What we like hearing about most, is the love and the grace and the mercy of God. Really! But this loving God is also a God of wrath, anger and judgement. And if we don't understand that side of this amazing God of love – then we can't begin to understand God.

Yesterday on the program we chatted about cause and effect. You drink and drive and knock over a pedestrian, you're going to pay the price. Cause and effect. You eat too much of the wrong foods and don't exercise enough it's going to cut your life short. Cause and effect. You spend more than you earn, you go broke. Cause and effect.

So as much as we live in a world where we've convinced ourselves that pretty much anything goes, basically that's a lie, because we live in a world of cause and effect. And as we saw yesterday, the Apostle Paul put it this way in Galatians chapter 6 beginning at verse 7. He said:

Don't be deceived, God isn't mocked. You will reap what you sow. If you sow to your own flesh you will reap corruption from the flesh. But if you sow to the Spirit you will reap eternal life through the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what's right for we will reap at harvest time if we don't give up.

Now over the coming days we're going talk quite a bit about this harvest that Paul's been talking about. The harvest of righteousness. But today, there's something else we need to chat about first. It's the alternative to this wonderful harvest of righteousness. It's one hell of a subject but if I didn't talk about it then I wouldn't be doing my job.

The word "wrath" appears throughout the Bible some 266 times. And most of the times it's used it's talking about the wrath of God. Now, I pretty much know, we don't want to hear about God's anger and God's wrath towards those who have rebelled against Him. I know that. And I know that first instincts are, reach for the dial and turn this guy off, or change the station. I know that too.

But I want to encourage you not to do that because this short message about the wrath or God may be the most important thing you will ever, ever hear about. So stick with me. Even if it feels a bit uncomfortable just at the moment.

God is really, really clear about His impending wrath. And what that word "wrath" means is "anger that will manifest itself in the form of punishment". And He's also really clear about the things that kindle His wrath. Colossians chapter 3 beginning at verse 5 in the New Testament:

Put to death therefore whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed which is idolatry. On account of these things the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed when you were living that life. But now, you must get rid of all such things: anger, vengeance, malice, slander and abusive language from your mouth. Don't lie to one another. Seeing you have stripped off the old self with it's practices, clothe yourselves with the new self which is being renewed in the knowledge according to the image of it's creator.

Here's the amazing. I used to think that God was basically just one big long list of religious rules. Do this, do that. And to be sure I grew up in a religious tradition that was very much rule bound. But the more I read of what God has to say in His word, the more I go to the source and find our exactly what He has to say, the thing that I discover is that actually there are very few things that God says to us "don't do". Very few. Look at the list that Paul gives us here.

But now, you must get rid of all such things: anger, vengeance, malice, slander and abusive language from your mouth. Don't lie to one another.

There are a few others too, but not many. And they are all things that are blatantly wrong. They're all things that obviously have painful consequences in our lives, right? Why is it, that we kid ourselves when we say, well, you know, being a Christian's hard and all these things I'm not allowed and I'm not allowed to fun. That's not what it says! The only things that God says, "Don't do them" are the ones that are going to hurt us and hurt others.

And listen to this. If you persist in doing them then eventually even though God is slow to anger; even though He is merciful, even though He is a God a grace, eventually His wrath is going to fall. It's a simple message and it's the message I think He wants us to hear today. Galatians chapter 5 beginning at verse 19:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality, Impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealously, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I'm warning you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Look at what God's saying to us. They're blindingly, glimpsingly obvious. Hello? Do you get it? Keep on doing these things in stiff necked opposition to what I'm telling you and you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. That's what God's saying. It's that simple. And this alternative to the harvest of righteousness, this not inheriting the Kingdom of God, that's a frightening prospect. Because the alternative is living the rest of eternity – and by the way that's a very long time – it's living the rest of eternity in the wrath of God – in God's anger and God's punishment. Just picture that. Just imagine that for a moment.

Listen to the contrast, the sharp contrast between the eternity reserved for those who worship the devil – in this passage I'm about to read he's called the Beast – through their rebellion against God and those on the other who worship God through Jesus His Son. Have a listen to the contrast to what lies ahead for those ahead for those two different groups of people. It's kind of written in picture language. So let God's Word paint the picture for you. Revelation chapter 14 verse 9:

Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, "Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name." Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them."

John Lennon in his famous song Imagine sang these words:

Imagine there's no Heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, living for today …

In fact there are many living their lives imagining that. There are many living just for today. But one day they're going to be disappointed. Jesus made that absolutely clear. Matthew 10 verse 28:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Friend, God has a wonderful plan, a fantastic plan for your life. It's a plan to live in His blessing from this point on and for all eternity. He sent His son Jesus to pay for all our sin so that we can put our trust in Him and we can forgiven and we can have this new life.

But, if we reject Jesus, there's the alternative and it's not pretty. It just isn't.

These days, just about anything goes – or at least, that's what we want to believe. No more rules, no more religion. That was all so 20th century. These days, anything goes; if it feels good, do it. The problem is, though, that it doesn't always work because the universal principle of cause and effect inevitably comes into play.

We're chatting this week on the program about "Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness". It's a God thing, a God harvest an abundant harvest in fact. And yet a harvest that so many people miss out on in life, even let me say, people who love God and believe in Him. Somehow they're still missing out on the harvest.

Paul the Apostle writing to his friends at the church in Philippi way back in the 1st century, puts it like this. Philippians chapter 1 beginning at verse 9:

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and the praise of God.

What is this "righteousness"? Well, it's not a word we use so much in common day to day language anymore. "Self-righteousness" maybe is the only time we really hear this word "righteousness". So what is it? What does it matter? And why does it produce a harvest? They're all good questions, if indeed there is a harvest.

Well if God has a harvest waiting for me, I for one want my share of it, don't you? What it turns out that this whole righteousness thing is a matter of cause and effect. Let's take a look …

I guess we pretty much understand the word "right". Telling right from wrong, at least we think we do. If it's right it's right if it's wrong it's wrong. Well it's not so black and white these days, lots of shades of grey there between what people consider to be right and wrong. Particularly the wealthier nations and their people become, the more focused we become on ourselves rather than the people around us. That line between right and wrong is a bit like the shifting sands. Nevertheless we all have, I guess, have some sense of right and wrong.

But the word "righteousness", well that's more of a legal term. It has to do with the law in the sense of God's righteousness, it has to do with God's law, which is what we find in the Old Testament. The best way I've found to kind of understand it is in terms of our law today.

Let's say someone does something wrong, whether it's a minor traffic infringement or a murder, once they've done that and it's proven, they stand condemned by the law. By and large, so long as justice is done, we as a society don't have problem with that. We understand that we have to stop people from speeding in their cars right through to stopping them from murdering people.

So, we do something and as the saying goes, we find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. And then there's a debt to be paid, whether it's a $100.00 speeding fine or 25 years in prison for a murder, the law demands justice. And that justice acts both as a penalty and hopefully as a deterrent, but also it gives society a sense that justice has been done.

I mean, if a loved one of ours was killed by a drunk driver let's say, and that drunk driver is tried and convicted and given just a $50 fine, then we don't experience so much a sense of justice. On the other hand, if that drunk driver is locked up for some number of years, whilst it doesn't bring our loved one back, our sense of justice is satisfied.

And here's the thing, once the penalty or the debt has been paid by the transgressor, whatever you and I may think of them, they are free because they now have a right standing according to the law. A murderer after serving their term in prison walks out that gate a free man or a free woman, with precisely the same standing according to the law as you and I. They've served their time, they've paid their debt to society and they are now back on the right side of the law.

In a legal sense, they stand justified – and here's the word – and righteous. They are back with a right standing according to the law and that is what "righteousness" means. To be in right standing with the law.

So if we do something wrong it causes us pain let alone the pain it causes other people because we find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. Once we take our punishment and serve our dues we are righteous again in the eyes of the law. Cause and effect.

And it's like that both in our relationship with God and life generally. This is something the Apostle Paul talks about with his friends at the church at Galatia back in the 1st century AD. Have a listen. Galatians chapter 6 beginning at verse 7:

Don't be deceived' he writes, 'God isn't mocked for you will reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh you will reap corruption from the flesh. But if you sow to the Spirit you'll reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let's not grow weary in doing what's right, for we will reap at harvest time if we don't give up.

In other words, look, don't kid yourself, stop trying to get around God. Whatever you sow you're going to reap. Cause and effect. Sow rubbish you'll reap rubbish; sow goodness and you will reap goodness. So even though things are tough, even though that sometimes it feels as though the whole world's against us, even though it feels sometimes that nothing – absolutely nothing – is going our way.

Paul's saying here, in fact God's saying through Paul, sow goodness – don't get tired of doing that. Sow goodness, sow in God's direction, sow in God's way, so into his Spirit and just at the right time you'll reap a harvest. A harvest of righteousness. Sowing and reaping. Cause and effect.

Now there is more to this whole righteousness thing than what we do. There's some bad news about righteousness and there's some good news. In fact, great news, fantastic news! And we're going to be checking that out next week on the program.

But right now I guess, in a world where the maxim of our day is pretty much anything goes, I just feel today we need to debunk that lie. It's a patent lie. Do what feels good and anything goes, it'll be fine. No it won't! It won't be fine! Because there's this law of cause and effect. If you and I get drunk, we hope in our car, we go driving, we knock over a pedestrian – there are going to be consequences. Cause and effect.

As you sow so shall you reap. Sow goodness and you'll reap the harvest, the abundant blessing of righteousness, a right standing with God. A God who loves us beyond what words we can say. A God who wants to bless, literally bless our socks off.

And the thing that I want to encourage you with today is this: that doing good doesn't always feel good. Let me say that again because it's important. Doing good doesn't always feel good.

Loving difficult people. Turning the other cheek. Putting others before ourselves. Buttoning our lip when we want to argue. Being humble. Being a servant. In fact often it hurts, it's tough and we want to give up. It's all too hard. This being righteous, this living out God's goodness, is really hard work sometimes and it really hurts sometimes. And Jesus knows that because it cost Him being nailed to the cross.

But we reap what we sow – that's the universal principle. As you sow so shall you reap.

So, writes Paul, let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest if we don't give up.

Don't give up. The harvest is an abundant blessing of righteousness. A blessing from God that is absolutely beyond anything that we can imagine right now, this harvest of righteousness. Don't give up.

Sin – now there's a word that goes down like a lead balloon. It's a bit … well for many people, it feels like some old fashioned religious concept from the past. But the facts are that even though it's become something of a four letter word, sin is the greatest malady in this world today.

It's Monday again and the weeks march by inexorably, don't they? Amazing. Now something that strikes me as I look around the world in which we live, is that we live in a world where just about anything goes. Even in my short lifetime – just on a half a century which in the overall scheme of history is like a drop in the ocean – things have changed radically. Let me give you an example.

When I was young, falling pregnant outside of marriage was a matter of great shame. Today, it's a lifestyle choice that many women make. Many, many couples choose to live together without making the commitment of marriage. And just in case you think I'm plucking that out of the air, the statistics tell us that in Australia at least, cohabitation before marriage has increased – wait for this – from18% of couples in 1975 to almost 60% today. It's gone from being the exception to almost being the norm.

Just the way things are these days. And divorce rates, again using Australian statistics, the number of divorces has jumped radically in my life time, from around 7,000 in 1959 to around 50,000 this year, with some 43% of marriages ending in divorce.

Things have changed. Definitely changed.

Question is: what's going on?

You know sometimes you hear people thumping the table telling us how bad things are these days. "Not like the good old days when I was young!" The implication is that this younger generation is … well, you know, they have no discipline and standards and … if only things were like they were back in the good old days.

Problem is, the good old days weren't really such good old days. Husbands still beat their wives back in "good old days". Children were still abused back in the good old days. Bad still happened in the good old days too. Let's be honest. So the last thing under the sun I want to be doing is suggesting that we somehow turn back the clock to the things will be fine again just like they were in the good old days. Because a) we can't turn the clock back and b) if we could, things weren't necessarily so grand back in those "good old days".

And there's a reason for that. Because from the moment Adam and Eve took their first bite of that apple from that one tree, the one tree that beautiful, abundant, peaceful, God said, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree", from that moment, there's been a whole theme going on in this world and it's called "sin". Let's listen to the story. Genesis Chapter 3:

Now the serpent, he was craftier than the other wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?' But the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you will die"'. But the serpent said to the woman, 'You won't die because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.'

So when the woman saw the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it's fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and make loin cloths for themselves.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.'

And God said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom you gave me, she gave me the fruit from the tree and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is it that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent tricked me and I ate.'

Now you see, things have changed in the world. We live in a world where anything goes, right? Well just about anything. Many a moral standard of yesteryear seems old fashioned and irrelevant and too many downright offensive. We're a whole bunch more relaxed about things these days compared to those rigid old rules from last century. So this notion of sin – of rebelling against God, of eating from the wrong tree – it's seems kind of outdated. A throwback from the church of the 1950's. It feels … well, irrelevant in the age that we live, doesn't it.

And there are some things from the past, the way woman were treated as chattels almost. They were terrible. It still happens in places around the world today. Or treating differently because of their skin colour or nationality. So many faults and flaws in the rigid rules from the past to be sure. And that, that's why this short three letter world 'sin' is something of a four letter word these days. A dirty word. A nasty word. A word that implies moral judgement against the standards of some rigid and flawed rules from our childhood.

But I'm not so much talking about those, about man-made rules. The thing that ushered pain and suffering into this world was our rebellion against God, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden. Read along in Chapter three of that book of Genesis and we find that there were some serious consequences for their actions. Painful consequences.

So, while "sin" is a word that seems to carry a whole bunch of religious baggage around with it, actually it speaks of our rebellion against God, and that word "sin" as it's used in the Bible means literally "to miss the mark", "to miss the whole point", "to miss out on your share". And that's the consequence of our rebellion against God. It's not this thing that there a whole bunch of rigid rules we have to follow to get our tick and dots to get into heaven. That's not it.

The point is that God is a God who loves us. He loves you, He loves me beyond anything we can imagine love to be. Writes the Apostle Paul to his friends in Ephesus. Ephesians Chapter 3 verses 18 & 19. He says:

I pray that you might have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

You know, He loves us so much, more than words can ever say. So when we turn our backs on Him, when we decide to live our lives our way, when we adopt this "anything goes" attitude, there are consequences. Simple things. Eat too much of the wrong stuff, it will ruin your health. Work too hard and don't get enough rest, it will ruin your life. Play too hard, drink too hard, it will ruin your health and your relationships.

Cause and effect. Come on. This is not rocket science. It's as plain as the nose on your face and mine. There are consequences. As much as we try and kid ourselves, as much as we try to tell ourselves we can have anything, be anything, do anything, it will all be okay – we know that's a lie and we know that there are always consequences.

We've been duped into thinking that sin is some old fashioned, irrelevant, religious word from the past, when all along it's the greatest malady in our lives. When all along that rebellion is robbing us of the fruit of a good and healthy relationship with God. A God who loves us so much, that He sent His only Son Jesus so whoever believes in Him wouldn't perish but instead would have eternal life.

Where I come from meekness is just another word for weakness. So why did Jesus say – blessed are the meek? And is meekness a quality that you and I should search out, or shun?

Can I tell you one of the most exciting things that I've discovered in life? It's this, that when I just get on and do the good things that God's called me to do day after day, not perfectly mind you, not always brilliantly but just doing them quietly, I get this deep sense of satisfaction from just doing those things.

Now that doesn't sound like a particularly earth shattering insight until you understand that for most of my life, at least the first 36 or so years I was flat out chasing and achieving success and recognition and reward and I can truly say that not once during that time did I taste the sweet delight that I know today.

It's like night and day, once the world was kind of a murky monochrome, today I get to live life in a full vibrant technicolour. I can't begin to put words around the difference and in a sense it's taken me years to kind of reflect on that and figure out what was going on.

To tell you the truth I didn't like everything Jesus had to say right from the beginning. Like this one:

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Well meekness, from where I come from, is just another word for weakness buddy, I mean it's a "dog eat dog" business world and you have to claw your way to the top and tread on other people and make it and reap it and spend it. It's all about fame and fortune buddy, it's all about making it and I had those things. At least in the sphere in which I worked.

I travelled the world speaking at large IT conferences and I had a big car and a big salary and I could eat at any restaurant I wanted to and basically I could buy just about anything I wanted to and yet the sweet delight of fulfilment in life eluded me. I was getting it all, it just wasn't satisfying me and then I became a Christian and started reading some of what Jesus had to say and this saying:

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Well it was definitely not on my hit parade. Why? I didn't want to become some mealy mouthed meek little mouse, some sort of weakling. You know wearing boring clothes, smiling lamely, letting people use me as a door mat; you go to Church on Sunday morning with an ever greying congregation. Meekness was some kind of whimpishness and failure and capitulation and then one day I read the definition of the Greek word in the New Testament that we've translated to read "meek". Let me read it to you word for word because it's not very long:

Meekness is mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit. Meekness towards God is that disposition of the spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the Old Testament the meek are those who wholly relied on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice. So meekness towards evil people means knowing that God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He's using them to purify us and that He'll deliver us in His good time.

Hmm … meekness. Meekness may not be about being a wimp but about accepting everything that happens to me as being from God and so not fighting it. Now that, that really fits with what we've been talking about this last week, flying under the radar, ditching this addiction to worldly success and recognition and having my way and reaping the reward and just quietly getting on with life and honouring God and doing the stuff He's called each one of us to do.

And when people come after us with a meat cleaver and you know, they inevitably do, just relying on God to keep us safe rather than retaliating in our own strength. Phew whee, man that is going to be hard, the more I thought about it the more I came to realise that meekness actually requires an enormous strength and self control, a meek person is someone who keeps their strength in check.

I constantly have people come against me in ministry and in life and it's amazing how many people don't understand what God's called me to do and I'm sure you have had the same from time to time.

My old way of handling was to saw them in half; I mean my tongue can make a grown man cry at 30 paces. I tell you, it's a scary thing. I can be a very scary person and I used to tear people apart limb by limb with words and with logic. Meekness … meekness is the exact opposite of that; meekness says 'I don't have to win' and that's so counter intuitive isn't it? Yet Jesus says:

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed, happy, joyous because instead of winning the odd battle today they end up winning in the long run, they inherit the earth. You see an inheritance is not something you get now; it's something you get later. Jesus is saying, "Blessed are those who lose now for they will win later." Jesus put it another way too, we looked at it yesterday on the program, He said:

Truly I tell you unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. If you love your life you'll lose it but if you hate this life in this world you'll keep it for eternity.

See again, Jesus is talking about reaping a harvest of inheritance, we're not now, later and that takes such enormous faith. It takes such enormous courage to rest in God and let other people do things and behave badly and for us not to attack them back, for us not to get our way, for us not to say, "You know something, I have rights, I've got to win here." No, Jesus wants us to leave them alone and to reap the harvest later.

And so you know when I started to live my life that way, as I said I didn't do it perfectly, I still don't do it perfectly, we all have our days but just living like that with all my heart, deciding I don't have to win anymore. Just doing the best I could knowing that day by day God would bring me battles where I'd have to lay down my right to win and it would hurt and it would be hard.

Honestly each one was difficult at the beginning but little by little I've withdrawn from being Berni the bully. My name Bernard literally means, "to be as strong as a bear". And I am, one of the strongest people you'll ever meet, mentally tough, geared to success and God has called me to lay down the winning and just day by day follow Him.

And sometimes, you know, people do things and say things and they hurt so much and that's the time when I just go to God and just say, "Lord, I just believe in your word that you've called me to lay this down. It's not about my success, my lime light, my being seen by people to win. It's about dying to self, giving up the success and the recognition for me."

You know what I've found even though it's hard, this sweet delight of trusting in His protection, in what He brings day by day and His provision. Just quietly getting on with life without fanfare or drama is such a sweet thing. Well that's my story, what's yours?

We're all programmed to win – at school and at sport and at life. But – well, what if winning is not what life's all about? What if God has a plan that is so much deeper and richer than just "winning"?

You know something in this "dog eat dog" world that we live in it seems that there's plenty of dog to go around. It's as though winning is everything; plan, do, succeed and reap the recognition and the reward. There's a lot to be said for that lot, I mean money and possessions and fame and recognition, that's what life's all about.

If only I could buy a bigger house or a better car or a new outfit then I know I'll be happy, I know I will because then people will look at me and say, 'boy, he's made it' or 'she's made it', right? Yeah right (sarcastically). But sadly it's a treadmill that so many people seem to be on, clawing their way to the top, getting their own way, standing up for their rights. There's a whole bunch of different ways we can say it but the bottom line is we just want to be seen as winners, we're recognition junkies.

I mean, okay everybody likes to win and we all like to see out sports men and women win too, our tennis players or our swimmers or our football team. We live in a society that has a 'win at all cost' mentality because the winner takes all. Then God comes along with this crazy plan that, well it's basically completely the opposite of that. Have a listen to how James puts it in the New Testament, James chapter 3:

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy or selfish ambition in your hearts, don't boast about it or deny the truth because wisdom like that doesn't come from heaven, it's earthly, it's unspiritual, it's from the devil."

"For where you have envy and selfish ambition there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure then peace loving and considerate and submissive and full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere."

"Peace makers who sow peace raise a harvest of righteousness. What causes the fights and the quarrels amongst you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you can't get it so you kill and you covet but you cannot have what you want; you quarrel, you fight, you don't have because you don't ask God. When you ask you don't receive because you ask with wrong motives or you may spend what you get on your own pleasures."

You see, that first kind of so called wisdom he's describing is the selfish kind of wisdom, the world's wisdom, we've all been on the receiving end of that. Ever been stabbed in the back? Ever been walked over and treated like a door mat? It really hurts doesn't it? You can truly say that it does come from the devil, this wisdom of the world, win at all costs. So much is done out of selfish ambition and greed.

You can see it in the Stock Market, a company declares a healthy profit and a dividend to shareholders and yet the share price drops because the market was expecting so much more, they wanted double digit growth. It's an economic model based on greed.

You see it in the work place; boardrooms are dominated by profit motives. Safety's sometimes compromised or the bosses vote themselves these huge bonuses and pay rises and the workers get nothing. And sometimes you see it on the shop floors, the shoes on the other foot, the workers are lazy, they don't put in the effort or a full days work. You see, where there is envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every evil practice.

We can all relate to that, some people succeed at the cost of the well being of others, it's a win-lose proposition, a win-lose mentality but then, then James talks about a different kind of wisdom:

.. The wisdom that comes from heaven" he said, "is first of all pure and peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peace makers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

They're interesting adjectives he uses here with this kind of wisdom; peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy. Now that's the sort of wisdom we all want to be on the receiving end of right? But giving out that sort of wisdom, handing out that sort of wisdom to others, that turns the tables. Peace, consideration, submission, mercy. You know something; when we hand out that sort of wisdom it costs us big time.

When someone deserves our retribution for what they've done and yet we show them consideration and mercy in order to have peace that costs us, we have to lay down our right of revenge and that's hard. It means not getting our own way, it means not winning, it means not getting the recognition, not having the satisfaction of revenge. It means sowing before we reap, that's a faith thing. In other words, when we have a quarrel, when we have a desire to win and instead we forgive and we make peace, we lay down our rights, it's sowing a seed. We won't get the benefit then, you see what it says:

Peace makers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

You don't reap a harvest the moment you sow a seed, it comes later at due time in the season of harvest. It's so contrary to the world's ways, so counter intuitive.

This flying under the radar, giving up our right to public adulation and victory and success and the lime light and all the things that the world says we're entitled to, it feels almost like God's saying become a loser. To live it God's way, plant a seed and believe in faith that God will give you a harvest in due season. Now Jesus explained this paradox another way, He said:

I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. If you love your life you'll lose it but if you hate this life, in this world you'll keep it for eternal life.

Jesus is talking about dying to our selfish desires, dying to the right to have recognition and just quietly getting on and following Him. No matter where it takes us, no matter what the cost, no matter how hard it is, no matter that someone's hurt us and we just want to beat them back and Jesus says, "Be a peace maker, be loving, be considerate, be submissive, be full of mercy and good fruit. Sow peace now!"

It's such a sweet delight, in my experience, that dying to myself, to our own selfish ambitions and deceit and all that stuff. You see that's the problem, James goes on to write in chapter 4:

What is the cause of fights and quarrels? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something; you don't get it so you kill and covet but you still can't have what you want. You quarrel and you fight.

See, it's about getting your own way and when we don't get our own way we get really ugly. It's so difficult, it's so difficult to fly under the radar and give all that up and yet there is such a sweet delight in that.

There's such a wonder as we live our lives day after day just quietly following after Jesus, laying down our rights, sacrificing when He calls us to sacrifice. It's not about winning, it's about honouring God with a goodness inside that will stand and remain no matter what the cost.

While the rest of the world is off chasing recognition and success – one of the most wonderful things we can get involved in is –secret service – just flying under the radar into people's hearts.

Sometimes in a quiet moment over a cup of tea in that comfortable chair in my study I get to thinking about my life and the people along the way who've really mattered. You know the people who've had an input into my life and whom I hold dear and special and amongst all those people there are just a few, just a handful who are so incredibly special to me.

My wife of course, some close friends, my mentor of 20 years, Graham, the pastor of my first Church I ever attended, Phil. Less than a dozen of them, I'm sure you're the same, they're just a few really special people in your life whom you hold dear.

Anyhow I was sitting and thinking over my cuppa, 'what makes them so special?' I mean, what's the common thread that runs through each of those relationships? Why is it that those people are so special to me?

In a sense the answer to that question is not surprising but it is profound. You see the answer is that each one, in their own way, have served me so powerfully, they had an input into my life, a secret service hidden away that other people haven't seen. Jacqui is the most wonderful wife to me; she supports me in so many ways.

I have to tell you; you would never get her into the studio, you will never get her to speak on a mic, you'll never get her up on a stage to speak, it is just not her but every time I get behind the mic she's part of that. See, her service is a secret service, her support and her encouragement and all the hard work and all the organising she does. It's hidden, you don't get to see that, it's secret.

Pastor Phil, the pastor of the first Church I attended, served me so incredibly, so sacrificially. God used him to lay the foundations of my faith, not just through what he taught from the pulpit which was brilliant but just how the man lived his life, how he sacrificed, how humble he was to serve me and all the other members of the Church.

Michael Graham my mentor of twenty years who came into my life when I was a very bright and precocious twenty something and moulded me and shaped me and imparted his wisdom to me.

I could go on and over and over again it's the same with each of these really special people. They've done things to serve me in secret; they were instruments in Gods hand that God used to mould me and shape me and turn me into someone that was useful to Him.

It's a service they performed in secret, no public recognition, no trumpets, no fanfare, no lights, no lime light, they just did it and they keep on doing it. They're people who are prepared to pay the price to serve me and to support me and to be honest with me and you know something; there was a cost to that for them.

There's always a cost when we serve people in secret. See, let me tell you a little secret, I wouldn't share this with anyone else, just you, don't tell anyone. I am not always so easy to serve; you see I am a human just like you.

I have my good days and my not so good days and when those people just get on and quietly and faithfully support me and encourage me and have input into my life and give me frank advice and care for me as a person, they demonstrate something. A kind of faithful love and they don't do it for recognition.

See I really believe in our society, we are such recognition junkies. We're into success and reward and achievement. We set goals, we plan, we succeed, we reap the rewards. That is so at odds with this notion of, of secret service, flying under the radar of public recognition into the hearts and the lives of the people around us. One of the best known things that Jesus ever said was this:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Just about everyone has heard that:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And it sounds simple enough but what an incredible cost there is to that. My mum for a couple of decades now has been caring for my sister who suffers from schizophrenia. Now my mum is well into her 70's, what a cost, or a parent who persists faithfully with an incredibly difficult teenager or a work colleague who stands quietly up for someone who can't defend themselves or compensates for someone's failure, quietly without anyone noticing.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is such an easy thing to say yet such a costly thing to do. Isn't it just easier to step over the top of someone or get your own way or get the recognition and success and reap the rewards? I mean after all 'to the victor go the spoils'. The apostle Paul put it like this, he said:

You my brothers and sisters were called to be free but don't use your freedom to indulge this sinful nature rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, "Love your neighbour as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other watch out for you will be destroyed by one another.

See, that's why I just don't think this whole recognition junkie thing works at all. I know it's on just about on every TV program and every TV advertisement and the movies we watch, they all scream at us, "be who you want to be, do what you want to do, achieve, succeed. Be beautiful and wealthy and …" all that stuff but if I have a "me at the centre of the universe" attitude and you have a "you at the centre of the universe" attitude, well you don't have to be Einstein to figure out its going to be a pretty ugly world and it is out there.

There are so many people who are into life for just for what they can get out of it, just for the success and the recognition and the reward and the fame. See my hunch is that this "zeit geist" (spirit of the times) of "me, me, me" just doesn't work, it's a con invented by human greed, it's insidious, it's something that grabs each one of us at times in our lives. My life was completely turned around by Jesus, the Son of God who said:

I didn't come to be served, I came to serve.

That was the most amazing revelation for me, when I became a servant, that all of a sudden my life was fulfilled, there was a richness and a meaning and all that time I'd been trying to fill myself up with stuff and success and recognition and I had all of those things, it just never filled me up, it always left me with that hungry empty feeling.

See, my service is doing exactly what I'm doing now, not chasing the big dollars at the top end of town in my consulting practice but using the gifts that God's given me to serve you, today and tomorrow and the next day and I tell you, there is such an incredible joy for me in doing that. In flying under the radar of the big fanfares and the big conferences, all that stuff, into the hearts and the lives of people that God's called me to touch with His love, this secret service.

It's so contrary to the fame and recognition that the world offers but you know something, it rings true doesn't it? It rings pure and true in our hearts, do unto others as you would have them do unto you no matter what the cost, it's exactly the kind of Jesus thing I think.

Isn't it funny how good we are at comparing our lot in life with the circumstances of the people around us? The grass is always greener right? But what if – what if we're exactly where God meant us to be?

I'll tell you something that we're all really good at; it's making comparisons between ourselves and other people. We look at our lot in life, our circumstances and we compare that with the next person and ours always looks so crummy and hopeless.

We look in the mirror and we see ourselves warts and all and then we look at our friends and we think, "Wow, I wish I looked like them." Or we compare our abilities with theirs or our marriage with theirs or our house or our car or our status with theirs, whatever it is and we think, "I would love to be doing as well as they are."

You know I think, I think this is a symptom of a deep sickness in our society, an addiction. An addiction to recognition. We've become a bunch of recognition junkies because that's what they feed us on TV and the celebrity magazines and the songs that make the hit parade.

It's all about clamouring for recognition and success, whatever that is, and being noticed and rewarded. At home and at work, on the sporting field and then someone else seems to be getting just a tad more of the lime light than we are, we feel so incredibly wounded, any, any of this sound even vaguely familiar?

I remember this routine so well; I used to hate it when someone else succeeded. School friends or work colleagues, I wanted the glory and the recognition for me, I didn't want them to have any of it.

It's really sad. I mean I can talk about it now quite dispassionately but back then, this would eat away at me like a cancer. See Berni was the quintessential recognition junkie, it's a sign of never growing up, it's a sign of not making the transition from being a child, and children rely on the recognition and approval of their parents, to being an adult.

Sure we all need encouragement but that's different, that's healthy, encouragement is affirming but when we need it to survive, when we hunger after it, when it motivates what we do, then we're getting it all wrong.

Let me give you an example. Numbers and statistics. Ministries like ours on the radio are reaching millions of people around the world each week, touching lives through the media. How do you measure the effectiveness of what we do? Well some people write or call to tell us the impact the programs have had on their lives and you know that's a real encouragement, just to hear someone's story how God used the program last week to unlock something in their hearts. Can I tell you? That gives me an incredible sense of satisfaction.

But last year, last year I was at this seminar and they suggested that we establish "performance based reporting". How many people are responding to your program, how many people are coming to Christ, how many people … ? Kind of reducing Gods work down to a bunch of statistics. You see success is based on the quantification of recognition, that's what they were saying.

See how easy it is to fall into this recognition trap. Can I tell you? If in His day, Jesus had done performance based reporting He would have flunked because in the end they all deserted Him and left Him to die on the cross. And you know something; I know that certain series that we produce will have a stronger response from people than others.

A "what's in it for me" kind of title like "Reaping God's Harvest in My Life" will always have a stronger response than something like 'Flying Under the Radar' which talks about sacrifice. And if I danced to the statistics of recognition I would just tickle your ears with stuff you'd like to hear rather than the stuff that God wants you to hear and that you need in your life. And you know it's the same in every part of our lives.

We can become recognition junkies, looking for recognition whether its in statistics or whether it's pats on the back, whatever it is but flying under the radar is not about recognition, its about being the person that God made us to be and doing the things He called us to do and just honouring Him and living our lives for Him.

The apostle Paul knew that, on death row in a Roman prison, in chains, have a listen to what he writes in his letter to the Church at Philippi:

Now I want you to know brothers and sisters, that what's happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result it's become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains most of my brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

Now it's true some of them preach Christ out of envy and rivalry but others out of good will. The latter do so in love knowing that I'm put in here for the defence of the gospel, the former though, preach Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached and because of this I rejoice.

Imagine, he's been ripped out of the lime light, he's staring down the barrel at death, people are taunting him, they're going out and doing what he used to do, preaching the good news of Jesus Christ and they're doing it to stir up trouble for him and to taunt him out of selfish ambition. And his response? His response is, "I don't care because it's not about me, as long as someone's out there telling people about Jesus Christ that's fantastic." There he is in a dungeon on death row.

You know, recently I was flying between Australia and New Zealand, I was up at 35.000 feet in a 747 and I pulled out my PDA, you know the phone and hand held computer and it has an electronic version of the Bible on it and I was reading this passage out of Paul's letter and I thought, "Here I am 2,000 years later, 35,000 feet above a part of the world that Paul didn't even know existed, reading what he wrote in that Roman dungeon. He could never have imagined how powerfully God was going to use him." And that's the point for me.

You see the flashy things that I can do in my own strength to get recognition, to get a laugh then nothing compared to what God can do when He gets a hold of me and uses me in His power. And you know it's the same with you. Sure, you've got some abilities that I don't have and sure, you could use them to get some flashes of recognition but when you place those abilities in Gods hands He multiplies them with a power and an impact that will take our breath away.

It's not about you and I comparing our lots with another, it wasn't about Paul sitting in that dungeon on death row comparing his lot with the people that were out there taunting him, it's not about that. God takes us through dungeons from time to time. Yours are going to be different to mine. And then He shapes us and moulds us and uses us for His glory and the way He uses you will be different to the way that He uses me. It's not about recognition. It should never be about recognition and numbers and statistics and, and, it shouldn't be.

People whom He uses powerfully are those that co-operated with Him in that dungeon, just kind of faithfully following Him, flying under the radar of public recognition, being there, standing there, doing what He's called you to do for His sake – under the radar.

God does some strange things sometimes. He leads us into hidden places – lonely places, dark places and seems to leave us there. What's He up to? Why does He do that?

I love the term, "flying under the radar" and it's become incredibly special to me as I read a book of that same name written by one Douglas Webster. The whole notion is that sometimes, in combat, aircrafts fly so low, literally just feet above the ground or the sea that the enemy's radar can't detect them. They're invisible as they fly along until they reach their objective and that's the idea of "flying under the radar". It's an idea that's so important, it turns out, in life as well.

See we live in a world where people are clamouring for recognition, to be noticed, to be valued, to be rewarded, to be thanked. And in fact, it seems we're a generation of recognition junkies. I think that's what the whole celebrity things about. And yet you look around at the people that you and I really respect, I mean people of substance, people of real achievement and by and large those kinds of people, few and far between as they are, they want little to do with worldly success and recognition. It seems that they're prepared to fly under the radar.

Now I have to tell you, I am your quintessential recognition junkie. I mean most of my life, the first 36 years of my life, this manifested itself in so many different ways. In the cars that I drove: I always chose the most expensive flashy good looking car that I could possibly afford.

The houses that I lived in: it was always important that they were big and pretentious and they said something about who I was and what I'd achieved and the success that I had and the money that I had.

The way that I dressed: I always dressed, you heard of the term "power dressing"? You put on the really bold coloured tie and a dark suit and a white shirt and you know, to look like you're powerful.

The priorities I had in life: in being noticed, being seen, going to the right functions, mixing with the right people, mingling. Always making sure that at work the boss knew who was responsible for all that good stuff that came across his or her desk and taking every little opportunity, subtly, to undermine my work colleagues just so that people knew who was on top and who was the top dog.

You recognise any of those? It's a subtle thing this addiction to recognition but it's there in so many ways. I mean recognition is really important for children because that's how they build their self esteem. Parental approval is an important component of the emotional growth of a child, they need to be patted on the back often, that's how they grow. But like mothers milk, it's something we're supposed to be weaned off.

As we grow and mature we're supposed to become people who don't survive on recognition, who don't perform for the crowd. The problem is, for a long time at least, I never grew up and you know something; there are lots of people like that, they're still addicted to recognition. It's a sad addiction because its something you can never get enough of, it's like heroin; we're worried about what people think of us.

You know what weaned me off that? It was suffering in a hidden place. I look back on when I became a Christian fifteen years ago and it was at a time in my life of pain and distress. There were major things going on in my life, I still had the expensive flashy car and the high flying job and all that stuff but I was in a dark and lonely place. It was so black that words can't describe it. It was so lonely.

It was a pit so deep that there seemed to be no way out and at the time I was just starting to come to grips with who God might be, if He existed at all and like everyone who ends up in a place like that, I said, "God why? Why do I have to go through this? Why?" We all ask that question don't we? Why? And heres what I've noticed about God, He inevitably does His greatest miracles in our lives in those dark lonely places.

Joseph ... Joseph was Abraham's great grandson. Abraham has a son called Isaac. Isaac had a son called Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons one of whom was Joseph. You may have heard the story of Joseph and the Technicolour Dream Coat, Joseph had these dreams about how all his other brothers were going to bow down to him one day, he was dads favourite. I tell you, his brothers wanted to kill him, literally, but instead of killing him ultimately they double crossed him and sold him into slavery.

Can you imagine? Your own brothers trap you in a pit and they sell you as a slave, I mean that's incredibly unfair and so these slave traders took him down to Egypt and he was sold in a market to a man called Potiphar but Joseph was a class act and ultimately Potiphar put Joseph in charge of all of his affairs and obviously young Joseph wasn't bad looking either because Potiphar's wife wanted to drag him into bed. And when he refused she accused him of rape and Joseph, who did the right thing, ends up in prison.

See, life is so unfair sometimes. Now Joseph went on to become the prime minister of Egypt, second only to pharaoh but that time in that dungeon was so important, it was the place where he grew up, it was the place where he learned wisdom.

He was the youngest son, he was dads favourite, he had delusions of grandeur, he was this little recognition junkie. And God had to deal with that and He did, by putting Joseph into slavery and then into that dungeon. See this didn't last for hours or days or even weeks, this went on for years that God had Joseph in those incredibly unfair dark and lonely places. See, it seems that so often this is Gods way, to take us, to mould us and to shape us in those hidden places.

Have you ever noticed, in Gods creation, that new life always seems to happen in hidden places? A child is conceived and grows hidden in its mother's womb. This little green grub crawling around on the leaves becomes a beautiful butterfly hidden away in its cocoon. You know what?

Those hidden places are where God takes us and where we suffer alone, they are the exact opposite of the limelight of recognition. They are exactly the places He needs to take us to change us, hidden away from the worlds gaze and recognition, adulation and praise and rewards, like a heroin addict going through withdrawal but the end of it we have a new freedom.

Jesus said:

I have come to set the captives free.

And again He said:

If I set you free you will really be free.

When we don't live our lives for recognition and reward anymore we are finally free, we're finally at rest, we finally feel safe.

I look back on my life and I know that in that dark place God did His greatest work in me. He set me free from me, from being my own "little tin pot god", from the fear and the insecurity of always needing the next fix of recognition. He works in mighty and mysterious ways, not always obvious, not always pleasant but always, always with one goal in mind – to set us free.

After we've been serving God for a while – well, we get to feeling that we're entitled to be special in His sight. And the real temptation – and it's a temptation of pride – is to put God's love to the test.

You know we all need encouragement and validation and when we're travelling down a certain path in life it's great when somehow people confirm that we're on the right path, someone looks at the career you've chosen and they say to you, "Gee you do so well at that." I mean that's a wonderful thing isn't it? And so often we want God to confirm that we've chosen the right path too. It would be great to have His confirmation and encouragement but sometimes, you know sometimes at those times God just remains silent, have you ever noticed that?

Sometimes we want the Lord to confirm that we're on the right path and He just doesn't say anything and you know, when we're walking in faith and putting it all on the line for God, it would be really nice for Him to whisper, "Well done good and faithful servant, keep going." And yet so often He chooses to remain silent and those times, it can be a real wilderness experience. Why does He do that? What's going on?

We like to live life on the surface, you know the externals. The recognition, there's the success and the things we can buy and the comfort and the travel and the holidays, you know all that stuff but God, God wants to go to a much, much deeper plain with us, much deeper way below the surface and that's why this week we've been talking about the hidden things of God. Hidden because it's wisdom that lies below the surface, hidden because it's often not until we have a spiritual wilderness experience that we discover them.

This week we've been looking at the wilderness experience of Jesus Christ. If you were with us earlier in the week you would have heard me talk about His public baptism, He went down to the Jordan River, He was baptised by John the Baptist, He comes up and heaven opens up and God speaks down and says:

This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

What an awesome thing and immediately following that God picks Him up and throws Him out into the desert where He starves for forty days and the devil comes after Him with a pick axe. He goes from the middle of the river of God out into this desolation, this wilderness and its Gods way to have Him starving for forty days and He's tempted by the devil.

Over the last few days we've looked at the first two temptations. The first one was after forty days; the devil tempts Him to turn the stone into bread, to end the suffering for himself, to end His hunger, to meet His needs in His own strength rather than in Gods strength. After all why not, He was hungry? Because that would be turning your back and the will of God for your life even if that will involves suffering and Jesus turns round to the devil and says, "hang on":

Man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

He rejects the devils temptation to take matters into His own hands.

The second temptation we looked at yesterday. The devil took Him up to a high mountain and said:

Worship me and I'll give you all of these kingdoms.

It's about chasing after worldly success, about taking the world and leaving God behind and that's so easy to do too because there's such a fine line between serving God and falling in love and worshipping the works of our own hands instead of God and Jesus said:

No it is written, "You will worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.

For Jesus it was so much more important that He be found humbly serving His Father instead of being given all the kingdoms of this world.

Today we're going to look at the third temptation; it's something that Douglas Webster in his book, "Under the Radar" called "The Great Performance". Have a listen:

The devil led Jesus to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you're the Son of God' he said, 'Throw yourself down from here because it is written, "He will command His angels concerning you to guard you carefully. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone".' And Jesus answered the devil, 'It is written, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."'

In his book, "Under the Radar", Douglas Webster puts his finger right on what's happening here when he writes this:

The career path for Christian leaders is marked by the cross, an incentive that doesn't have much cross-over appeal into the corporate world or our post modern society. Self-denial is a difficult concept to translate into today's leadership literature. The path leading to a cross is far more humbling than it is heroic and all true leaders are led along this path but the temptation to avoid the path to the cross by trying to achieve something great for God confronts us as did Jesus.

We're tempted to escape the cross with our spiritual pride intact; we want to feel enthusiastic about Jesus while avoiding the way of Jesus. You see that's the temptation. You get to a point where you've been walking with God for a while and you've been sacrificing, you've been suffering and you get to figuring, "Well God you know, I've earned something here. I've earned a short cut, it's time for you God to validate me, it's time for you God to do some miracle. To say, 'You're heading down the right path, you're special to me.'"

And so we get to asking God for something impossible. Not for the right reasons, not because we want to serve Him and bring glory to Him but in order for Him to validate that we're something special. In a sense we want God to start being our servant rather than us being His servant. This temptation is about turning the created creature relationship on its head and putting us on top of the heap and that that is why Jesus names it for what it is, putting God to the test.

Growing old is great as long as it involves growing wiser and wisdom, in Gods economy, starts and ends with one thing. You can read it in Proverbs chapter 1; verse 7 where it says:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and discipline.

In other words wisdom is based on a right relationship with God and when, when you've been doing stuff for God for a while this is a really easy temptation to fall in. And it's the temptation the devil fell into when he tried to put himself above God. To believe in Jesus is to follow Jesus, He's not only the truth He's also the way and in this wilderness we discover the hidden things of God.

When we're under pressure and hungry and tired and the devil pulls along side and tempts us … tempts us to provide for ourselves, tempts us to chase after worldly success, tempts us to make God our servant rather than our Lord, this is when we discover who we are, this is when we discover what we believe and this is the place that God would teach us these lessons in a powerful way that would shape who we are.

When we are shaped on the anvil of the wilderness and abandonment and vulnerability, we learn the most amazing lessons. This is where we discover the hidden things of God. We discover in the wilderness what humility and persistence and prayer is. In the wilderness we discover who's Lord. It's a special, special time.

You know something – worldly success and recognition are a seductive thing. Even as we go about God's business. It turns out though that there's a fine line between serving God and chasing after recognition.

Things are not always what they seem, have you noticed that? With people and, you know, so often with God. I don't know if you do this but sometimes I think I have God in a box that's way too small for Him, He just doesn't fit. My thinking is narrower than His and so often I'm focused on the small picture when He's working on a much bigger picture.

I'm focused on how I feel and what my needs are and He, He's focused on developing my character and on drawing me closer, on pruning me back so that I can flower and blossom. Is it just me or do you kind of relate to what I'm saying? Sometimes I plan on achieving this or achieving that for God and His plan, His plan is for me to wait humbly at His feet. God can be so frustrating at times don't you think?

This week on the program we're digging a bit deeper to discover the hidden things of God. I mean, we're people and each of us is different and we all have needs and hopes and ambitions and dreams and even when those things involve God, it's so easy just too kind of wander off and leave Him behind, to start pursuing our own plan instead of waiting on His. You know something; wait is a word that appears an awful lot in the Bible and no more beautifully than in Psalm 5, verse 3 where it says:

In the morning O Lord you hear my voice, in the morning I will lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.

And you know, invariably when God's word talks about us waiting on God it means exactly what the psalmist just wrote. Waiting with expectation – not waiting impatiently, not waiting miserably, not waiting saying, "You know something; this is never going to happen," – waiting in expectation or in other words, in faith.

I wonder sometimes whether we're not more focused on becoming achievers, on being self reliant than on humbling ourselves before God and waiting on Him and becoming God achievers, God reliant.

Over this week we're looking at the great temptation when Jesus was led into the wilderness. He was baptised in the Jordan by John and when He came up out of the water, at that moment heaven was opened up and He saw the spirit of God descending on Him like a dove and a voice from heaven said:

This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

What a stunning baptism and straight after that God picks Him up and throws Him out into the desert. Luke chapter 4:

Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.

I bet He was. Here's one of the hidden things of God and it's the things that we discover about God in the desert, in the wilderness, are so much deeper than when we're just racing around being successful and happy. It's really important when we start walking around in a wilderness to know what God's up to.

Douglas Webster, in "Under the Radar" writes this, he says:

Contrary to the popular notion that links fullness of the Spirit to worldly success, Luke relates the fullness of the Spirit to Jesus' wilderness experience and stresses Jesus' extreme vulnerability in the Spirit before the devil. Jesus, full of the Spirit, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, a place of testing and utter weakness. There is a close correlation between the Spirit's presence and power and Jesus' vulnerability and weakness.

Yesterday we looked at the first temptation, the temptation for Jesus to turn the stones into food; I mean to end the suffering in His own strength, apart from God. It was the logical thing to do; it was the devils logical delusion. Wasn't really a temptation, I mean after all, Jesus was famished, Jesus was the Son of God and Jesus answer was:

Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

In fact it was a firm "no" to the devil, "I will wait on God for my provision, I will trust in Him even if I have to starve to death." It puts pay to any notion of self reliance.

Today we're going to look at the second temptation and you can read it if you want to in the Bible in Luke chapter 4, verse 5:

The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world and he said to Jesus, "I will give you all their authority and splendour for it has been given to me and I can give it to anyone that I want. So if you worship me it will all be yours." And Jesus answered, "It is written worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone.

You see the devil led Jesus up to a high place and showed Him the most seductive prize of all, all the kingdoms of the world and the devil said, "Worship me and I'll give all this to you." Now there's a huge jump here from the basic need for bread which was the first temptation, to the greatest thing that he could show Jesus, all the kingdoms of the world. And note Jesus doesn't debate the devils authority to say this, Jesus speaks to the devil not with sarcasm or scorn but with respect and here's the temptation for us.

The temptation is that we go after worldly recognition and worldly success, that we achieve what Gods called us to do, in affect, idolatrously. That we end up worshipping the works of our own hands instead of God Himself.

Much of what's being said today about the vision of the Church seems to fit with this second temptation. Take a serious long look at what's projected as a compelling vision with hype and excitement and delusion and success. Every Church seems to have its own personalised, customised vision, where do you find that thinking in the Bible? And this fits right into the second temptation. There's a lot of second temptation Christianity going on, Christianity without Christ, what a sharp contrast between that and those beautiful words of Psalm 5:

In the morning I will lay my request before you and wait in expectation.

Jesus had it right, Jesus went to the devil and said, "No! It is written, 'worship the Lord your God and serve Him alone'." You see the devil offered Jesus all and with the word 'only' Jesus defeated the devil. Jesus said, "I'm not chasing after worldly recognition, I don't want to be in charge of all these kingdoms, I don't want people to think well of me. That's not what this is about; my life is about worshipping God and serving Him alone."

It's so easy to worship what we do for God and then leave Him behind. It's so easy to chase after the recognition and the praise of other people and forget that what we're doing is meant to be for God's glory and not our own and I don't care what it is we do or who we are, we all suffer this temptation. Can I tell you, the temptation is the greatest when we're in the wilderness like Jesus was? How tempting must it have looked to be given all those kingdoms, all He had to do was worship the devil once.

I've decided there's something so much more important than what I do for God and that's my relationship with Him. That's what this wilderness is about, learning those things, the hidden things of God in a way that we somehow just, just can't forget.