the CEO’s role and so, much to many people’s surprise, I declined the appointment. Looking back on that decision, it’s one of the best I’ve ever made. And it’s this match between what we’re naturally good at, our natural gifts and talents, and the nature of the opportunity that is one of the best ways to determine whether an opportunity is from God or not.

When we last left young Joseph, son of Jacob in the Old Testament, he’d just been handed an opportunity by Pharaoh, to become the overseer of the whole of Egypt and in particular the overseer of the God–given plan to store away surplus food during the years of plenty, so that Egypt would be ready for the years of famine that lay ahead. Let’s take a look – Genesis 41:44–57

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” And he gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, as his wife. Thus Joseph gained authority over the land of Egypt.

Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven plenteous years the earth produced abundantly. He gathered up all the food of the seven years when there was plenty in the land of Egypt, and stored up food in the cities; he stored up in every city the food from the fields around it. So Joseph stored up grain in such abundance—like the sand of the sea—that he stopped measuring it; it was beyond measure.

Before the years of famine came, Joseph had two sons, whom Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him. Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” The second he named Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my misfortunes.”

The seven years of plenty that prevailed in the land of Egypt came to an end; and the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in every country, but throughout the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.” And since the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. Moreover, all the world came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain, because the famine became severe throughout the world.

Now okay, Joseph was given the power to make it all happen. But you’d have to be a pretty good manager to bring this grand scheme together, wouldn’t you? Turns out that that was exactly what Joseph was good at. Back as a slave in Potiphar’s house, what happened? Potiphar saw how good a manager Joseph was so he put him in charge of his affairs. And in prison, the head jailer saw what an effective manager Joseph was, so he put him in charge of the prison.

That was Joseph’s gifting; his natural talent and ability. This opportunity that Pharaoh gave him, was a perfect fit with who God had made him. It’s a pattern that repeated itself through the hard times, as a slave and a prisoner, and now during the good times, as the ruler of Egypt.

God’s plans, God’s opportunities that He sets before us invariably have a strong fit with who God made us to be. That kind of makes sense when you think about it. And testing opportunities against our natural abilities is one of the best ways I’ve ever discovered to figuring out whether an opportunity is going to turn out to be an appointment or a disappointment.

The Bible tells us that we should test all things so that we can grab a hold of that which is good, and keep away from that which isn’t (1 Thess 5:20). Not everything that glitters is made of gold. There are plenty of imposters that come along, pretending to be good, pretending to be God–given appointments, when all along they are nothing but disappointments.

Even Satan, we’re told, disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). One of the reasons that we end up missing out on God’s opportunities is because we choose the wrong ones. The devil does not want you living out the life God planned for you. The devil does not want you impacting this world through your God–given gifts.

One of the great tactics of the enemy is to deceive. That’s why it is so important for us to learn how to discern those opportunities that are God–given, from those that are not. If God is truly God, if He really knows what He’s doing, then surely He’s going to make us to be a good fit with the things He wants us to do.

That’s exactly what the Bible says in Eph 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that he prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

You and I need to know the things we’re good at and the things we aren’t so good at. Invariably, the things we’re good at are the things we enjoy doing; they’re the things we get excited about and animated about.

That excitement and animation is a good pointer for what we’re good at. And what we’re good at, is a good pointer towards the things that God made us to do.

The official statistics tell us that there are around 20 million slaves in the world today. Unofficially, the experts tell us it’s closer to 100 million. Staggering. But forget the statistics. Let’s just bring it down to one. Could you imagine, being sold into slavery? Can you imagine what that would be like?

Sold Into Slavery

Last week on the program we spent a bit of time travelling along the road with young Joseph, son of Jacob (or Israel as God called Him) way back in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. And it’s been an exciting journey of a young man who had big dreams for his life. Huge dreams – not born of himself, but given to Him, apparently by God.

Have another listen, as he tells his father and brothers about the amazing dream God’s given him:

Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 27:1–11)

When we give our lives to Jesus – and even sometimes before we do that – God puts dreams in our hearts, dreams that almost always seem to be crazy and impossible – that’s the point, right? If they were sane and possible, we wouldn’t need God to make them happen.

But whenever we have a powerful dream like that, something that some people refer to as their calling in life, adversity is always going to plunder that dream. It happened to Joseph that way, it’s happened to me that way and no doubt, it’s happened to you that way too. And when that dream is plundered by adversity, a bunch of people pull over by the side of the road and give up. A whole bunch of people who are passionate about Jesus, who love Him with all their heart even, have given up on their dreams, their calling, because the reality of adversity has screamed in their face, “Ya see, you were crazy! What were you thinking? Who do you think you are?” Am I right?

Well, we’ve seen so far in Joseph’s story, if you’ve been able to join me, that his brothers hated him so much, they conspired to kill him. They beat him up and threw him in a pit – that’s where young Joseph was when we left him last time. So let’s pick up on that story, because things go from bad to worse for this young dreamer.

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers agreed. When some Midianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, “The boy is gone; and I, where can I turn?” Then they took Joseph’s robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.” He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” Thus his father bewailed him. Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard. (Genesis 27:23–36)

I want you for a moment to put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. The story here is told much more from the perspective of his brothers and his father, but get into Joseph’s sandals for a minute and ask yourself, how does he feel in the pit? How does he feel when he’s hauled out, probably with his hands tied and sold BY HIS BROTHERS, by his own flesh and blood to a slave trader? How does he feel on the journey down to Egypt, walking chained to other slaves? How does he feel when he’s stood up in the marketplace, sold to an Egyptian official, this young Israelite, this young man who was his father’s favourite, this young man who’d lived in freedom and had had those dreams of greatness?

It’s difficult to imagine, isn’t it, that things could get any lower for young Joseph. Robbed of his freedom; robbed of his life; robbed of his future; robbed of his dreams. Have you ever been there? I have, and it’s a place I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. We’re not told what was going through his mind, but we can certainly imagine.

My point in sharing this story with you is this: none of what we’ve read about the devastating events in Joseph’s life, took God’s eyes off His goal; none of what’s happened to this point – terrible as it will have seemed to Joseph – has robbed him of his God–given dream. To the contrary, all these things – as we’re going to see soon – were necessary to make the dream happen. For without them, Joseph wouldn’t have ended up in Egypt, which is where all that had been in Joseph’s dreams would come to pass.

The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. That’s what this story is telling me – this story is not just about Joseph, but about how God brings His plans and purposes for Joseph’s life to come to pass.

Now it’s easy for you and me to sit here and say, sure, that’s fine for Joseph. But that’s not how it’s going to happen in my life, because me, I’ve got a plan for my life and guess what? I’m going to make it happen differently. I’m not going to travel through that sort of devastation. I’m going to go from dream to fulfilment in a few weeks, on easy street without any pain or diversions. I’m going to ….

Oh, really. Let me say it again. It’s as true for you and me as it was for Joseph. The opportunities that God hands us to live out the dreams that He places on our hearts, so often come disguised as adversity and tragedy. Do you get it? Are you listening to God’s Word for you today? Are you letting it sink into your heart? Hmm?

I know that this is a bitter pill to swallow but just think about the powerful encouragement in this truth. Of the millions of people listening to this program around the world today, a bundle of you are travelling through adversity right now. Perhaps you’re travelling through adversity right now, and the dreams that you had in your heart, the things that you thought God was calling you to – seem over, dead and buried.

But I have good news for you today. God hasn’t given up on you. His dreams for you are alive and well. He’s taking you on a journey you may not have chosen for yourself, but his plans for your life will not – WILL NOT – be defeated. Your King reigns and nothing in this universe will stop Him from finishing what He started. Nothing! That’s good news, don’t you think?!

Punished for Doing the Right Thing

Well, yesterday on the program/before the break we saw that young Joseph, son of Jacob back in the book of Genesis way back there in the Old Testament, this young man with great dreams had been sold into slavery.

Dreams shattered, freedom gone, family done, in a foreign land, gone from being his father’s favourite to a common slave, owned by another man, that’s where Joseph was.

Now for most of us that would be enough to makes us give up. But Joseph … Joseph knew something intuitively, something that had, I don’t know, been put inside him by God – something that kept him going. And it’s that something, that you and I are going to discover for ourselves from God’s Word today.

Because we all have dreams that are shattered; we all have times in our lives when we need that special something from God, to keep us going; to help us nurture our dreams through the dark days. So are you ready to discover that special something? Let’s dive into God’s Word – it comes to us in two parts today. First part:

Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge; and, with him there, he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate. (Genesis 39:1–6)

So what do you get out of that? Here’s what I learn. Joseph continues to honour God, Joseph continues to do what’s right, Joseph continues to use his natural giftings to the full, even though his circumstances have taken a terrible turn for the worse; even though he’d much rather be at home with his father and mother.

And as a result – God was with Him, even this heathen Egyptian Potiphar could see that. Turns out the young Joseph was a pretty capable administrator – so, what happened as a result of Joseph doing what’s right, and using his gifts, despite what was happening to him? Joseph found favour in Potiphar’s site and Potiphar put him in charge of all that he had. He became the overseer of Potiphar’s house. That’s not bad. That’s pretty good. But just as he was getting to the top of the roller coaster ride, you guessed it, there was a rapid downhill run? Let’s listen to the second part of what happened to Joseph here in Potiphar’s house:

Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her. One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house, she caught hold of his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, “See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.” Then she kept his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.”

When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, “This is the way your servant treated me,” he became enraged. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, and whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.

When Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of doing the wrong thing, when all along, all he’d done was the right thing, man I have to tell you, that would be enough to have just about any of us throwing up our hands, looking God in the eye and saying to Him, “You have to be kidding right God? Are you just out to get me here? Do you really love me? What the blazes are you doing?

And yet again, a second time – just in case you or I missed it, just in case you or I think, Great for you Joseph, but when bad things happen to me, I’m just going to react badly, just in case we’re thinking this message isn’t for us, Joseph does it again.

Things go from bad to worse, what happens to him simply isn’t fair – and even though this trip to prison was absolutely a necessary step to his dream being fulfilled, he had no way of knowing that, did he? All he saw was the injustice and the pain, thrown into prison. But young Joseph does the same thing again. He honours God. He gets on and makes the best of his terrible lot and so the Lord honours that, the Lord is with Joseph. The jailer puts him in charge and even here in this prison, where he could have been rotting in self pity where told: because the Lord was with him, in whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper. Are you getting this?

We can be pretty dense about this you and I. Bad things happen to us. Unfair things happen to us. And our natural reaction is either to come out punching and destroy the people who did this to us, or to withdraw into our shell, and become all bitter and twisted about what’s going on. Am I right? Oh and just to put the icing on the cake, we blame God, and we conveniently choose to forget that He loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for us so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life.

When bad things happen to us, we want to respond by doing bad things. But look at what happened to Joseph – twice in one Chapter God puts it there, first in Potiphar’s house, second in the Kings prison – just because God knows how hard it is to get through to us on this.

Joseph honours God, he behaves well, and instead of using adversity as an excuse – wait for this, because this is the crux, this is the punch line, this is the bit that God really wants us to get today – Joseph uses his natural gifts and in doing so discovers God–prepared, God–given opportunities right there in the adversity.

That’s the power of what God’s saying to you and me today through his Word. God’s opportunities abound just as much in adversity as they do in the good times. Even if the whole world seems to be against us God is for us. That’s why the Apostle Paul a few thousand years later, wrote if God is for us, who can be against us?

My friend, if you have a God–given dream in your life, you can be certain that adversity will come against you. Absolutely certain. That place of adversity is your opportunity to honour God. In fact the very best time to honour God, is when no one else is. That’s what Jesus did. That’s what got Him crucified. Opportunities abound, no matter how dark the day may seem.

God’s Amazing Stepping Stones

When we, like young Joseph here, are travelling through difficult times, one of the things that we do – we all do this – is we lose sight of the big picture.

You and I can read through the whole of Joseph’s story – the book of Genesis Chapters 37 to 46 in about half an hour. So we read the story, we say, fine – I get that and we move on.

But that story unfolded in Joseph’s life over many years. He spent two years in prison. HE spent a good many years toiling away serving Pharaoh before the happy ending of being reunited with his father and brothers.

Years of things happening to him that weren’t fair. Years where what God was up to, not being obvious to him. Could he ever imagined that he would become the ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself, when he was in the pit that his brothers threw him into, or on his way to Egypt as part of a slave train, or when he was being sold to Potiphar, or when we was rotting in the King’s prison for at least two years?

He had no idea did he? Not a clue what God was up to. Not a clue that God was still making his dream happen? And if God was still on the case (that must have seemed pretty doubtful there on at least a hundred thousand occasions) how God could possibly make it all happen and bring it all to fruition.

But when you stand back, as we can, and see the big picture, the whole picture – a picture that only God could see, a picture that at the time simply wasn’t available to Joseph, stuck as he was down in the weeds – we can see not only that God did make it possible. But that each step along the way, the brother’s reaction, the becoming a slave thing, working in Potiphar’s house, going to jail after being falsely accused, rotting there, and all the other stuff – each part of that story was a necessary stepping stone to get Joseph to where God wanted him to be – the ruler of Egypt.

Miss out on any of those steps, and Joseph would never have made it to the end and God’s plan and Joseph’s dream would never have been realised. Right?

That’s obvious. That’s easy to see when you can see the big picture. But we like Joseph, most of the time, can’t see the big picture. All we can see are the walls of the pit, the betrayal, the pain along the way, in injustice of being unfairly treated. And if we focus on those, we’re bound to get lost along the way.

If all we do is focus on the bad bits, we miss the opportunities that God is handing us along the way. That’s what made Joseph different and that’s the thing that we learn from this story.

Firstly, that those bad bits were in fact God’s amazing stepping stones to get Joseph from where he was, to where God wanted him to be – physically, emotionally and spiritually. And secondly, that at each of those stepping stones, we can look for, find and lay hold of God–given opportunities despite the mess that things are in, simply by honouring God and exercising our natural gifts and abilities.

That’s a huge lesson. That’s a lesson that you and I will be learning for the rest of our lives, if we’ll let God teach us. But grumbling, complaining, giving up along the way is not how we’re going to learn the lessons. Grumbling, complaining and giving up closes our hearts and when our hearts are closed, they’re unteachable.

That’s how we miss God’s opportunities. That’s how we miss out on God’s plan for our lives, one opportunity at a time. And that my friend is a huge tragedy that is playing itself out in the lives of many a Christ–follower. It’s a tragedy of massive global proportions. And it’s a tragedy, I pray, that will not play itself out in your life.

That’s why we’re opening God’s Word. To discover that his opportunities abound all day, every day. All we have to do is open our eyes to them, and accept them just as they are.

As you look back on your life so far, it might amaze you to think about huge changes in direction that your life has taken, based on seemingly small decisions that you made along the way. In fact, the more you think about it, the more mind boggling it becomes.

God–Given Opportunities

I wonder if you can point to some seemingly small decision that you made
along your life’s journey that had huge consequences? Or perhaps it was a seemingly chance encounter, or some small twist or turn – that changed your life?

When I ask people that question, they often answer no, I can’t think of anything like that. And my response is, you’re not thinking hard enough.

My father was Romanian. After WWII when Romania looked like falling into communist hands, his parents, his sister and he decided to get out of there. But where to flee. So they decided that they would apply to each Embassy in alphabetical order until one accepted them as immigrants.

Now, if you have a look at the alphabetical list of countries, it goes something like this: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Antigua, Argentina, Armenia and then … Australia.

The earlier ones rejected them. When they arrived at the Australian embassy, they went through the process and the official there said no. They left dejected. But as they were walking out and through the car park, that same official came running out to tell them that he’d changed his mind. They would be accepted and could emigrate to Australia.

And that … that’s why I’m an Australian, and not Afghani, Albanian, Algerian, Angolan, Armenian or anything else. That one small twist – years before I was born – has defined my whole life.

Decades later, I almost didn't go to the church service one Sunday, because I was sick and running a high temperature. But I felt I should go – that’s where I met my wife. She was visiting from interstate and that was the only morning I could have met her. It’s funny the twists and turns that life takes?

I know that if you think back, you’ll be able to see some amazing things that happened along your journey, that have completely changed how your life has turned out. Some people put it down to coincidence. Others to fate. Yet others to destiny. What do you put it down to?

Me, I believe … in fact, I know that I know, that it’s none of those, because the God who created us – you, me – has a plan for our lives. He has a plan for your life. He has a plan for my life. And along the way, He hands us opportunities and He expects us to take them and do something with them. Don’t believe me? Have a listen to how Jesus put it:

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back. ’ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to rule over us. ’ When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, ‘Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities. ’ Then the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your pound has made five pounds. ’ He said to him, ‘And you, rule over five cities. ’ Then the other came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow. ’ He said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest. ’ He said to the bystanders, ‘Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds. ’ (And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten pounds! ’) ‘I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence. ’”

The easiest thing in the world for us to do is to read this like a fairy tale. Heard this one so many times some of us, that it’s like water off a duck’s back. But let’s just remember who He was speaking these words to – the everyday man and woman in the street. Jews. A proud nation, God’s nation, who were farmers and peasants. Nobodies, when compared to the Roman empire, the power of Caesar. An occupied nation, oppressed, with little or no future.

And so along comes the Son of God and tells them a powerful story about the fact that God is handing them something – in the parable, it’s the pounds, the money – and He expects them to do something with it. What this story is about, is God handing His people, even the peasants, even the farmers, even those who live in an oppressed land, a substantial opportunity with the expectation that they will grab hold of it and do something with it.

Now – let’s take a moment you and I to apply that parable, that powerful story to our lives, the way the men and women who were listening to Jesus tell it, applied it to their lives. God comes to you, He hands you an opportunity – with the strongest of expectations that you’ll do something with it. How do you handle that opportunity?

Are you too busy to notice? Are you too busy to take hold of it? Is it perhaps an inconvenient opportunity? Do your circumstances perhaps tell you that you couldn’t possibly make a difference in this world, a little like those who were listening to Jesus on that Day? Or … do you grab it with both hands and throw your whole life into doing something with that opportunity? All too often, God’s opportunities come disguised as calamities, impossibilities … and yes, even sometimes, seemingly insignificant decisions. But what we do with God–given opportunities is going to impact the rest of our lives.

Dreams of Greatness

When we’re young, we have dreams for how we want our lives to turn out. Those dreams are all different in one sense, and all pretty much the same in another, in that they include some common elements. Most of us when we’re young, dream about being wealthy, famous, finding love. Some dream about having children. They’re what I call “happily ever after” dreams.

And in fact, we don’t just dream those dreams when we’re young. We continue with our daydreaming pretty much our whole lives. It’s when we stop dreaming big dreams, that we know that we’re plumbing the depths of human existence.

Whether we realise it or not, we’re all daydreamers. It’s part of what keeps hope going and hope, when the going’s not quite what we wish it was, hope is what keeps us going.

We’re chatting this week and over the coming few weeks about not missing out on God’s opportunities. Because He loves us, He has a plan for our lives. And time and again, He drops opportunities in along our path – opportunities that we can choose to pick up and run with, or ignore and bypass – something which many people do.

But often God places a dream in our hearts – a dream that He planted there when we were quite young. A dream that somehow He brings to fruition as we grow and mature.

When I was young, daydreaming wasn’t encouraged. “Daydreamer” was a detrimental label – that implied laziness. And yet I dreamed dreams. In my early teenage years, I had an encounter with God and I dreamed about becoming a minister. I dreamed about telling people about Jesus. But by the time I finished high school and went on to study at university, and set out to build a career and make lots of money (which I’d also dreamed about) the idea of me becoming a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was long lost.

And yet it came back and came to fruition in my late thirties and early forties and here I am well into my fifties living out that dream. My point is that the dreams that God lays on our hearts are often a pointer to the opportunities that He is planning on laying before us further down the track.

And that’s exactly what happened with young Joseph, the son of Jacob way, way back in the old testament. Let’s have a listen:

Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. This is the story of the family of Jacob.

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.

Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. (Genesis 27:1–11)

It seems like a pretty grandiose dream doesn’t it – a dream of greatness. And when we have those sorts of dreams – and tell others about them – the most common response is mocking and rebuking. Exactly what young Joseph ran into. It’s what I ran into when I share my dream as a teenager too.

When finally at age 39, 40 I found myself studying to become a minister of the Gospel of Christ, I had another dream. To share the love of Jesus with millions of people. Millions. Outrageous. I didn’t tell anyone about that dream. It was simply too ridiculous. And here I am with you, today, living out that dream.

Dreams don’t have to be big to seem ridiculous. Most people’s dreams aren’t huge actually. But if they were to verbalise those dreams, they’d no doubt draw the same response that Joseph’s dream drew.

I’m not saying that every dream we have in our hearts is from God. Sometimes we dream of fame or comfort and wealth. Sometimes we dream away the problems that we're facing in the here and now – visualising what our lives would look like if only that problem would go away. No, not all dreams are from God. But some of them are.

They’re the ones that inexplicably warm our hearts and bring tears to our eyes – no matter how difficult or outrageous they seem. Joseph’s dream was outrageous, wasn’t it? Being a ruler where his father, mother and brothers were bowing down to him. They all put it down to the fact that he was dad’s favourite – spoiled little brat, and his brothers hated him for it.

And yet, if you know Joseph’s story – something we’re going to explore over the coming weeks – that’s exactly what happened. The dreams that God puts in our hearts when we’re young and sometimes when we’re older too – the one’s He puts there as opposed to the selfish ones that we dream along the way – those dreams from God are an opportunity that many, many people miss. Because they write them off as just some crazy idea. What a tragedy it would be to miss out on the dreams that God’s put in your heart, eh?

A Fall From Grace

Before the break we were talking about the dreams that God places on our hearts – they often seem outrageous at the time, and yet those dreams are what open our eyes to the opportunities that God brings across our path from time to time.

Often, without that dream in our hearts, we’d miss the opportunities. The God–given dream gives us a new set of eyes, to see what God’s up to from His perspective. That’s what it’s there for. That, and to give us hope.

And we met young Joseph, the son of Jacob way, way back there in the Old Testament, the book of Genesis, a young man with a dream. A young man who dreamed that one day, He would be a great ruler. And, being the naïve young man that he was, he shared it with his brothers, not realising how offensive it would be to them.

Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

I mean who wouldn’t be offended, right? People are often offended by the dreams God puts on our hearts. Often it’s motivated by jealousy. They make fun of us, they tell us that the dreams are impossible.

Of course, God’s dreams are impossible – if He gave us dreams that were possible, dreams that we could realise in our own strength, we wouldn’t need Him then would we. In fact, one of the ways that we can tell whether a dream comes from God, is that it is, almost always, impossible to achieve in our own strength. That tends to be a pretty solid marker that it’s from God – there are others too, that we’ll talk about another time.

So, young Joseph has this dream – hey, come on, it’s a great dream right? But then his life takes a terrible twist. A shocking twist. One that neither he, or his beloved father Jacob, could ever have predicted.

Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem. And Israel [that’s Jacob His father, Israel is the name God gave to Jacob] Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron.

He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan. ’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. (Genesis 27:12–24)

Can you begin – just begin to imagine – that something so terrible would happen to you? That your brothers, your own flesh and blood, would conspire to kill you? And then take the precious robe that your dad had given you and throw you into a pit? It’s totally beyond imagining isn’t it?

And yet this is a pattern that anyone who has ever dreamed a dream will recognise. You have a dream in your heart, a God–given dream that really, you don’t understand fully. You have no idea really whether it will ever come to pass, and if so, how God could possibly make it happen.

When my life and my hopes and my dreams lay shattered at my feet, I was ironing one Saturday afternoon – and God gave me a dream to tell millions of people about Him. Millions. His presence in that hour or so, as I sat on the top stair in the stairwell in my townhouse, was palpable. It was the craziest dream anyone could ever have. But I knew that it came from Him. How could that be. Everything around me was in such devastation. I was travelling through such pain at the time.

As I think of young Joseph lying there in that pit, his life in the balance, not knowing what was going to happen to him, I bet you, that he was thinking about that dream that he’d dreamt. His reality must have screamed at him that the dream was a fake. Have you ever had that happen to you? Reality decisively, emphatically tells you that that God–given dream was a lie. The evidence seems irrefutable. There you are in your pit, you look at the walls. You can’t get out. Dream over.

Well, I’m here to tell you that if it’s from God, it’s never dream over. To the absolute contrary. Dreams and adversity seem to go hand in hand in God’s scheme of things. Let me say it again – maybe it didn’t sink in the first time: dreams and adversity seem to go hand in hand in God’s scheme of things. Why? Listen to what the Apostle Paul said thousands of years later, out of a not dissimilar situation:

Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
(2 Corinthians 1:9)

My friend when you find yourself in that pit with your dreams shattered at your feet, the last thing, the very last thing that God wants you to be thinking is: dream over. Get it?

Here’s the thing about God. What He starts, He finishes. Listen again to the Apostle Paul, writing this time out of his Roman dungeon on death row:

I am confident of this: that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (1 Philippians 1:6)

Why are we talking about this stuff? Because God has a plan for your life. And along the way, He places opportunities before you – opportunities that you can accept or reject; opportunities that you can grab onto with both hands, or push away, walk around and leave behind.

If you let the God–given dream in your heart die, let me tell you, you’re going to miss those opportunities. Because the dream is what helps you identify a situation as an opportunity from God. The opportunity resonates with the dream and bingo, you know that this is one to grab onto.

When the opportunity came to take a half unit elective at Bible college in media studies, I just knew that I should take it – it spoke so clearly about the dreamt hat God had laid on my heart. If I’d let go of my dream because of the adversity I’d faced, I wouldn’t have taken that media half unit, and I wouldn’t be sitting chatting with you today. It’s that simple.

Joseph had a lot more adversity left to face, let me tell you. We’re going to see some more of it in a little while. But here’s the thing – the dream, the dream never died. And just as well, because it is through Joseph, His brothers and their descendants, that God brought Jesus into this world.

Dreams and opportunities – are vital if we’re to live out the plan that God has for our lives.

Not everybody on this planet is meant to get married. Some will stay single all their lives. Others will find themselves single again, through marriage breakdown, or the death of their spouse. Question is – can a single person be truly content?

FINDING CONTENTMENT IN SINGLENESS

The last time we talked about marriage and family on the program … last year I think it was … I had a number of requests from single people to talk about singleness. So today, as we chat about contentment again, I thought that that would be a great thing to do.Because there are some people who don’t want to be married. There are some people who were never meant to be married.

I was having dinner just the other night with a bunch of my classmates from the Royal Military College Duntroon.Now, we graduated from the college over 30 years ago, as officers in the Australian army, so it had been a while. One of the guys, a great bloke, salt of the earth, has never been married. He lives on a yacht on a marina, and works at one of the large, free to air TV stations.

Now, this guy is a live wire – he’s always been that and he always will be. Some would call him eccentric. He is totally content being who he is, being single and I doubt he will ever get married. Knowing him as I do, can I tell you, I think that’s the right choice for him.

No, I am not saying that everyone who’s single is slightly eccentric. It’s just one example. But I think sometimes the rest of us – the ones who are married – sometimes we think that people who have never been married and are never likely to be married are a little bit odd. But that’s not the case.

Some people are meant to be married and others aren’t. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 19, verses 9 to 11:

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery. So His disciples said to him, ‘Well if that’s the case, isn’t it better not to get married.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept that teaching, but only those to whom it is given’.

And so to me, when it comes to contentment and the decision to be married or single, that’s the key. Some can accept the idea of being single. They like the idea of remaining single, and so it’s an awesome choice for them. As we’ll see in a moment, it frees them up to get focussed on God’s work without any restrictions or limitations. The rest of us need to see that as a perfectly valid choice.

Others, like me, can’t accept that. I am not one to remain single. And so those people should seek out a wife or a husband as the case may be and get married. And again that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says, expounding a bit on what Jesus said. Let’s have a read, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 to 9:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman.’ But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of a command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another having a different kind. To the unmarried and to the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Some people might be surprised about the fact that the Bible is so direct about sexuality, but hey, our sexuality is a big part of who we are. And as we chatted about this the other day, we saw that God’s plan is not for us to fulfil our sexual needs in a casual relationship. Sex is an amazing gift from God … it was, after all, His idea … and so He knows that we are designed for physical intimacy to occur in an exclusive bond that we call marriage.

Not everyone has that need. Paul makes the point that he himself was single – I wish you all were as I am. Why? Because as a single person you can very easily go and serve the Lord wherever He may call. And that’s the key. Come back to it, God made me, God made you. He chose one life for me, he chose another life for you. We are all perfectly made to live the life that God’s chosen for us and that’s the life we should be living. Again, the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches.

I’ve been in churches where single people aren’t included in family barbecues, somehow they’re shunned. I’ve seen it, perhaps you’ve seen it too. And those of you who are single have no doubt experienced it. I’ve experienced it from the receiving end.

I was single and 36 years old, and often after church on Sundays, a few families would head off and go and have a BBQ together. And they wouldn’t think to invite me along – because I was single. I didn’t have a family at the time. That really hurts. Some churches have singles ministries – well, fair enough, but it’s almost as though we put singles over there in one corner and segregate them from families.

When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy, because if there’s one thing a single person needs, it’s other people around them. So I say to those who are single, if you are content being single, for goodness sake, stay single.

Singleness is not a disease. It’s something that God chooses for some people, and it’s a high calling indeed, as it was for the Apostle Paul. It can be an absolutely wonderful way to live your life. It can be a completely satisfying way to live your life. In fact the worst thing that a person can do who feels called to be single is to get married and I think that life would be just a nightmare.

But if you’re not content being single, then as Jesus says, the Apostle Paul says, for goodness sakes, get married so that you can be completely fulfilled. Do what God made you to do. Be who God made you to be. Live the life that the Lord has assigned, to which He has called you.

One of the most difficult things is the situation though where someone finds themselves single again, either through the death of a loved one, or through marriage breakdown and divorce. We don’t have time to go into the single–again situation fully today. But I promise that one day in the not too distant future we will do that.

But for the rest of us, we need to understand that those who were once married and now find themselves single again, they need our special love and care and understanding and support. People who have been divorced have typically been through a painful and bloody separation. It hurts terribly when this special, God–anointed relationship between husband and wife, which was meant to last a lifetime, is torn apart.

Is divorce a sin? Sure it is. But so are a lot of other things. And sin always hurts and special compassion is required to love someone through that.

Those who have lost their husband or wife too, they need our love and attention, particularly let me say, the widows, for whom God has a very special heart. Psalm 68, verse 5 said that the:

Father of the fatherless and the protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation.

So, if you know someone who is single again, for whatever reason, there is an opportunity … a great opportunity to show the love and the mercy and the compassion of God. Because the transition from being married to being single is a tough one, as anyone who’s ever been through it will tell you.

And to all you singles out there – be content as you have so much time to spend with the Lord, to draw close to the Lord, to experience His presence in a unique and beautiful way. Let Him be your all in all and cherish greatly your time with the Lord.

A THANKFUL HEART

You’ve had that experience right? Things are going along okay, but then something happens, at home or at work or maybe, it’s just something going on in your heart, and the contentment you once had … bingo! … it’s gone.

Have you ever stubbed your toe? You know, whack, you hit your big toe on a brick or something. Ouch! It hurts. The rest of your body is fine – your head’s good, your eyes, your ears, your mouth – tick. Arms and legs, fine. Torso, nothing damaged, nothing hurting there. It’s just this one little part of your body, your big toe that is throbbing. And so, despite the fact that every other part of you is fine, all your attention goes to your throbbing toe. And your sense of wellbeing has just evaporated in an instant. All the other good things that were going on around you are completely forgotten as you focus on your aching toe.

Well that’s how it often is with our sense of contentment. You look around – the hilltops and the valleys, the nice sunny happy bits, and the not so sunny and unhappy bits – and your attention has this habit of focussing, of fixating if you will, on the one thing that’s not going well in your life.

You’ve done it, I’ve done it, and it’s a really common thing that happens to us. If we weighed our whole life, all the blessings that God has given us, in the overall scheme of things we should be content, but you know … It’s like that throbbing toe, we just can’t get our minds off that one thing, and that one thing is robbing us of our contentment.

It might be a bit of tension at work, maybe you have a difficult boss, or a peer who’s been undermining you. Perhaps one of your children is going through a really difficult phase in their lives, or your wife or your husband isn’t turning out to be all that you’d hoped for. Or maybe it’s something really big, and you feel like it’s closing in on you, like you’re in a dungeon.

So, what’s the answer? How can you move from discontent to contentment? Well, I’d like to take you into a dungeon to show you how Paul and Silas did it.

They’d healed a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and as a result, people weren’t too happy because the owners used to make money out of her, so…

The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Well, about midnight Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, and all the other prisoners were listening to them. But suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains fell off.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself, because he thought that all the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Don’t hurt yourself, we are all here.’

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside saying, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your whole household.’

They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And at the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; and then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. (Acts chapter 16, verses 22 to 34)

So, Paul and Silas had done the right thing, but a crowd had attacked them because no good deed ever goes unpunished, right? They are arrested, they are severely flogged, they are thrown into prison, into the innermost cell, with their feet in stocks.

There you go! That would be enough to rob you and me of our peace and contentment for the day wouldn’t it? I suspect that if we were in that prison cell, with our wounds aching, we’d be angry, or hurt, or afraid – asking God what the blazes was going on, even sometimes shaking our fists at the Lord. That might be a natural reaction. But Paul and Silas, around midnight we are told, were praying and singing hymns!

PRAYING AND SINGING HYMNS!!!! Can you believe that? They were worshipping God. They were living through this misery with thankful hearts … and the rest is history. God came and busted them out of prison – there is such power in praise and thankfulness.

When we rise above our circumstances, when we lift up our hearts and worship our Lord, He has the power to break us out of our prison of despair.

The rest was history. The jailer was saved, he cares for them, he feeds them, he washes their wounds, his whole household is saved and the next morning they are released.

The single, most unnatural act when we’re in that dungeon with our feet in stocks, is to praise God, to pray, to sing songs, to lift our hearts, to lift our eyes, to lift our hands heavenward and worship God. But that’s exactly what we need to do! Because that act of worship is music to God’s ears. That act of worship from the heart is how we connect with the Lord amidst our desperate circumstances. That act of worship is what so often triggers a powerful intervention from God, to change everything.

The number of times, in my life, when I’ve been sitting in my usual chair in my study, early in the morning, facing this issue or that issue, and I’ve just taken Him at His word and started to worship Him and started to give thanks and started to praise Him, even though that’s the last thing I felt like doing, the number of times He has come and broken me out of my prison cell of despair … well, I’ve just simply lost count.

God shows up every time. I get up and I walk away from those encounters with a sense of joy and peace and contentment, despite the circumstances. To me, it’s like a miracle. How does God do that? I’m really not sure, but He does. He does it again and again and again.

The way we move on from our discontentment is to worship God. It’s that simple. And if you don’t believe me – try it. It works.

It happened to Paul a second time, some years later. He was in a Roman prison, chained to his guard, awaiting his death sentence. Now this short passage from Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 is going to be familiar to many, but there are two words that I bet you’ve glossed over, as I did for many years. Two words that change everything! Paul says:

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.

Did you pick which two words I was talking about? – ‘with thanksgiving’ is the key. How often do we go to the Lord with a problem and we grumble and we complain, as though He’s some call centre operator who can fix a problem with our bank accounts? I don’t know, but I imagine He must get sick of the stinking attitudes from us over and over again as we grumble and complain: ‘Oh God, what are You doing?’

His call is to go to Him with thanksgiving in our hearts, with thanksgiving on our lips, with a sense of wonder and anticipation at what He’s going to do, with a sense of expectation over the good things that He’s going to do. And like any good dad, when He sees one of His kids coming to Him with the right heart, with the right attitude – with an attitude of faith – He can’t help Himself.

In His great and mighty heart filled with boundless love for us, God can’t help Himself. He has to act, because He loves us. And just at the right time He’ll bust you out of your prison of despair and discontentment. He’ll break the shackles that hold you; He’ll set you free with joy and with peace and with contentment in your heart.

He’s such a wonderful God. He loves you so much. Go to Him with thanksgiving in your heart.

COMPLACENCY VERSUS CONTENTMENT

Well over these last few weeks we’ve been talking a lot … an awful lot … about being content. God’s plan is for us to be content. In His scheme of things, He places a very high value indeed on your contentment and mine. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, the Apostle Paul writes this:

Of course there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.

Contentment is about not needing or wanting the next fix, whatever it is, that you happen to be addicted to. As we saw last week, girls (or guys as the case may be), gold and glory are three things that we can so easily become addicted to and ensnared by, and they’re just three of the things that we can get hooked on. There are plenty more.

Whenever we’re hooked on one particular sin … our Achilles heel if you will … we’re always going to be robbed of contentment. Contentedness is that thing that we feel when we’re happy to accept who we are (and who we aren’t), what we have (and what we don’t have), what we’re capable of doing (and what we’re not capable of doing). It’s independent of our circumstances and contentment is always accompanied by godliness. In fact there’s a cause and effect relationship: no godliness, no contentment.

That’s why sin always robs us of contentment.

But I don’t for one minute want you to think that I’m promoting complacency. These are two entirely different things. What I’m not talking about is becoming a spiritual couch potato and just sitting there and not striving to achieve anything and not engaging with the problems of life and not serving other people and not sacrificing to do the Lord’s work.

We’re so easily lulled into this false idea that contentment happens when everything in our little universe is going exactly as we please. Hah! Then we can relax. Then we can sit back. Then we can enjoy life, without stretching ourselves, without being challenged, without even beginning to think about what the Lord wants us to do with our lives; who He wants us to help; what the sacrifices are in following Him.

Jesus made it very clear, that if anyone wants to follow Him, then he or she should take up their cross and follow Him. In other words, be prepared to make sacrifices; be prepared for it to be hard and challenging and painful. And be prepared to give your whole life over to Him. Because if you try to save your life, you’re going to lose it. But if you are prepared to lose your life for His sake, Jesus sake, then you’ll save it.

That’s a paradox that applies to life and it’s a paradox that applies equally to this all too elusive (for some) thing called contentment. Because, the more we try and go the easy road, the comfortable road, the road that we’ve been told leads to contentment, the less contented we become.

The more we stuff ourselves with STUFF, the more bloated and listless and discontented we become. The more we try to use what we have to look after ourselves, the more elusive and fleeting contentment becomes. I come back to it again what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you.

At the end of the day, contentment only happens when we’re living the life that God’s called us to. The one He chose for us before time began. The one He handcrafted us, purpose built us to live. You and I know square pegs do not fit in round holes, yet all too many people are trying to remake themselves in the world’s image, when all along they were formed in God’s image.

You were made to be you. You were made to be good at what you’re good at, and lousy at what you’re lousy at. You were made specifically to live the life that God has planned for you. So go and be you, go and live that life.

The only one that’s going to work for you is the life that God has assigned to you. The one where you won’t find the pot of contentment at the end of the rainbow. No, that’s not how it works. Because if you live the life that God chose for you, He will give you His contentment on the journey. It’s just the way He does it.

Contentment … it’s one of the things that each one of us wants. But today, today we’re going to look at three of the things that can rob us of that contentment – girls, gold and glory.

GIRLS AND GUYS

In the days when I was studying at Bible-college, a good many years ago now, the principal of the college was a man by the name of Barry Chant, and I remember quite distinctly he came down to the common area where we all gathered before lectures, and he announced that today was exactly fifty years since he’d started following Jesus. Fifty years! And the more I came to know him, as a teacher, as a colleague ultimately, and as a trusted counsellor and friend, I realised how much his life had been impacted by fifty years of walking with Jesus. The man has a maturity and a wisdom that are quite remarkable.

I say that as a preface because I’m about to share with you something today that he shared with me all those years ago. We were studying in our various dreams of academia to become ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I recall one lecture where he talked about the three things that generally bring ministers unstuck. They’re really easy to remember because they all start with the letter G. Would you like to know what they are? ‘Girls, Gold and glory’. Pretty simple. Pretty powerful, and the more I think about it, those are the very same things that bring us unstuck in our search for contentment: Girls or (in the case of women) guys, gold, and glory.

I want to kick off with the first one of those today because unless we get this girls/guys thing under control, then we’re not going to be content. And the whole subject of the boy/girl, man/woman relationship and intimacy thing isn’t an easy one to talk about in this day and age without sounding a bit anachronistic, because attitudes and lifestyles have changed a lot.

See, these days, intimacy before marriage and indeed outside marriage is pretty much accepted in most societies as a fact of life. I think the current term is ‘Friends with benefits’, where people engage in casual sex to meet their physical needs without the emotional entanglement of an exclusive boy/girl relationship, and most couples who get married today have slept together before they get married.

I heard a statistic the other day that fully thirty percent of married Australian men have visited a prostitute, not to mention the office affairs, unfaithfulness and marriage breakdowns arising out of those extramarital affairs.

And as the world around us becomes more and more accepting of promiscuity as purely a lifestyle-choice, I start to find myself wondering: ‘Hang on a minute. Is it me that’s going crazy here? Am I the one who’s out-of-touch by believing that physical and sexual intimacy belongs inside a marriage, in this completely exclusive lifelong relationship between one man and one woman? Is the Biblical position on this still tenable in this day and age?’

Then I pinch myself, and I realise that what Jesus has to say is as applicable today as it was two thousand years ago because truth, His truth, is timeless, and this is what Jesus said when the religious leaders of the day came to ask Him about divorce. He said (Matthew 5:27-32):

You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body to go into hell. It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’, but I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife except for grounds of un-chastity causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

That seems pretty harsh, doesn’t it? Pretty tough and rigid. If Jesus were alive today, they’d probably call Him an extreme conservative: A fundamentalist, but there’s a reason that Jesus takes this apparently hard-line, and that reason is that God created us male and female, in order that those of us who so choose can live in a lifelong intimate marriage as husband and wife. Plain and simple. Again, here’s what He said, quoting this time the first book in the Bible – the book of Genesis (Matthew 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him and they asked Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’

And Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read that the One who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’. 

They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’

And He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you whoever divorces his wife, except for un-chastity, and marries another commits adultery’.

The point is that we were created to be husband and wife and when we try to mess with that, when we try to break that, it doesn’t work. Our physiological drive to reproduce is a very strong one: Stronger in some than others, to be sure, but a strong one nevertheless. It’s a gift from God, and it’s a gift that is satisfied completely in the context of marriage, as God has always planned.

You can’t be content chasing girls (or guys, as the case may be) outside marriage. It might seem fun at the time, and exciting and alluring – fabulous, but in the end, it leads to emptiness and to loss because sex without love is always empty. For me there is no one, there can never be anyone, as beautiful as my wife. She’s mine, and I’m hers. Exclusively. No exceptions; and in that, my friend, there is such great contentment. So, if you find your eye or your heart wandering, remember this: If you wander, you will never, ever be content … ever.

GOLD

They say that love makes the world go round, but so far as I can see, it seems to be money these days that makes the world go round or at least, it certainly makes our economies tick over. In fact, it seems to me that economies, governments and people at large, ordinary punters like you and me, are addicted to conspicuous consumption to fuel our own personal growth and wealth and status and luxury and what other people think about us, not to mention fuelling the holy grail of a prosperous nation: Economic growth.

I really don’t think we even begin to realise how addicted many of us are to overconsumption: The next thing; the next dress; the next car; the next house, each one bigger and better and brighter and shinier than the last one.

Noam Chomsky, who I know some people consider to be a rabid left-wing critic, says something that really resonates with me, as I look dispassionately at the multi-trillion-dollar advertising industry that bombards me constantly with the exhortation to spend up big. He says this: ‘All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is a constant pressure to make people feel that they’re helpless – that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions, and to consume’.

Pretty much true, isn’t it? Advertising puts its finger on your feelings of inadequacy, in order to get you to purchase the thing that they say will make you feel adequate, even when that thing they’re selling us may not be all that good for us: Heart-healthy margarine when in fact, it’s more bad for us than it is good for us; wrinkle cream – come on, you women, which one of you can resist the advertising line: ‘Look ten years younger in just fourteen days’. Analyse any advertisement – television, radio, print, billboard, and at its heart, it points out our sense of inadequacy and promises to deal with that problem to make us content, if only we’ll part with our hard-earned cash. It’s true.

Now, am I saying that all consumption is bad? No. Am I saying that we should all be poor as church mice? No, but what I am saying is that in our yearning to feel satisfied, many people swallow this implicit lie that the advertising industry’s telling them, and they go looking for their satisfaction and their contentment in wealth and the things that it can buy, only to spend a fortune to discover that they’re living a shallow life and there’s simply no contentment in wealth.

Well, let me save you some trouble: God’s known that for rather a long time, and He’s gone to the trouble of telling us that over and over again. Here it is through the words of one of God’s servants King Solomon, who was one of the richest and wisest men who’s ever walked the planet. Ecclesiastes 5:10-11:

The lover of money will not be satisfied with money, nor the lover of wealth with gain; this is also vanity. When goods increase, those who eat them increase, and what gain has their owner but to see them with their eyes?

As an experienced practitioner in trying to satisfy myself with wealth, I can tell you that word from God’s Bible is absolutely true. Now I don’t know where you’re at, but I’m aware that many of the people listening today may not have a relationship with Jesus, so when I share something from the Bible, you’re thinking: ‘Well, yes, so what?’

Fair enough, so let me share with you something the great British journalist Bernard Levin wrote, and he’s a man who’s a professed atheist. ‘Countries like ours are full of people who have all they desire and yet lead lives of quiet desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there’s a hole inside, and no matter how much food and drink we pour into it, however many motorcars and TVs we stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends we parade around the edges of it, it aches’.

So many people relate to that paradox. The more we try to fill ourselves up, the emptier we feel. The more we consume, the less satisfied we are, so what are you consuming? What are you spending your money on, and how much does this desire to have, have its dark tentacles wrapped around your heart with a vide-like grip, that’s robbing you of the contentment that God wants you to have?

I was talking to a man, a farmer, just before Christmas last year and he was telling me how grieved he was at the consumerism that he was surrounded with at Christmas. He and his family had decided not to give one another Christmas presents anymore because they had all they needed. They decided to give to those in need instead.

If there’s one thing that’ll rob us of contentment faster than just about anything else, it’s greed. And if there’s one thing that’ll set us free from that terrible malady faster than anything else, it’s generosity; letting things go; giving to those who need more than we do.

I was quite shocked actually how prevalent is the exhortation in God’s Word to give generously. It’s something that God tells us to do all the time: Not because He’s in desperate need of our cash to fund His work (although that is how God funds His work on this earth – through His people), but because He wants our hearts, and He knows that our hearts are tethered firmly to our wallets, and the way He sets us free from the discontentment of putting our hope and our trust and our desire in wealth is by getting us to part with it sacrificially. Have a listen to this. 2 Corinthians 9:6-8:

The point is this (writes Paul). The one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough for everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

You see, God’s plan is to set us free from this addiction to wealth so that we can be content.

GLORY

Have you ever seen one of those old western movies, where the bad guy comes into the bar, and he starts to shoot at the feet of the good guy to make him jump and dance? And so the good guy’s jumping and dancing to avoid being shot in the foot. Depending on the scene, sometimes it’s funny, like in the final movie of the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy, and at other times it can be really quite serious and scary, but anyhow, it’s a motif that’s repeated over and over again in many-a western movie.

Now, just think about the guy who’s being shot at – the one who’s doing the jumping and the dancing. What do you imagine is going through his mind? Shock? Terror? Fear? The adrenaline must be pumping to stop him from being hit by a bullet. The one thing that’s not going through his mind at that moment is peace and contentment. Obviously, it’s a bit difficult to be content when someone’s shooting at you, right?

And yet that in a sense is how many people are living their lives, because they’re so worried about what other people think of them. They’re so concerned about their reputation. They’re worried about what people are saying behind their backs, and all that comes from the fact that we want people to think well of us and to speak well of us and to like us. We worry about our reputations more often than we worry about whether or not we’re doing the right thing, and whether or not our lives are honouring God.

I can again speak with some authority on this, because I used to be really concerned with what other people thought about me. Well, I can tell you, if that still bothered me, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now. Some guy’s put a video clip up on YouTube claiming I’m a heretic. As well as lots of encouraging phone calls and letters and e-mails, I get the odd rude one or disparaging one too and … well the odd video on YouTube. If those things got to me, I simply wouldn’t be able to keep on going.

The miracle in my life is that God transformed me from someone who tried to be everything to everyone to someone who’s content with who I am and probably more importantly, who I’m not; what I can do, and what I can’t do. I (like you) have strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve come to grips with the fact that some things I’m just not good at, but it wasn’t always like that for me.

And so, when you try to be everything to everyone, when you’re running around keeping up appearances, man, that is seriously hard work! That’s exhausting, and it was only when I started feeling safe in Jesus that I started caring less and less what people thought of me and said of me. I’m me, and do you know what? I do my best; often times I say things as God tells it through the Bible, and that seems to be out-of-step with contemporary thinking. Well, that’s it. Can’t be any more or less than I am.

The problem comes when our reputation is more important to us than our relationship with Jesus. Let me say that again because it’s important: The problem comes when our reputation is more important to us than our relationship with Jesus. The problem comes when we go looking for glory for us, and we forget that God doesn’t share His glory with any man, which is precisely the point that Jesus made in a powerful way. Have a listen to this (John 5:30-47):

I can do nothing on my own (said Jesus). As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

You see, if I testified about Myself, My testimony wouldn’t be true. There is another who testifies on My behalf, and I know that His testimony to Me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth: Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light, but I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given Me to complete, the very works that I am now doing, testify on My behalf that the Father sent Me. And the Father who sent Me has Himself testified on My behalf. You have never heard His voice or seen His form, and you do not have His Word abiding in you because you do not believe in the One whom He sent. 

You go searching the Scriptures because you think that in them, you have eternal life, and yet it’s they that testify on My behalf, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life. I don’t accept glory from human beings, but I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name and you do not accept Me. If another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and don’t seek the glory that comes from the One who alone is God?

The point that Jesus is making here is that He’s not here to build an empire. He’s not here to build Himself up into an empire to be weighted on hand and foot. He’s not here to get more disciples than the other Rabbis although, in the end, that’s exactly what’s happened. Jesus came to do His Father’s bidding, and when people (those people with whom He was speaking) didn’t accept Him as the Son of God, He knew precisely why it was: He put His finger right on the problem. Let me read it to you again – the last verse (verse 47). Jesus asked this question:

‘How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and you don’t seek the glory that comes from the One who alone is God?’

Good question! Right question! If people are seeking their own glory from one another – accolades and awards and pats on the backs and compliments, it’s a sure sign that they’re more interested in their own glory than God’s glory.

A little later, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’. Do you know what He was talking about? He was predicting His crucifixion. To Jesus, being glorified means sacrificing everything for you and me, and now He sits at the right hand of the Father.

One of the reasons that so many people aren’t content is because they’re chasing the glory of men, the glory of their own reputations. And because people are fickle, you end up riding a rollercoaster of public opinion. That’s no way to find contentment, is it? So long as you worry about your reputation, and what other people think and what other people say, you can never be content … ever, and Jesus knew that. That’s why He said to them: ‘I don’t accept glory from human beings’. Elsewhere John records that Jesus, on His part (John 2:24-25):

Would not entrust Himself to men because He knew all people and needed no one to testify about Him, for He Himself knew what was in everyone.

So, who were the ‘Them’ that He didn’t entrust Himself to? The crowds that were following Him because they saw all the miracles He was doing. In other words, He didn’t get sucked in by all the people who were oohing and ahhing at His miracles because He knew that they were the very same people who would one day be shouting: ‘Crucify Him’.

Yes, we have relationships. Yes, we trust those whom we love, and our close friends. Yes, we listen to trusted advisors who come to us and tell us some hard things sometimes about ourselves … That’s how it should be, but the fickle opinions of people who are serving their own needs, the completely valueless taunts and words of flattery from people who themselves don’t have a strong and decent character, are not the yardsticks for our performance.

If we listen to them, then we’re no different to the cowboy dancing to the shots of the bad guy in the western movies. The only yardstick to measure who we are, and whether we’re living a good life or not, is God; and we find His yardstick, His measure, in His Word the Bible. The beauty of that is that His Word is true, and when we fail, and when we fall short, you and I (in Him) – we have forgiveness, through the grace of Jesus Christ. Mate, that’s where you find contentment. Nowhere else.

Who doesn’t want that? Problem is that we all have stuff going on in our lives that seems to rob us of contentment. Okay, so perhaps God wants you and me to be content. But some days, that just feels like mission impossible.

So let me ask you – are you content with your life? As you survey the landscape of your life – the hills, the valleys … the roads yet untraveled – is that something that you do with a quiet contentment in your heart …. or not?

IS CONTENTMENT REALLY FOR YOU?

So come on: On a scale of zero to ten, how content are you with your life? I have a strong suspicion that whilst there are a few outliers out there (a few people who are giving themselves a one or a two because they’re not content at all, and a few who are giving themselves a nine or ten), the vast majority are somewhere in the middle of that bell curve – somewhere between say a four and a seven I’m guessing.

Are you content with who you are, where you live, what you have, your job, your family, your future as you see it at the moment? Are you content or not? It’s worth pondering.

So, what is contentment? Is it a state of happiness or jubilation? I don’t think so. I trawled a bunch of dictionaries, but I failed to come up with a satisfactory definition. A state of happiness and satisfaction was the most common definition, with examples like: He found contentment in living a simple life in the country, or: The contentment of a comfortable retirement.

Of course, it’d be great if we were all able to live a simple life in the country and have a comfortable retirement, but that’s not a reality for the vast majority of people on the planet. The people who are bringing up children, and dealing with the struggles and the joys that all that entails; the people who are working in some fast-paced world with never, it seems, enough time to get everything done they should get to; the people who are struggling with their health; their wellbeing; with their safety … I’m thinking of the many people listening to today’s program in war-torn parts of Africa, from within refugee camps (where I know we have many listeners); I’m thinking of the person who’s just been diagnosed with cancer or just lost one of their children.

Life is a series of valleys and mountaintops, isn’t it, and my sense is that contentment is something we can have whether we’re on top of the highest mountain or in the depth of the darkest valley, I think. But it’s not just me, it’s the Bible; it’s God too. He has a lot to say about contentment as we step out into this series ‘The Road to Contentment’. It’s my job, and my great pleasure, to share with you what God has to say about contentment, so why don’t we kick it off with this Scripture? 1 Timothy 6:3-10:

Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that is in accordance with Godliness is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words. From these come envy and dissension and slander and base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that Godliness is a means of gain. Of course, there is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those, but those who want to be rich 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 their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

All too often I’ve heard Bible-teachers, or people who hold themselves out to be Bible-teachers, promise that following Jesus is going to involve wealth and riches. Can I tell you, if I started teaching that, I know that I personally would be far better-off financially because people seem to want to give lots of their hard-earned cash to people who scratch them where they itch; who tell them what they want to hear: That if you follow Jesus, you’re going to be blessed with this and with that … But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to refer to myself as a Bible-teacher because, my friend, because as you’ve just heard, that’s simply not what the Bible says. It’s what we’d like the Bible to say, but it’s simply not what it says.

What it does say, however, is this. Listen to it again, and let it sink in:

There is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those.

Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Let me say it again: According to the Bible, Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. It turns out that God places a very high value on this thing that we call contentment. I guess it’s kind of obvious that God wants you and me to be Godly: No one would be surprised by that now, would they? But contentment – did you realise that God wants you to be content, that He wants you to reap the great gain of the fruit of Godliness and contentment?

And that, in stark contrast to what the world offers. The riches of this world that are so … so seductive, all those baubles and trinkets – the things that go way, way above our basic needs of food and clothing and shelter: The things that God is saying to you and me which ultimately, if we chase after them as our main focus in life, will cause us to be pierced with many pains. It’s pretty strong language.

Think back to a time in your life when you’ve been content, just happy with who you are and what you have. Sure; it may not have been perfect, but inside, you had that warm feeling of contentment. Isn’t that something worth having? Isn’t that so much better than having the things that the world tells us are going to make us happy? You and I know that all those things are imposters, and yet we’re tempted to go chase after them anyway. We get our needs and our wants all mixed up, and our wants take over.

Now, I know this is a touchy area because we all have these desires and aspirations that go way beyond our basic needs, some of them really good desires and aspirations too, but there’s a line that we can cross over which robs us of contentment, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about over these coming weeks on the program. Why? Because God wants you to be content. He wants you to experience the warmth of Godliness combined with contentment; all we need to do is discover how.

I wonder sometimes whether we realise how deeply conditioned we are to desire the things we don’t have. Have you ever been puzzled by the tenth commandment out of the Ten Commandments? Let’s take a look at it as a bit of a refresher. Exodus 20:17. It says:

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.

What an odd commandment! Don’t steal; don’t murder; don’t lie … Hey, they all make sense. They’re about what we do, but this commandment doesn’t talk about what we do: It talks about what we think and feel. That word covet means to desire deeply. Why does God finish off the Ten Commandments with that one? Because He knows that desiring things we don’t have, and (as in the case of the neighbour’s wife) shouldn’t have, can lead us into things that’ll destroy us. Just let the weight of that truth sink in.

The wrong desires of our hearts are what lead to our destruction, and yet every time you turn the TV on, or open the newspaper or some glossy magazine or visit a website, or even go down to your local supermarket, you’re confronted with advertisements specifically designed to fuel your desire for something you don’t have. It’s so insidious; it’s so pervasive that we don’t even realise it’s going on. The best way to figure out how deeply these desires have their tentacles wrapped around our hearts is to do a stocktake of the things that you dream about. Then all of a sudden, you start to realise what your heart truly desires.

CONFLICT AND CONTENTMENT

All right. I know that at this point, some people are struggling with that thing I just threw out there about contentment in the midst of conflict. Perhaps you’re even experiencing conflict right now: An argument or a tension, or some other great trial that’s like an albatross around your neck, weighing you down, robbing you of peace and joy, and contentment.

It’s pretty normal that we find ourselves carrying around heavy burdens: Financial pressure, health worries, simple and basic issues of personal safety and security. Everybody, and I mean everybody, has some of those things in their lives: The weight of other people’s expectations, and you’re struggling to perform; the disappointments when other people don’t deliver what you expected them to. On and on the list goes and you know exactly what your conflict, your trial, looks like right now. And as you stare that thing in the face, the idea that you can be content in the middle of those circumstances seems … well, completely crazy I guess.

You’re quite possibly thinking to yourself: ‘Well, I’ve heard some doozies, but this time, Berni is completely off his rocker’. Let’s kick off with something that Jesus said. Matthew 11:28-30:

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 in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Ok. A familiar passage for many perhaps, but how often do we stop and think about what that really means? Jesus is nothing if not a realist and here He is, telling us that He gets it. He gets that we’re carrying around heavy burdens; that we’re weary; that we’re tired; that we’re downright exhausted. It’s the picture of an ox dragging a heavy load, and so Jesus pulls alongside and says ‘Look, let’s get yoked up together here. Let’s pull this load together, and I’ll give you some rest – not just any rest, but rest for your soul’.

The reason that we’re kicking off with this today is that we somehow imagine that everything has to be going right and well for us, in order for the blessing of God to kick in on our lives. ‘When I get my finances sorted out; when my kids finally get through those difficult teenage years; when I find a boss and a job that’s just tickety-boo perfect; when … whatever, then I’ll experience God’s blessing. Then I’ll find rest for my soul. Then, I’ll finally be content; perhaps with a happy, well-provisioned retirement’.

But Jesus is saying: ‘No, that’s not right at all. Right in the middle of the tough times, right when the conflict is greatest, the burden is at its heaviest, and you’re the most exhausted you’ve ever been, right when you’re at the end of your tether, that’s the perfect time to experience His rest and His contentment.

See, we live in such a performance-oriented world that tells us we should be successful. It’s drummed into us day after day so that we get to the point when we won’t even admit it to ourselves, let alone to God or to anyone else, but ‘Life’s not going that well, and now would be a really good time for Jesus to pull up alongside next to me so that I could have rest for my soul’.

Now please, don’t for one moment imagine that I have a perfect life, where everything is always going swimmingly well. Granted; many of the consequences of some of the ingrained sin in my life, that God’s been dealing with over almost the last twenty years, a lot of that’s gone! But He’s got plenty left to deal with, and in any case, our enemy (the devil) isn’t always so pleased with a guy who’s telling people about Jesus, so he’s on my case, I can tell you: Obstacles, road-blocks, attacks … Satan is alive and well and doing his thing, so I’m talking to you from out on my battlefield, not in some nice safe cloistered lecture-theatre.

This isn’t a theory lesson; this is the practical, and I can tell you that when it comes to contentment, the only place I’ve ever found it is yoked (tethered together with) Jesus, pulling the heavy loads that He’s called me to pull, with Him by my side, helping me to carry those loads.

Your loads are different to mine, but we all have heavy loads; we all have burdens; we all have things in our life that aren’t going to go the way that they should be going, and we sit down in the lounge crying out ‘God, why me? What’s going on?’ We don’t for a minute recognise that God is right there, and He wants us to experience contentment in our lives.

Here’s my definition of contentment: Being happy to accept who we are, where we are, what we have, and what’s going on, without trying to wish any of it away. Life’s meant to have some pain in it. Life’s meant to have some suffering in it, because those are the very places where we have the opportunity to reach out to Jesus and accept His offer:

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 in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

And when we do, we discover that with Him, we can do just about anything. We can face the world and all of its troubles; we can carry heavy loads with rest in our soul and contentment in our heart. That’s what the apostle Paul discovered. It’s exactly what he discovered in a Roman dungeon, on death row, when he said (Philippians 4:11-13):

I’m not referring to being in need, for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well fed, and of going hungry; of having plenty, and of being in need. For I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Do you get it? For Paul, contentment wasn’t at all dependent on his circumstances. He’s content with whatever he has, whatever he is, whatever’s going on around him, whatever’s happening to him. He’s content even when his stomach is grumbling because he’s discovered that in his experience, he can get through anything through Jesus who strengthens him. And just as he sat there in his dungeon having learned to be content through experiencing all manner of things with Jesus by his side, so can you and I. All we need to do is draw close to Jesus.

Let’s go back to that picture of those two oxen yoked together: Jesus on one side, you on the other side. The point is they’re both carrying the load, but in order to do so, they have to be close together; shoulder to shoulder, heading in the same direction. When you’re close to someone, you can sense their mood; you can hear their whispers; you can feel what they’re feeling; you don’t even have to say a word. And when one turns slightly to the right, the other one just follows naturally along. That’s the picture of a life with Jesus: Journeying through life yoked together.

The problem for way too many people is that they’re miles away from Jesus, in the sense that they haven’t been spending time with Him; they haven’t been praying and seeking His will; they haven’t been reading His Word and thinking about it and chewing it over and praying it over and listening go Him; they haven’t been willing to yield to His direction and guidance, and so then, when the going gets tough, they’re wondering: ‘Where is Jesus?’

Let me say this to you, and to me: We all need to hear this. He’s been there all along, dummy. Once you accept Jesus into your life, He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you, and He’s not the One who wandered off; you have; I have. Contentment is the blessing that comes in the good times and in the bad when we’re close to Jesus, so step one: Get close to Jesus. Make time for Him; read His Word; pray; listen; fellowship with the Lord through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in you. Looking for contentment? This is the only place you’re going to find it, let me tell you.

IT'S ALL ABOUT FOCUS

The thing that strikes me about the apostle Paul is that after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, the focus of his life changed completely. Up to that point, sure, Paul had been a religious man; he’d been a Pharisee, following all the rules of God’s law to the nth degree, but after he encountered Jesus – the risen Jesus out there on that road, this man who was so much about rules and regulations gained a joy and a contentment that goes completely beyond anything that we can possibly understand in the natural realm.

We were looking earlier at the contentment he expressed about his circumstances, sitting there (as he was) on death row in a Roman dungeon, but a little earlier in that same chapter (Philippians 4:4-6), he writes this. He says:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say to you: Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone, because the Lord is near. Don’t 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 passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Those are the words of a man who is so at peace, so content with what God’s called him to do and where God’s placed him to be, and even the threat over his life. Completely content. Completely at-peace. So much so that he can’t contain it. So much so that he has to cry out from his prison-cell: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say rejoice’.

Friends, that’s what happens. Contentment wells up within us, until it becomes not just a nice warm feeling, but an uncontainable river of joy. Something we can’t keep inside. We have to let it out, but it all begins and ends with a life that’s completely focused on Jesus: The Christ, the Son of God, who knows what it is to suffer; a man of sorrows; a man of tears, the prophet tells us. Everything about Paul was focused on his Lord and his Saviour, Jesus. That’s what gave him the contentment and the joy beyond belief.

So, what about you? What about your life? What’s your focus? Are you focused on you, or are you focused on Jesus? Are you focused on what you want to get out of life, or are you focused on what Jesus has called you to do? They’re questions we need to be asking ourselves because that’s where contentment lies, or not. The longer we keep trying to click the ticket as it were, as long as we’re always looking for what’s in it for us, we’ll never find the contentment we’ve been looking for.

I want to challenge you today to go back and read that whole chapter in 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4) and ask yourself: ‘Is this how I’m living my life?’ Because if it’s not, it should be. This is the beginning of the road to contentment. Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul writes:

Let each of you lead the life the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you.

We’re going to talk about that a whole bunch more another time, but for the moment, can I just say this to you? Get on with your life! Go and live the life that the Lord has assigned to you – the life He’s called you to. Stop worrying about what’s in it for you; stop being surprised when it involves suffering; stop trying to wish that suffering away … Just get on with it, the way that Jesus got on with the business of saving you, through His death on the cross. There is such great contentment in Christ, and in Christ alone; in the life that He’s called you to, the one He’s preordained for you – in that life alone. Just go and live that life for Jesus, and you’ll be amazed how all the other stuff just stops mattering.

Many people today, believe in God but don’t acknowledge Him as God. Many have a sense of God’s goodness, but they don’t live in that goodness and then they wonder why things life isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. When it comes to Jesus, all too many people – by how they live their lives, end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

It’s amazing here we are in another Christmas week with the whole year gone and we’re about to do that whole Christmas thing. A few years ago I was sharing a Christmas message in July with the church in Sydney. And we were singing some Christmas carols and we were having Christmas in July and after the service some people said to me, "You know, it felt really weird singing Christmas carols in the middle of the year."

It’s a bit funny isn’t it? We’re somehow conditioned to do the Christmas thing at Christmas time in December. In the same way that people who live in the Northern Hemisphere can’t conceive Australian’s like me having Christmas in the middle of summer. Sitting on a beach somewhere maybe eating prawns or having a BBQ while the snow coming down in the Northern Hemisphere.

Actually, it’s quite natural for us to have seasons and festivals. The whole festivals and traditions that surround the things that we do throughout the year, actually to turn out to be very, very important to society. Back in early civilisation sociologists tell us, that the whole issue of regular festivals created some stability, created a heartbeat and a cycle and a sense of celebration periodically which was quite important to the development of a society.

Well, what about Christmas? Let’s have a look at, just quickly, at the history of Christmas because it’s a strange history. The early church celebrated the death of Christ that’s Easter and the death of the martyrs of the church but not the birth of people and certainly not the birth of Jesus.

The first mention of a Christ’s mass on the Roman calendar was 336 AD. Almost well, three centuries after Christ was alive. And the reason that they had this thing called a Christ’s mass because there was a huge controversy raging in the church at the time over the nature of the person of Jesus. Was he truly God, that is God become man in the flesh or was he somehow a created being? And so the Christ’s mass was an argument against that heresy. It is was an urgency to proclaim the reality of the incarnation of God becoming man. And it spread right across the church by about the end of the fourth century.

So why did they pick December 25^th? Was that Jesus’ birthday? Well, actually we don’t have any evidence to suggest that it was but there was ample evidence to suggest that it wasn’t because the story of Jesus birth says that there were shepherds out tending their flocks by night. Now of course December is the middle of winter and it would be very unlikely for the shepherds to have been out in the middle winter tending their flocks because generally in winter they bought the flocks into a central area within villages and they weren’t grazing out the pastures by night because it was just too cold. So the chances are that Jesus wasn’t born on 25^th December.

Actually, the reason we have Christmas on 25^th December is because it was a Roman winter solstice festival, a pagan festival. And Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire so they decided to transform this pagan festival which was about the sun, into a Christian festival about the Son.

So instead of suppressing this pagan festival what happened was it was transformed into a Christian festival. And there were many parallel European festivals in the middle of December. It was the end of the harvest season, people prepared special foods, they decorated their homes with greenery, there was gift giving. So by about the 1100’s this pagan festival and this social festival and the Christian thing converged and St Nicholas had become a symbol of gift-giving.

It wasn’t though until the Middle Ages that it was first called Christmas. And it’s popularity grew until the Reformation, until that time when Martin Luther stood up against some of the excesses that were happening in the Catholic church. And Christmas was then considered to be pagan. The non-religious elements were seen to be wrong so in the 1600’s Christmas was actually outlawed in both England and America.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that two more customs become popular, the Christmas tree and the sending of Christmas cards and of course by the 1900’s commerce and retail had taken over and Christmas became quite commercialised. So this celebration that we hold as sacred is really a conglomeration of pagan and cultural festivals, historically reinterpreted. And the Christian dimension is only there to the extent that it was required to argue against a heresy in the early church.

Well, so what? I mean 2000 years on, ok we celebrate this thing and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, primarily it’s about shopping it would seem. What does that whole incarnation thing mean to us today? Is it just a festival or does it have a meaning?

I suspect that in answering that question of what’s the relevance of the birth of Jesus today we have a problem or two. Let’s just think about it for a minute, here’s this baby and this baby Jesus was born in Bethlehem in a stable and laid in a manger. And the purpose ultimately of Jesus coming to the earth as a man was for Him to die on the cross, for Him to die and rise again so that our sins could be forgiven. That’s the theological answer.

But you know, Jesus actually spent 30 something years on this earth. He was a baby, he grew up, he became a man, he had a public ministry and then he went to the cross. I mean if the only reason for Jesus to come onto this earth was to die to pay for your sins and mine if that’s the only theological reason, why didn’t they just kill the baby? Why didn’t they just sacrifice the baby, why wasn’t that God’s plan? It certainly would have been more spectacular.

But no, no Jesus had a life. He grew up. We see a story about his birth, we see that circumcised when he was eight days old, we see him in the temple in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old. We know that he grew up as an apprentice carpenter working in Joseph’s carpenter shop and it wasn’t until he was in his early 30’s that he began his public ministry and then he had a three and half ministry before he was tried, crucified buried and rose again.

So there must be a little bit more to this whole thing of Jesus coming from God to be a man to live on this earth. John the apostle puts it this way:

The word became flesh. Jesus, God’s expression of his love became a human being.

That’s the one thing that Christians celebrate at Christmas time. The question is what does it mean? How does it impact? How is it relevant to you and to me?

To me, there are three key elements to this. I’d like to start, if you have a bible grab it, we’re going to have a look at Hebrews. That’s a book in the New Testament towards the end, Chapter 1:1-4. have a listen to what it says:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets. But in these last days he’s spoken to us by His Son whom he appointed heir of all things through whom he also created the worlds. Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he made purification for his sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having becoming as much superior to angels as the name as he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Isn’t it interesting? This book to the Hebrews to the Jews, it’s a letter about Jesus to the Jews begins by saying long, long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets. This is the old Eden language; it’s the Eden language of love. It’s the language where God when He created Adam and Eve walked with them in the garden in the cool of the night.

Adam and Eve spoke with God. God spoke with Adam and Eve. We were made to be in God’s presence. And then through Adam and Eve’s rebellion, through their decision to disobey God in just the one little thing that God said don’t do. Don’t eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of right and wrong. Humanity emigrated out of God’s presence. Adam and Even emigrated out of the garden of Eden into a tough, tough world. And whenever a language leaves it’s Motherland it becomes distorted.

It’s interesting I come from a German background and when I grew up as a child in our household I learned to speak German. But when I went back to Europe as a child, what I discovered is that the version of German that we spoke here was kind of a bastardised version. It was bits of English thrown in. The dialect was different.

When a language leaves the Motherland it becomes distorted. And when we as humanity left the place that we were all always intended to be, God’s presence, through our rebellion then that language of love became distorted. And the writer of Hebrews says here, that God spoke in many and various ways through the prophets and we see through the history of Israel right through the Old Testament that God sent prophet after prophet after prophet to tell, to tell the people what? To say God loves you. God wants you to come back to Him. You don’t have to have dishonesty, injustice in the land you don’t have to go and worship other idols you don’t and to go and do all these silly things that are going to hurt you. There’s a better way. Come back to God. Live in relationship with Him.

And prophet and prophet after prophet spoke light and the people chose darkness, spoke good and the people chose evil. Spoke sweetness and the people chose bitterness. And then we wonder why things are going badly. Then we wonder why we’re struggling we wonder why there are wars. We wonder why we are hurt.

The prophets came to God’s people Israel over centuries and God spoke through them but the people rejected the prophets and so what we now celebrate to be Christmas, God took a decisive step. God decided to speak in way that we couldn’t miss. God sent his Son, Jesus.

One of the three persons of the trinity the Godhead, one God, three person, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. What a mystery. And God chose to make one of those persons who had dwelled with Him and in Him as God for all eternity into a man.

As I said before John’s gospel begins by saying:

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

The word is Jesus and then The Word became flesh and lived amongst us. And we’ve seen this glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son full of grace and truth. God wants to speak a language of love. The same language He spoke in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The same language that He spoke through his prophets but was rejected by his people. And so He sent his Son. And here in the beginning in the book of Hebrews Chapter 1, verse 3:

That Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.

Now that word the exact imprint only appears once. It’s a Greek word, it only appears once in the New Testament and it literally means like you know how a coin is created, they have the blank coin and then they have a dye like a metal imprinter and they bang the dye into the coin and what comes out on the coin is the exact imprint from the dye. The picture, the words exactly the same and that’s what the writer of Hebrews is saying here, Jesus is exactly the same. He is the spirit of God imprinted in the flesh of a man.

Martin Luther spoke about God being deep graven in the flesh. Jesus is God’s spilling out the old Eden language of love from A to Z in words that you and I can understand. Why is that important as we look at Christmas, why is that important? Let’s look at three examples. Again if you have a bible flick back go to the gospel of Luke Chapter 18, verse 35. It’s about Jesus healing a blind beggar near Jericho:

As he approached a blind man was sitting by the road side begging. When he heard the crowd going by he’d ask what was happening. They told him, ‘Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.’ Then he shouted, ‘Jesus son of David, have mercy on me.’ Those who were in front sternly ordered the man to be quiet but he shouted even more loudly, ‘Son of David have mercy on me.’

Jesus stood still and ordered the man be brought to him. And when he came near he asked, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And the man said, ‘Lord let me see.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight because faith has saved you.’ And immediately the man regained his sight and followed Jesus and glorified God and all the people when they saw it, the praised God.

So when you and I look at that story, this nobody, this beggar, smelly, poor, blind beggar on the side of the road and here is Jesus he’s got crowds following him he’s like a rock star. He’s a celebrity because he’s doing amazing things. And somewhere in the midst of all that crowd, Jesus hears this blind beggar cry out and he stops. He stops the crowd and says to the crowd, "Bring me that blind beggar." And he heals the man. This nobody.

And when you and I look at that story about Jesus and all the other stories about Jesus, when we look at that we can say that’s what God is like. The exact image. Jesus is exactly like God. That tenderness for the nobodies, that tenderness for the least, that deep respect and love that Jesus has for those flotsam and jetsam people on the outside of society.

The reason that the incarnation, that theological term again, the reason that Christmas is so important is that it gives us God in the flesh. It gives us a God that we can understand. Jesus is God saying "I love you" in a language that we understand. And when we sometimes think of God being an old man with a big stick, you know all we have to do is look at Jesus and see the love that God has for us. Unless Jesus came, God as a man, we could never hear language we can really understand.

The second thing that Jesus becoming a man does for us is confers value on you and me. Flick back to the book of Hebrews Chapter 2, verses 10-11:

It what was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one brother. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

And look down at verse 14:

Since therefore the children share flesh and blood he himself likewise shared the same things.

And again verse 17:

Therefore he had to come like his brothers and sisters in every respect so that he might be merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God.

He came to be one of us. God is saying something to us.

Let me share a story with you. Back on 26^th August 1910 a woman by the name of Agnes Bojaxhiu was born. Her family belonged to the Albanian community, her Father was a businessman, he owned a building company and he was connected to a food shop. He travelled a lot and was multi-lingual and very interested in politics.

Totally unexpectedly when Agnes was nine her Father died. It was 1919 and her mother had to raise the three children alone. To meet their needs she sewed wedding dresses, did embroidery and worked hard. In spite of all of this, she made time for the education of her children.

When Agnes grew up she moved to Calcutta. We know her by another name, Mother Teresa. This is what Mother Teresa wrote:

The poor are very wonderful people. One evening we went out and picked up four people from the street. One of them was in the most terrible condition and I told the other sisters you look after the other three and I’ll take care of this one that looks worse. So I did for her all that my love could do. I put her in a bed and there was such a beautiful smile on her face, she took hold of my hand and said only one word ‘Thank you.’ And she died, and she died with a smile on her face.

Like that man that we picked up from the drain, half-eaten with worms and we bought him home. He said, ‘I lived like an animal on the street but I’m going to die like an angel, loved and cared for.’ And it was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man who could speak like that, who could die without blaming, without cursing anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel, this is the greatness of the poor people.

And she went on to say it hurt Jesus to love us. It hurt him.

Imagine what Agnes Bojaxhiu gave up to be Mother Teresa. She went and became one of them. And she was with them as they died in their poverty. She confers such great value and dignity on those people by being there and being one of them. And it’s the same with God becoming man and coming here and being one of us and suffering. And knowing what it’s like to struggle going through everything you and I go through. He confers such enormous value on you and me. And He’s prepared to call us brothers and sisters even though He’s God.

So they’re the first two things that great language of love spoken in a way that we can understand. Secondly, becoming one of us conferring value on you and me and thirdly let me read you the last thing that I’d like to talk about the suffering, the incredible suffering of Jesus. Chapter 2, verse 10 of Hebrews:

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through his sufferings.

Chapter 5, verse 8:

Although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered.

We sometimes think that the only suffering that Jesus did was on the cross but that first reading I gave you in Hebrews 2:10 talks about sufferings – plural. His life was hard. His ministry was hard. You see in Luke chapter 9 when he’s talking to his disciples he says, ‘You faithless and perverse generation how long must I be with you and bear with you?’

The people he dealt with in ministry they were hard. He was tired some days, he was rejected some days. He was misunderstood and he healed people and they persecuted him. He had to deal with tough and hard issues. He was accompanied by women in his ministry. Don’t you think that was difficult, as a man who never married? As a leader with no peer, he had no-one else to talk to on this earth. Only God his Father. Again and again and again we see that Jesus suffered. And look at what it says in Hebrews 4 beginning at verse 14. He says:

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession because we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet is without sin. 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.

Therefore is such an important word. Why should we approach the throne of grace with boldness? Because Jesus has been here. He’s been through it. He understands it. He’s experienced the pain. He knows what we are going through.

Christmas is an amazing time because we celebrate a God who doesn’t sit in the air-conditioned comfort of heaven. We celebrate a God who becomes man. To walk like us, to struggle like us, to be misunderstood like us, to pain feel pain like us, to feel pain like us to suffer like us and to die.

Why should we come to this throne of grace with boldness? Because He knows. ‘Come to me freely’ He says, ‘Express your pain, express your need because I understand.’ And why should we come there? So that we may receive mercy, something good that we don’t deserve. When we deserve a curse we can boldly go into the throne room of God and ask for blessing. Mercy is only mercy when it’s undeserved and grace to grace help when we really need it, when we really need it.

Sometimes we think of the throne room of God as this cold, hard place with all this black marble and this big throne and this big judge sitting on the throne and you get what you deserve. No, no. Jesus is that throne of grace running towards us. Jesus is God saying "I love you so much" in language that we can understand. Jesus is God saying "I value you so much". Jesus is God saying "I understand what you are going through".

It’s great for us to have a Christmas celebration; it’s wonderful but every day’s Christmas. Every day is the day when God loves us in Christ, every day is the day when God values us in Christ. Every day is the day that God wants to run towards us with his grace through his Son Jesus Christ. That’s Christmas. Let’s have Christmas every day.

The shepherds who were there when Jesus was born were looking up at the stars, just as Abraham had been all those centuries before, when God made him the most amazing promise. Yeah, they were looking up and also back to that amazing promise, that through Abraham God would bless all the nations.

Christmas Night is, I think, the most amazing night. You know we sing that song, "O holy night, the stars, the stars are shining", and you think of the shepherds and the angels and Mary and Joseph and that baby, Jesus, God in the flesh. Part of me wishes I were there. I wish I was there and could see it and be part of it, and yet there’s another part of me that’s glad I know Jesus the way He always intended me to know Him – that is through the presence of God, the Holy Spirit in me.

When we strip away all the rubbish of Christmas, and please; I don’t mean to denigrate the whole giving presents, families getting together, celebration, holiday – they are all good things. But there’s this dimension to Christmas which is a Santa Claus, which is trying to fool our kids into thinking that these presents were brought by a guy in a red suit and reindeer and down a chimney that we don’t have, and … you know … there’s that sort of big con thing, and all the big department stores, all the shops are on the bandwagon to make money and the whole success of Christmas is measured by the retail sales figures … Give me a break! That’s the part of Christmas that I think: Aren’t we missing the point here? When we strip away all of that rubbish, Christmas itself is the most wonderful of all celebrations.

But it’s struck me how often we skip over the beginning of the New Testament, the very first chapter, the first verses in the first chapter. It begins like this:

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David and the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac was the father of Jacob and Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers.

And it just goes on, and it goes that Uzziah was the father of Jotham and Jotham was the father of Ahaz and on and on and on. And Eliud was the father of Eleazar, and I think, "Hang on a minute. If I was going to write the first chapter in the first book of the New Testament, which is about the story of the coming of the Saviour – of Jesus, would I have picked that?" I mean, excuse me, but it’s pretty boring, isn’t it? You and I look at it and we go, "Hang on. Why is it that You start the New Testament – this wonderful story about the coming of Your Son – with a long, tedious list of Perez and Zerah and Tamar and Hezron and … Why do You do that God?" I mean, when was the last time (if you happen to be a churchgoer) you went to church (you know how they have the Bible-reading before the guy or the woman get up and preach), when was the last time you heard someone read through a genealogy?

So here we have it. If we put Matthew and Jesus and Christ together, this is kind of what God I think is saying in this opening chapter. Here’s a gift from God – His anointed Saviour, Jesus, and that got me to thinking: Why a genealogy? What is God saying to us when He talks about Christmas through this long, tedious genealogy? It’s the bit that you and I want to rush over. When you get to a genealogy in the Bible, and there are a few of them throughout the Bible, I mean, I know I don’t tend to read them word for word. I say, "Ok. There’s a genealogy; are there any interesting people there that I know? Ok, let’s move on", but God chose a genealogy to open up the book of Matthew – the first book of the New Testament. What was He saying?

Genealogies, it turns out, were significant to the Jews. They were about the purity of lineage. There were three things that were important: Firstly, land and residency. They wanted to know that a Jew was a Jew; they wanted to know that this person had a right to be a resident and to own land. The second thing they needed to know was where there were priests involved because there were some people in the Jewish nation who were set aside to be priests, and their priestly authority came from their lineage (their heritage), and the third where it was really important was legal standing. Where there was a claim to royal succession, they wanted to know legally that a person was entitled to be the king if that’s what he claimed, and the public records were kept by the Sanhedrin, the sort of quasi-religious/secular ruling body, in the temple in Jerusalem.

So this isn’t just a boring list of names to the Jews, but this lineage is quite fascinating and there are three main characters in the lineage. It begins with Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Israelite nation. Halfway through, it talks about King David – the greatest king that Israel ever had, and then right at the end it comes to Jesus – the son of God. And in the case of Abraham and David, I believe what Matthew is doing is pointing back to the promises that God made to Abraham and David. We’re going to specifically go and have a look at those promises today. Let’s flick back and have a look at what God said to Abraham. If you have a Bible, open it at Genesis 12:1. This is what God said to Abraham:

The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse’.

And here’s the blessing in the tail of the blessing:

And in you, all families of the earth shall be blessed.

So, about 1,950 years before Jesus was born, God makes this initial blessing to Abraham – that in him, through his lineage, through his seed, all of the nations in the world will be blessed. Man! You know, Abraham was an old man. He was seventy-five when that promise happened; he didn’t have his first kid until he was a hundred years old. Here was this man: His heart was aching for the land that God had promised him and the son that God had promised him, and … he was just aching. And just a few pages on, if you go to Genesis 15:5, God brings Abraham outside and says:

’Look towards the heaven and count the stars if you’re able to count them.’ Then He said to Abraham, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And Abraham believed the LORD, and the LORD accounted that to him as righteousness.

What a beautiful picture! What a beautiful, tender encounter with God. Here’s this man Abraham who got a promise from God that he cannot begin to understand how it will be fulfilled, and he’s standing under the same sky, the same stars that were shining on that night two thousand years later in Bethlehem, and the Jews knew about that promise. It was the beginning of their belief in a Messiah, someone that God would send to set them free.

There was another key promise. Halfway through that genealogy in Matthew, he talks about King David who is part of Jesus’ lineage, and the crux of that promise happens in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. This is what it says:

 ‘When your days are fulfilled’ (says God to David) ‘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’ (so here God is promising him a son; that son was Solomon). ‘He shall build a house for My name’ (which Solomon did; he built the temple, but have a listen to this) ‘And I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever’ and ever and ever – for all eternity. ‘I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to Me. When he commits iniquity’ (which Solomon did), ‘I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use’ (with blows inflicted by a human being) ‘But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before Me; your throne will be established for ever.’

That is an eternal promise, and remember: When Israel was looking forward to the first Christmas (which they didn’t really know was coming), they had just spent half a millennium without a king; without the promised king, so they were looking for this promise to be fulfilled. They were looking for their king back – God’s anointed Messiah, which is how kings were referred to in Israel.

So here are two promises together: A king who will rule forever, who will be a blessing to all the nations. So, what happens next? Well, we talked about it. We talked about it last week if you were with me. Solomon was a good king, but he went off the rails, and after him, Israel split in two. There was the north, which was called Israel; there were ten tribes. There was the south, which was Judah and Benjamin, and they worshipped idols and they did things that were wrong and God sent prophets to call them back – to warn them of a coming judgment. They gave Israel this message: Come back to your God. Remember the covenant (the promise): I’ll be your God; you’ll be My people. I will establish your throne for ever and ever … Do they listen? No. You look around the world today, and God is calling people back to Him; a lot of them, do they listen? No.

So, as we talked about last week, in 586 BC, the Babylonians came (the world-power); they destroyed Jerusalem; they took the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, into exile; they virtually annihilated the north Israel, and the monarchy was destroyed – this line, this line of kingship, where there had been a promise to David that his son Solomon will have a line that is established for ever. Well, Zedekiah was the last king. The Davidic line was broken. What happened to the promise? There was a lot of confusion and fear. "Has God failed? Has He left us? What’s going on?" and 70 years later they come back.

But after the Babylonians, the Ptolemaits and the Seleucids, and then a brief period in 167 BC. After Antioch had desecrated the temple by sacrificing pigs, there was a Maccabean revolt, and for 127 years they were free – free for the last time until 1945. The Romans rolled in, 40 BC; Herod the Great was there till 4 BC, then Herod Antipas in Galilee … I mean, all these other people were ruling this free nation of Israel that were God’s people. They were supposed to be living in the promised land. For a half a millennium they have no king. For us, that’d be like having no democracy. They have a Roman emperor; they have a false king Herod; they have the Sanhedrin, which is a corrupt body of religious leaders that are in bed with the Romans; they have a governor, and this messy corrupt Malay, full of religious political corruption.

We see it when Jesus was ultimately put on trial. He went first to the chief priest; then to the Sanhedrin; then to Pilate; then to Herod Antipas; then back to Pilate again. Brutal, corrupt regime.

God’s people who were meant to be free, who were brought out of Egypt to be free, are oppressed, but they remembered God’s promises to Abraham and to David. They remembered the Red Sea; they remembered the freedom they were supposed to have, so what do you think they were looking for? They were waiting for the promised Messiah. What did He look like? Well, John the Baptist tells us in Luke 3:15:

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John whether he might be the Messiah (so, John the Baptist who came before Jesus, people were thinking maybe he’s the one, and John said no, hang on) ‘I baptise you with water, but there is One more powerful coming after me, one whose sandals I’m not fit to tie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire.’

And again as we looked at last week:

Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’

And some said, ‘Well, John the Baptist. Maybe you’re Elijah. Maybe you’re Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.’

The people expected a Messiah! They desired one! They were waiting for one! They were hoping for one, but it’s a bit like the end of the world today; it was kind of mixed up. What would He look like? How would He come? There were lots of Jesuses wandering round. There were lots of people wandering round at the time, claiming to be the Messiah. There was a lot of hype. Pick the right one. Which one is the one that God has chosen for us? And then, then we have Matthew’s gospel, written about 60 or 70 years AD, after Jesus, and there was a whole tussle between Jews and Christians. He wasn’t the Messiah; yes He was, no He wasn’t, yes He was … So Matthew is writing into this situation, 60 or 70 years AD, and he decides to begin with a genealogy – a genealogy that establishes that Jesus is descended from Abraham, down through David, down through Mary, and Jesus.

"So you don’t believe me?" says Matthew, "Go and check it out. Go to the temple; go and check the archives; look at what’s on the public record", because it was a matter of public record. The record of generation to generation to generation was stored by the Sanhedrin in the temple.

So here, Matthew is writing down this genealogy to a bunch of people who could have gone to the temple and disproven him, and interestingly, while Matthew writes the genealogy of Jesus through His mother Mary (we’ll talk about that specifically in a minute), Luke writes His legal or royal succession entitlement. He writes it through His father Joseph. Now, we know that Jesus wasn’t fathered by Joseph, but legally in that society, it was a patriarchal society, so if Jesus claimed a right as a king, then that right had to be established through His patriarchal line – through His father which, to people, was Joseph.

So the genealogy is about establishing on the reliability of the public record that Jesus is descended from Abraham, through David, through Solomon, and has a right to claim to be the Messiah. The genealogy links Jesus back to God’s promises – God’s vast plan. God is saying to us through the genealogy: "He is the One that I chose; that I predicted through My prophets; He is the One"!

Well, so what? So what for you and me, here today? There are a couple of answers to the so-what question. The first one is this: God keeps His promises, but not always the way we expect. In this huge historical sweep, as we read the list of prophecies – you know, all the prophecies that were made; I read a few of them out last week, here are a few of them: That He will come from a woman’s womb; that He will be born to a virgin; that He will be born in Bethlehem; that murder will surround His birth; that He will be given the name God is with us; that He will be given gifts; that He will be taken to Egypt and that.

All of these things were prophesied centuries before His birth, just like the promises to Abraham and to David, and all of these things came to pass. O holy night, the stars, the stars are shining … As the people who were there when Jesus was born were looking up at the stars, as the shepherds were looking up at the stars, they were looking up, back to the promise that God made to Abraham 1,950 years before: That through him, God would bless all the nations, and here we are two thousand years after the birth of Christ, four thousand years after that promise was made to Abraham, and we are the ones who are being blessed through Abraham – through his lineage; through his Jesus who came to die for you and me, to give us eternal life.

The promise is fulfilled in Jesus here and now, to you and to me, and God makes some more promises. He promises that if we believe in this Jesus, we will have eternal life. We’ll be marked with a seal of His Holy Spirit; with the presence of God in us; with God’s power; with a God who is with us. He will never leave us. He will never, never leave us, and He will come again – Jesus. They are all the promises that are yet to come, and we can look back through this lineage, back to the promises made through the prophets; through Abraham; through David, and say, ‘Hang on a minute. God is a God who fulfills His promises. God is a faithful God’!

This isn’t blind faith; yes it’s a leap; yes, ultimately we have to take a step of faith, but we can take that step of faith by looking at the promises that God delivered on … through this genealogy; through what He began the New Testament with, and when the devil comes to accuse you and me, we can say to the devil, "Read this and weep, because I am standing on the promises of God in Jesus Christ". There are so many things that cry out and say, "I am the Messiah!" and by beginning Matthew’s gospel with this genealogy, God is saying, "No you’re not. This is My Messiah. This Jesus is My Messiah".

And the other part of this genealogy that is really profound is that, as you look back in the names in this genealogy, there are some people in there that were prophesied about. There were some people who were even unknown – sixteen of them. There are kings, there are paupers; there are Jews, there are Gentiles; there are good, there are bad, but there is no distinction because all sin and fall short of the glory of God. I mean David, King David was a good guy, but he committed adultery and murder.

Interestingly there are five women in this genealogy. Now women were never, never listed in genealogies. You and I know that the most reliable form of genealogy is the matriarchal genealogy because you always know who someone’s mother was, but you may not always know who someone’s father is, but Israel was a patriarchal society, so genealogies were always expressed in terms of men. Women were almost considered to be chattels. It’s sad, but it’s true. They had no legal rights; they couldn’t own land; they couldn’t inherit anything; they couldn’t testify in a court of law, and they were never, never listed in genealogies, and yet, Matthew lists five women in the genealogy of Jesus, and they are remarkable for what they weren’t. The first one in verse 3 is Tamar. Well, she pretended to be a temple prostitute. She was Judah’s daughter-in-law, and she went to bed with him. She committed adultery with him. You can read about it in Genesis 38.

The second is Rahab (in verse 5). Well, she was a prostitute from Jericho. You can read about her in Joshua 2:1-7.

The third one (in verse 5 here in Matthew) is Ruth. Well, she was a Moabite. She was an enemy. Have a listen to what the Old Testament says about Moabites. Deuteronomy 23:3:

An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants shall ever enter the assembly of the LORD for ever.

So Ruth was an enemy of the state, and she’s in Jesus’ genealogy.

Verse 6: The next one is the wife of Uriah, who was Bathsheba. Bathsheba was notable because King David committed adultery with her. He had Uriah murdered; his first child with Bathsheba died; David’s second child with Bathsheba was Solomon – the next king of Israel. It’s a testimony of God’s grace. You can read about it in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

And the last woman is Mary in verse 16 – this woman who has conceived a son out of wedlock. I believe, firmly, that that child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but in that society, that brought enormous shame and scandal on her.

So here are these five women – women of immorality, women of scandal each one of them, and yet they’re in Jesus’ genealogy. Jesus is the only person who could choose His ancestors, who could choose when He would be born and how He would be born, and He chooses these five women in His genealogy. What is God saying to us in all of that? I believe He’s saying this: There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female, no black or white, because all are one in Jesus Christ.

Have you ever felt as though you are not good enough to be part of Christ’s family? I have. We need to think again. This genealogy is not only a genealogy of authenticity – of who Jesus is; it is a genealogy of grace. It is a genealogy of inclusion. It says to us that Christmas is for everyone; for each one of us, for you and for me. Listen to me:

Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God (listen again). So that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient and equipped for every good work.

This genealogy is far from boring; this genealogy is food for my soul. This genealogy is Christmas brought alive! This genealogy is a feast for my heart, because it says to me that Jesus is the Christ. You and I can stand on the historical record and know He is the Christ.

This genealogy says that God keeps His promises – to Abraham, to David, to you and to me, over millennia, and this genealogy lets us tell the difference between false Messiahs and our Jesus. Ain’t boring is it? Pretty exciting. It’s a message about Christmas. It’s a message about the exciting new thing that God has done in the person of Jesus Christ. My prayer for you is that this genealogy will be a message that sets your heart on fire for God. I pray that in Jesus Christ’s name.

Here we are … looking forward to Christmas … again. Can you believe it? But turn the clock back to that first Christmas. What were people looking forward to back then and what does that mean for us today? Let’s find out.

Well it’s that the time of year again. Here we are just a few weeks out looking forward to Christmas. Again. Can you believe it? They just seem to roll around so quickly.

Well, what are we looking forward to when we look forward to Christmas? Maybe it’s a rest or a holiday. Maybe you’re looking forward to the family gathering or the presents or maybe there’s something more.

Looking forward to Christmas it’s kind of a funny thing. You know over the years as I’ve grown up we’re you’re a kid it’s different you look forward to the presents you look forward to the excitement you look forward to all that summer holidays stuff. But I guess for me as I’ve grown up and you’re in the workforce you don’t get the sorts of holidays you used to get when you were a kid at school.

To tell you the truth as I look forward to Christmas of course living in the southern hemisphere it’s summer for us. As I look forward to Christmas the biggest thing that my body looks forward to quite frankly is a rest. You know, just the ability to stop producing and stop doing and just have a time with my wife and my daughter and my family. Just to rest for a few weeks over that period.

Yet somehow in these weeks leading up to Christmas, we seem to race around and rack up bills on the credit cards busy preparing for what? My hunch is that we almost never stop and think what am I really looking forward to when it comes to Christmas?

Let’s be honest, I’m being honest with you. One of the biggest things I look forward to is that the notion of just having a rest. And that’s natural that, that’s ok. But I wonder in all the racing around, all the doing all the stuff that we’re involved in, I wonder whether sometimes it’s just not easy to miss what’s happening at Christmas to miss what God always intended should happen at Christmas.

That whole issue of what are we looking forward to it is as valid a question today as it was back 2000 years ago at the first Christmas. Let’s just step back in time for a minute and look at what was happening for the nation of Israel when they were approaching whether they knew it or not the very first Christmas. The 2000 years of the life of Israel leading up to the birth of Jesus so that’s beginning about 4000 years ago when God first spoke to Abraham the Father of the Israelite nation.

Well, that 2000 leading up to the birth of Christ... it was a real rollercoaster ride. They had some big ups and some big downs. They’d began their lives as a nation in slavery in Egypt and then God released them from that and took them to the desert under Moses leadership for 40 years. Then he took them into the promised land, the land of Israel where they had to fight to take possession of the land. And over the next several hundred years they had some real blessings and abundances as they lived their lives for God as they lived their lives as God had always intended them to live those lives.

As I said it was the land flowing milk and honey. It was a nation blessed they had some great Kings. They had some lousy Kings too. And over the coming centuries, God sent prophets to them. Men whose job it was to speak God’s will into the life of the nation of Israel. Often we think of a prophet as being someone who predicts the future and in part, the prophets did that but only about 5% of the prophetic writings are about predicting the future. The other 95% are about speaking God’s love and God’s warnings and God’s encouragement into the lives of His chosen people, the nation of Israel.

Sometimes what the prophets on behalf of God was really encouraging. Things like, look there is a big battle coming up but let God fight this battle for you. This is God’s battle, let him fight just stand and watch and see what He will do for you. That’s pretty encouraging stuff.

But sometimes, sometimes the prophets had some dire warnings. So often the Kings of Israel or the people or the priests strayed away from God. They married into the nations around them. They ended up worshipping idols, they ended up doing all sorts of things that just weren’t God’s will for them. And so God often sent messages through his prophets when the people had strayed from God to warm them, to call them back.

Those were very difficult and tough messages and some of them were messages of judgment. But as well as the real prophets, those that were genuinely appointed by God, speaking into the life of Israel, there were also some self-styled false prophets. They were saying everything is ok just hang loose enjoy life do you what feels good. In fact, we know that there were some false prophets when one of the greatest prophets Isaiah was prophesying God’s judgment to the nation of Israel because they were worshipping idols. These other prophets were saying "No, no, no everything’s fine." It’s a bit like today really.

Here we are in the West about 70% of people say they believe in God, a god of some sort and in this media generation that we have everyone and everything seems to be about talking at us. And some of them we know, we listen to that voice and they have a genuine ring about them. You listen, you think man I think God is talking to me through that person or through that voice and others, others laugh and chortle at what God’s saying. They look at God’s people and say what a bunch of losers. Look really the answers out here buy that new car, spend the money, get the career, go on the fantastic holiday

None of those things are bad, none of those things in themselves are bad, until they displace our first love. That beautiful relationship that God wants us to have with Him. So in a sense, even though the society was different and the times were different there is a strong parallel between what was going on in Israel way back then in those hundreds and thousands of years leading up to the birth of Jesus and what’s going on in our society today.

In about 596 or 597 BC there was a really ugly thing that happened. A number of the prophets had been prophesying to Israel saying look if you don’t get your act together here, if you don’t start living the life God wants you to lead, if you don’t start honouring God first and seeing that justice is done in the land and loving the people around you, there is a terrible judgment that is going to fall on you. And we know historically that in 596 or 597 BC that the Babylonians came and they took over Israel, they took over Jerusalem they razed Jerusalem l to the ground they destroyed the temple and they took Israelites into captivity for 70 years as slaves in Babylon.

And in a sense from that point onwards it was downhill all the way. The last King that reigned, reigned just at that point and after that there was no more King for Israel. So here was Israel God’s chosen people, God lived in the temple he was doing wonderful things for them but he called judgment down upon them. And after the Babylonians sure they came back into Judea and back into Jerusalem they rebuilt the temple but they were never under self-rule again except for a brief period.

The Babylonians were the world power and then the Persians and then the Ptolemites and the Seleucids from 597 BC right through to 167 BC what 400 something years, Israel was an occupied territory.

It was an occupied country out of the occupation, out of the pain out of the oppression, God has appointed a number of prophets to speak about a Messiah, a king someone who would come and bring freedom and peace. A messiah means literally God’s anointed one. The kings of Israel were referred to as messiahs they were God’s anointed ruler.

And so the prophets time and time again were pointing at some ruler that would come and bring freedom back to the captives. That would set them free from all of this pain and occupation. And as we look through the Old Testament which was written over a period of about 1400 or 1500 years, there are no less than 120 predictions and prophecies pointing forward to this one messiah, to this thing that we now call Christmas. Let me just go through a few of those prophecies because they are really amazing. We’re just going to quickly skim through just a few of them. Next week, we’ll have a look at a couple of them in quite a bit of detail.

But listen to some of the prophecies. In Exodus Chapter 12 it was prophesied that when Jesus was crucified that none of his bones would be broken. That is so specific and it was true. That’s exactly what happened. There were prophecies that he would be a blessing to the Gentiles. Now that’s a really radical thing because Israel understood that God was the God of the Jews not the God of the Gentiles and yet there were multiple prophecies that this new Messiah would be a blessing to the Gentiles.

The throne David, the kingship would be established forever. That he would declared the son of God, that He would be raised again, that his hands and feet would be pierced, that he would be mocked and insulted that soldiers would cast lots for his coat. All those things actually happened. The prophecies that He would be betrayed by a friend, that he would speak in parables, that he would be born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14, that he’s be full of wisdom and power, that he would reign in mercy that he’d be rejected, suffer that he’d be silent when accused, that he’d be crucified with transgressors with the other two criminals that were crucified with Jesus on that same day. Isaiah 53:12:

That he’d be buried among the rich

Which is exactly what happened. That is an incredible array of predictions, well over 120 of them, hundreds even thousands of years before Jesus was born in such detail. There was a prophecy there to that He would be born in Bethlehem. Now some people say well you know Jesus could read the scripture like anybody he could organize to make sure that all of these prophecies were fulfilled.

It’s pretty hard to organize what town you are going to born in, It’s just a little bit hard to organize how you are going to die, just a little bit hard when you are hanging on the cross to organize some soldiers to cast lots for your clothes. So these predictions are really amazing.

In Amos 8:9 said the sun would be dark he said on that day says God I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. Zechariah predicted that Jesus would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. This is remarkable stuff.

What has it got to do with Christmas though? Berni, what are you raving on about with all this Israeli history? Well, God was making promises. God is a God of promise. And God was making promises that maybe the people didn’t fully understand. But he was pointing forward to something and that is something we today call Christmas. It’s the coming of the Messiah. But then after centuries of the prophets speaking to Israel, after literally centuries, all of a sudden, bang, they stopped speaking.

Malachi and Ezra and Nehemiah were actually the last of the prophets they stopped speaking on behalf of God in about 450 BC. After centuries God stops speaking. And there was Persian occupation and the Greeks and this brief period of independence and then the brutal Roman occupation from 40 BC onwards. So here are these people in the middle of the adversities of life in one sense just like you and me in their own context they had all this stuff going on, all this cacophony and noise. What were they looking forward to when this first Christmas was just around the corner.

They had the promises of the prophets ringing in their ears. A Messiah! An anointed one someone, who would come and bring peace, someone who would set them free. What are they looking forward to? What are they looking to get out of God’s promises through the prophets? What would you and I be looking forward to?

Freedom, safety, abundance, a good life. God promised that He would be their God, they would be his people. That they would be blessed and that they would have plenty and that they would have a good life.

But there was a sense of confusion, they weren’t sure. They had seen this false promise of that brief period of freedom. They saw the Romans they knew they hadn’t had a king for half a millennium. What form would this salvation take? How would it come?

Let’s just wind the clock forward for a moment and just take a look at the confusion that reigned about how this salvation would come. Jesus was well through his public ministry he’d performed miracles, he’d walked on water, he’d healed the blind and the sick. He’d done amazing things. And here in Mathew’s gospel 16:13 if you have a bible open it up there. Jesus says this to his disciples:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi he asks his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they said, ‘Well some say John the Baptist but others say Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ And he said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ And Simon also called said Peter answered ‘You’re the Messiah, you’re the Son of the living God’ And Jesus answered him ‘Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah because flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you but my Father in Heaven.’

See even after Jesus has been alive and doing these amazing things, there is this incredible confusion about whether Jesus is the Messiah or not. And here’s the crux of what they were thinking. They expected God to do something because the prophets had told them there would be a Messiah. But they thought of it in traditional terms. They were expecting a prophet. They were expecting maybe a King who was a warrior like David. Someone who would raise up an army and throw the Romans out and all of a sudden there would be freedom in the land again. But God wasn’t doing something traditional; God was doing a new thing.

When he sent his Son Jesus to come and be here with us on this earth he was doing a startling, surprising new thing. Listen Isaiah wrote 43:19:

God says see I’m doing a new thing. Now it’s springs it up don’t you see? I’m making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Jeremiah 31:21 writes this:

The Lord will create a new thing on earth. A woman will surround a man.

In other words, here Jeremiah pointing forward to the virgin birth. And again in Jeremiah 31:31 talks about a new covenant and new promise. God is going to do something new was the promise of the prophets but somehow the people married that up with the notion of having a Messiah a new king, someone that would lead them out of captivity into salvation and freedom. God was making a promise a fresh, new, exciting startling promise that was fulfilled on that Christmas. A promise would bring someone to be the saviour, to bring freedom to bring life but not in the way that people expected.

So here are these people looking forward to something, a promise from God but what? They were looking from within their condition, their lives. What they’d known of God’s promises, what they saw of the oppression of the Romans they were looking for a prophet, they were looking for a warrior king. And even after the miracles, the death, the resurrection his closest disciples still didn’t get it.

What about you and me? As we look forward to Christmas, how much is our present condition here and now cloud our expectations of what God is doing at Christmas. Maybe we are looking forward to a better life or a better job or some more money or some peace or some rest or some freedoms from the things that oppress us. There are so many people walking this world today who are as oppressed as the nation of Israel was under the rule of the Romans. We all have needs in our lives and there are people who have desperate needs in their lives to be free.

So here was Israel to looking forward to God’s promise from their perspective through their framework and here we are looking forward to God’s promise through what? Through our reality, through our human eyes through our life, through our needs, through the framework of all the things we see going on around us. And we look at God meeting those needs in traditional human terms.

Israel was looking for a prophet. Israel was looking for a warrior king like David to fight the Romans. God, God is doing a new thing. Because we people know matter what we believe are so often trapped in the reality of our circumstances. We’re myopic, our vision is clouded by the framework our frame of reference of here and now, of job and family and all those things we can see and touch and feel.

But Christmas, Christmas is about a new thing. Christmas isn’t a Santa Claus, Christmas is the coming of the Son of God. People sometimes say, "Berni you are such a wowser, you are trying rob us of the magic of Christmas." No, no, I’m here to tell you there is something better than the magic of Christmas. It’s the miracle of Christmas and the miracle of Christmas can only be found in that baby Jesus who was lying in that manger.

It’s surprising, it’s a new birth. Jesus later said when he was grown up he said to Nicodemus unless you are born again, you can’t see the kingdom of heaven. Christmas is about a new start in life.

There’s a sense in which faith isn’t enough, I mean Israel by and large believed in the promises of God but their judgment and their view and their understanding was clouded by their realities, their day-to-day realities. We need to go from believing to knowing. To knowing the surprise and the miracle of Christmas, to knowing this new thing. And by knowing I mean experiencing, tasting.

In my life, here and now circumstances will not stop Him. Look at the Israelites, they’d gone from occupation to occupation so many countries had rolled over the top of them and now it was the Roams. There was religious corruption going on at the time. The people were misguided but those things did not stop Jesus from coming. He came anyway. In fact, He came because of them because in the middle of all of that there was hurt, there was need.

People didn’t get it straight away, people didn’t get it when they saw him walk on water and do miracles. The disciples didn’t even get it after living with him for three and a half years. But He still came. And no matter what our circumstances are, no matter how myopic our view is of Christmas, Jesus will breakthrough.

Jesus will heal the broken-hearted He’ll heal the sick, He’ll touch us so that the weak can say I’m strong. The poor can say I’m rich. Jesus is the answer and that can be as much as a surprise to someone who is believed for a long time and never experienced, as it is to someone who never heard the message of Jesus Christ before. It’s a surprise. Jesus came to bring us a new life.

But Berni you don’t understand, God’s stopped talking to me such a long time ago. I can’t believe as much as what you’re saying about Him. I just can’t. For fifteen hundred years God spoke to Israel through the prophets and then for 450 years there was silence. They were enslaved, their land was occupied. They had a brief period of peace and freedom and the Romans arrived again. And for 450 years there was dead silence. Where is God?

And that silence was only broken by the cry of a baby in that stable in Bethlehem. God’s speaking in a new way, a surprising way in an unexpected way, proclaiming freedom and healing and mercy and not rules. Not to re-establish the kingdom of Israel but to usher in the kingdom of God. Into my life, into your life, into our realities and to see that happen and to make that happen he allowed himself to be crucified to pay for our sins. It’s a new thing, it’s a surprising thing, it’s for you and for me.

So let me ask you something. As you look forward to this Christmas what are you looking forward to? What if there’s something more. What if this Jesus wants to break into your reality and touch your heart and set you free. What are you looking forward to?

Christmas is just around the corner, can you believe it? But the sad reality is that domestic violence will again spike sharply over the Christmas period. Can you believe that? Well, too often, anger spills over during the holidays, so I thought that this week, we’d share in a timely word on anger management.

The Root Produces the Fruit

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when a seed falls to the ground and dies, ultimately it sprouts and takes root.

And if it was the seed of a plum tree – we can be pretty certain that the thing that’s growing there is going to one day produce – not apricots, not apples, not pears…..we all know, it’s going to produce plums.

Because it’s a plum tree that’s taken root. In fact, the root produces the fruit.

It’s just one of those basic facts of life that actually we don’t have to think about. The root determines the fruit.

And it’s a bit like that in our hearts. IF our hearts take root in goodness then we’ll produce good fruit. In bad things and we’ll produce bad fruit.

In sweet things and we’ll produce sweet fruit. In bitter things – and we’ll produce bitter things.

This is not rocket science – right?

This week on the program….Want to take a look at the phenomenon of anger in our society and in our lives.

Anger is a real phenomenon in the hearts of so many people. Pressure building up in life – people explode.

Like a pressure cooker – vent the steam otherwise it blows up. It's the same with people – so many people venting their anger – epidemic proportions.

• Road rage
• Supermarket rage
• Call centre rage

In fact, this weeks program is prompted by a real-life experience.

Stan the painter. He was doing some work at our little terrace house. Painting a few walls – at the same time, he was doing a big job in one of the wealthiest streets in the country.

Huge mansion – special paint $1,000 a tin – unbelievable – houses in the street worth $15-$25 million – mega wealthy. Lots of people having building work done in that street – narrow street – yet great views, massive mansions…unbelievable

Been working there for a few weeks now – and he was telling me – "You wouldn’t believe the strife between the neighbours – house I’m working on – 70 year old woman – hasn’t talked with her neighbour for 20 years. Argument over some building work.

All the neighbours are fighting… the woman I’m working for – done some work before – but now she’s so mean and nasty and swears."

Stand back from that – unbelievable… these people have everything in life – nothing they can’t buy or have or own really… everything their heart desires

Yet there’s – well a spirit of anger and bitterness and dissension…

Makes you wonder – what’s going on here. We, like Stan and his brother Douk – two Greek painters, lovely people do a great job. Honest as the day is long – wonderful men.

How can this woman be so nasty to them?

Anger and bitterness has taken root in her heart. That’s why. You let things get to you and get angry with people over and over and over again – like bitterness takes root in your heart. The root produces the fruit.

God actually talks a lot about anger – you know it’s a word that pops up 375 times in the Bible – makes it one of the leading subjects.

Anger is something that we all have to deal with – and it springs up, out of a root of bitterness.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in the NT – puts it like this:

Hebrews 12:14-15.

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated

See – there it is – the root produces the fruit.

The root of bitterness takes hold in our hearts… it springs up and causes trouble and contaminates everyone around us.

We all have a problem with anger some days – some more than others… the longer we let it go on, the more it takes hold and produces bitterness – and a bitter root produces bitter fruit.

A root – is something we cultivate and if we don’t want it to keep growing – have to stop feeding it.

Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. (Ephesians 4:26)

We all get angry from time to time – that’s not the sin – the sin is letting the sun go down on your anger – keeping it in your heart, brooding, planning revenge, going over it and over it and over it and over it…

The right way of handling it is just – get over it. Forgive and move on. Then, then we won’t be cultivating the root of bitterness which – sure as God made little green apples – will produce fruit of bitterness.

Not something we can do on our own though – I believe we need an antidote to this venom… something that heals and cleanses and just gives us a fresh perspective – let’s go back to that earlier quote….

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated.

Dealing with a Hot Temper

Let’s get down to practicalities… dealing with anger, dealing with that rising temper. When someone provokes us – you know they do something and you can feel your blood boiling and you go all red in the face… right at that moment, it’s so easy to spit out something venomous – words that we can’t take back. Words that damage a relationship. People even throw something – do something…

Sometimes, when we’re provoked, we can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to responding. Let me share a story with you:

I remember once as a consultant – some years back now - used to run an IT consulting group

I was being mucked around by a large and important client of a particular ethnic heritage…..dealing with them for months to try to kick off a project – meant a lot of money – large, global organisation. After months of investing time and effort with the management… they pulled the plug on the project.

Received an e-mail from one of the consultants working with me – info about the client – explaining that the organisation had decided not to go ahead. I blew my stack – sitting in my office reading the e-mail – couldn’t believe that they’d wasted so much of our time and resources – not fair – losing so much revenue.

I had a few choice sentiments that I almost expressed in reply to that e-mail to my fellow consultant – even typed an angry e-mail… just about to send it I thought better of it and sent a benign e-mail instead.

Just as well, I hit the “Reply to All” button and the e-mail ended up with the client as well as my colleague!!! Gulp.

Can you imagine – my thoughts of anger included some pretty vitriolic stuff about their ethnicity too.

Berni – why are you sharing this with us? Simple – we all go through this sort of thing – day by day. People, organisations, circumstances drive us insane and we want to explode.

Just the other day – a neighbour – asked them to turn their loud music down… not so hard.

Simple thing – their music was too loud. Obviously never been taught to take other people into account.

The vitriol – now he just ignores me Berni – just asked him to turn it down.

You know what I wanted to do? Just explode at him! Just tell him what I really thought. Teach him a lesson. Teach him some manners. You know this feeling don’t you? And then – HE ignores ME – he was the one that did the wrong thing.

EXPLODING is never a good thing. Never. But it’s something we all experience. Some more than others. Some – like on a hair-trigger. Anything will set them off. Anger and tantrums are ugly things.

Talking about it on the program this week – Anger Management

Some great, practical input from God’s Word today

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:19-21)

Practical – special – God’s solution.

Slow to speak and slow to become angry.

SLOW DOWN – you don’t have to react now this instant and rip someone’s head off.

Maybe this is where that piece of advice came from – "count to ten".

Nine times throughout the Bible you’ll find these words – or ones very similar

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8)

What a great concept – three parts

1. 1. Slow to anger…just hold up for a minute and cut this person some slack for the man who wouldn’t turn his music down.
   2. Abounding in steadfast love and compassion – pray for the guy.
   3. Slow to speak – just don’t say anything – don’t defend, or assert, or criticise, or judge, or belittle, or shout or scream or anything – don’t. Instead, be slow to speak.

Not easy. It begins with a change in heart. Begins by deciding that my anger is a problem. Begins by resigning from the position of tin-pot little god and centre of the universe, begins by deciding the world doesn’t owe me…

Being slow to anger and slow to respond….and when we do respond, what should we say

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) 

Wisdom – God’s wisdom – hard some days to bite our lip Hard sometimes to respond in love – each time becomes easier. Each time heals relationships – people notice this and one day, relationship so strong, have the ability to influence this person who hurt us with the love of God.

Leave it to God

Anger is one of those basic facts of life. And in many respects – it’s a natural reaction to a whole range of situations.

Sometimes we think that anger in and of itself is wrong.

Not so – God gets angry – so either God’s a sinner or anger in itself isn’t a sin.

Hmm – makes you think doesn’t it?

I passionately believe that Jesus Christ came and died for my sins and that He was and is utterly perfect – a perfect sacrifice to pay for my sins.

And yet, when He went to the temple in Jerusalem and saw that they’d turned it into a bazaar, He was angry. He made a whip and turned over the tables and drove the traders out of the temple with a whip.

Of course God is a loving God. But God is also a God of anger and ultimately of punishment.

So is anger right or wrong in our lives? And what do we do with anger?

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of anger – basically goes like this:

• I’ve been wronged by someone.
• I, therefore, feel angry.
• They owe me some recompense.
• So – I will respond in anger, to obtain vengeance.

In a sense comes out of our sense of justice

Of course – as we’ve seen on the program this week, we can have quite a distorted sense of justice. We can be touchy and selfish and throw tantrums.

And so even though actually, we haven’t been wronged, they’ve just fallen short of our expectations or we’re just being selfish – we feel wronged, and then the anger, justice, vengeance thing takes hold.

Sometimes, people do things that are clearly wrong – and we are angry.

Question is how we respond? Before the break, read this passage from NT book of:

Ephesians 4:26 – Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. 

In other words – sometimes we are angry – the question is whether we dwell on it and let it fester overnight and tomorrow and over and over and over – making room for the devil to distort our sense of justice and then this root of bitterness takes hold in our lives? Or whether we, like God are

compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. ( Psalm 103:8)

See anger in itself isn’t a sin. God is angry with those who turn their backs on Him - Judges 2:12-15

They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

And yet the wonder of God is that He is slow to anger – and ready to forgive. But ultimately when we harden our hearts and our ways against Him, we experience His anger.

So how do we make sense of all this? God gets angry but we shouldn’t? Remember – anger has it’s root in our sense of justice. That much we get from God – because we’re made in His image. God is never angry without just cause.

The problem is we can’t say the same thing about us. Our justice gyroscope is so often out of balance. And then when we do experience anger – we want to wallow in it and work it over and over and seek revenge – making room for the devil.

Anger is a natural reaction and in some cases – it’s the right reaction. Problem is when we’re the injured party, our sense of justice is questionable at best and wacky at worst. So what do we do? Romans 12:17-21

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

In other words – leave the justice thing to God. His sense of justice so much better than ours – and in any case who knows what He’s up to in that person’s life? Only He does.

Someone hurts us – the initial reaction may be anger… the same anger that God feels when He sees injustice. The thing that’s wrong is repaying that evil with evil.

Don’t take revenge – leave room for God to act. Instead, bless the enemy – God’s grace may kick in through us and bring that person to Christ. We may never see justice… but then that’s why Jesus died for you and me – so unjust – justice meets love on the cross. That's called grace.

Grace is shown to you and me – a grace He now calls us to show to others. Yes – you and I will experience anger from time to time – not to repay evil with – leave that bit to God – forgive, forget, live life to the full and bless people with the grace that’s been shown to us….not a bad plan when you think about it.