Some days, let’s be honest, there’s not a lot to be happy about.  But no matter how bad things get – we have the opportunity to decide how we react to them.  We can have a gladness, even on the darkest of days.

It’s great to be with you again today. When life’s the pits the last thing we feel like doing is smiling. I read something the other day that put that into quite a sharp focus for me.

Here’s how it goes. It said, “Out of the gloom a voice said unto me ‘smile and be happy things could be worse,’ so I smiled, I was happy and behold things did get worse.” I love it! But you know it does have a point, no matter what’s going on around us, no matter what our physical circumstances are, no matter how bad it gets there’s something deep inside us that gives us the ability to choose how we respond.

It’s something that elevates us above animals. It’s a dignity, it’s a nobility that’s in each of us, the ability to say, “No, I won’t be a victim, I’ll choose to respond differently.” From where I sit, it has everything to do with being handcrafted in the image of God. No matter how much we feel the victim of our circumstances, it’s that dignity and nobility that give us the power to choose.

And you might say, “Berni, well that’s really easy for you to say. You know, l look at you, you do this ministry stuff, you’re on radio that’s pretty easy. You don’t have to put up with the things that I have to put up with in my life. You have no idea what I have to put up with in my life.” Let me share with you, just a part of my life that’s going on right now as we speak.

Yes, I’m in full-time ministry, haven’t always been, had a career in the IT Industry but now I’m in full-time ministry. This is what I do for a living. But at the same time I still do some IT consulting because it’s really good revenue for the ministry. It helps us to spread the gospel. And right now I’m doing a really large consulting job, its huge, its complex, I mean I’m enjoying it, but there are big stakes in this job and its hard work. And most days I start work at four in the morning and I finish at five or six at night.

You get tired doing that day after day, on the one hand it’s satisfying; on the other hand it’s a real burden being tired a lot. It’s only for a time but it’s what’s going on in my life right now. And on top of that I’ve a recording schedule. I come into the studio, I sit down and spend time with you. And it’s not good enough for me just to put on a happy voice because if I’m just putting on a happy voice you’ll figure that out in about 15 seconds flat.

To be of any use to you, to be able to pull up next to you and share the goodness of God and the love of Jesus I have to be living it. Unless I’m living it, this life of victory that Jesus gave me, I am useless to you. And some days it’s a heavy load, some days those long hours feel like a heavy weight, right now, today, here as we are sitting together. Now I’ve a choice I can say, “Well there’s nothing I can do I have to do it, I’m in the middle of it, I’m a victim,” or I can rejoice.

Last night I got an email from Rwanda, and it was a woman from a church and she said we love the programs and we want to take these programs and use them as studies in a women’s group that meets regularly together here in Rwanda. And I’m just in the middle of doing that and setting that up, oh man that makes it all worth it! I just rejoice and I think I would do all that I do just for that group of women meeting in Kigali in Rwanda having that study together.

We all have really good exciting bits in our lives and then we have crosses to bear. And we can make a choice, we can walk around and grumble and complain and whine and whinge. I could do that with the hours I’m working. I could let that get me down. I could complain about the fact that I don’t have the hours to spend with my wife right now that I really would love to have. But when I do that I know something, it robs me, doesn’t it? It robs me of life, and rather than making the burden lighter it makes it twice as heavy. Can you make a decision not to do that any more? I have, I’m not doing that anymore.

There are sometimes when I want to open my mouth and let negative words come out of my mouth and I have decided not to do that, I have decided to rejoice. And that’s what the Apostle Paul does in this letter that we’re looking at – we’re looking at all week this week on A Different Perspective – that he wrote couple of thousand years ago when he was on death row in a Roman prison.

And he wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.” And we’re going to look at why he was rejoicing, seems a little bit bizarre, but he was, on death row.

And the question is for each of us, are we going to grumble and complain and whinge for the rest of our lives or are we going to speak God’s words and rejoice because He’s given us something to rejoice about?

So there’s Paul on death row in a Roman dungeon, chained hand and feet to his guards, he’s a political prisoner, he was a celebrity, really well-known, now he’s out of the limelight and he’s on death row. My hunch is, doesn’t get much worse than that, and this is what he says about rejoicing in his letter to these buddies of his in a church at Philippi. He says:

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I tell you rejoice, let your gentleness be known to everyone, the Lord is here. Don’t worry about anything but in everything, in prayer and supplication with thanks giving; make your requests known to God. And you know something the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4: 4-7)

Rejoicing is about gladness, about thriving, about exceeding abundance. And in fact the Greek words that’s used in the original text comes from a group of words, a group of Greek words that mean free gift and grace. The thing that Paul was rejoicing about was his relationship with Jesus. Why? Because in this dark personal prison, in this dark dungeon, in his heart there was a light, in his heart there was a candle burning, Jesus – hope, a future, a certainty, a joy. Jesus does that. That’s what happens when you have a real relationship with him, not a stain glass window relationship with him; I mean a real personal relationship with Jesus the Son of God.

What about your prison, what about your dark space? Will He, does He? This Jesus wants to be in that place with you and with me, whatever it is we can take it to Him and say, “Thank you God for this dark place, thank you God for this problem.” That’s what Paul says, doesn’t matter what’s going on, go to Jesus in prayer and thanksgiving.

Thank you God for this opportunity to let your light shine in my heart amidst all this darkness. Thank you God for your promise you’ll be here. And there in prison Paul says that the peace of God which surpasses anything that we can understand will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So no more tossing and turning at night, no more fear, no more grumbling, no more worrying, get close to Jesus and He will surround our hearts and our minds and protect us with the peace of God. No more feeling sick to pit of your stomach. He gets not only on the inside of our personal prison but wraps himself around our hearts and minds insulating us with peace – a peace that doesn’t make sense, a peace that we can’t understand but a peace that is so real and so pure and so wondrous we can’t put it into words.

That’s what happens, and all of a sudden life looks different. We see life maybe still in our dungeon but with a peace and a joy and a love that words cannot describe.

When our lives take – well – a turn for the worse – one of the hardest things of all, is seeing other people getting along just fine.  I mean, it’s just not fair.

We all have times in our lives when we feel like we’re in our own personal solitary confinement cell. Something’s getting us down, doesn’t matter what or how or how big or how small it is … something, and it’s like a prison. One of the things that we can feel in that little cell is, well, it’s not fair, why me? I mean look at her she doesn’t have this problem, look at him he’s doing just fine, but me, me, my life is a mess, we love to compare, don’t we?

It’s like we have a scorecard on life, his is at an 8, hers is at a 7 ½ and mine, mine’s a 2 at best. Let me get right in your face here, that scorecard has a name and it’s called pride. And pride is like the reinforcement in the concrete of our prison cell, pride just makes things worse. Whatever the issues are in your life or mine pride is like a hardening of the arteries; eventually you have a heart attack.

We’re talking about a letter that my mate Paul wrote, it was written in the first century AD. And the reason I call Paul my buddy is because I’ve read his stuff over and over again, and I really relate to the guy. And this letter we’re looking at is a letter he wrote to his friends at a place called Philippi, now Paul wrote this while he was on death row in Rome. He was political prisoner; he was there because of his faith. I mean he was a really well know guy, he’s spent a decade across Asia Minor preaching and planting churches.

This guy has made it, he’s had huge rallies, he’s planted all these churches, he’s got all these friends, he is on the map, he’s a celebrity. But now he’s in a dark, dark prison cell on death row. And there are some other guys out there preaching, well they’re getting stuck into Paul. Listen to what he has to say about it, I’m reading this from his letter to the church at Philippi. He says:

I want you to know friends, that what’s happened to me, well, it’s actually helped spread the gospel so that its become known through the whole Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because of my faith in Jesus. And most of my brothers and sisters here have been made confident in God by my imprisonment and they’re daring to speak out the word with much greater boldness and without fear.

Some of them, well, some of them proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will, these proclaim Christ out of love knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel of Jesus. The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. Oh what does it matter, just this, that Christ is being proclaimed in every way whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1: 12-18)

Isn’t that amazing, here’s this guy on death row and he doesn’t compare, no Paul doesn’t want to do that. He could have been in that dungeon consumed with envy. “It’s not fair, why me, I’m in here, they’re out there, they’re getting all the limelight, and to make things worse they’re doing it just to upset me.” Comparison and pride, would they have made things better or worse for Paul?

If he’d been sitting in there with his pride comparing his situation to the situation of those people out there it would have seemed so unfair, wouldn’t it? And quite clearly that comparison and pride would have made things much worse for him. Would’ve ruined his day, would’ve ruined his life, wouldn’t it? Would have eaten away at him in that dark cell. He could’ve become bitter and twisted.

So let me get back in your face again and ask you, its obvious isn’t it that it’s a dumb thing to do, comparison and pride? So why do we do that? What is it about ourselves that we look at our situation and the situations of other people and we have to compare, and we have to complain and we have to say, “Oh its just not fair, it’s not fair that I’ve got a husband like this, it’s not fair that he got promoted over me at work.”

Come on, that stuff is like cancer, it saps the life out of us, it makes life so much worse. The opposite to that is humility. And humility is about not comparing, and humility is about making a decision that sounds something like this, it says, “You know something, no matter what’s going on, I’m just going to enjoy my life. I’m not going to compare my lot with theirs, I’m just going to enjoy.”

Paul goes on to write a little bit more about humility just a few paragraphs later in this letter. You can pick it up in Philippians, Chapter 2 verses 3 to 11. He says this, he says:

Look, don’t do anything out of selfish ambition or conceit but be humble, think of others as better than yourself. Let each of you look not at your own interests but the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus, even though he’s in the form of God he didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited but he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born as a human being.

Being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a gruesome cross. And because of that God exalted him highly and gave him a name that is above every other name; so that at the name of Jesus every knee would bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue one day will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2: 3-11)

That loss of Jesus on the cross, you know when they arrested him and they tried him and they, they beat him and they spat on him and they nailed him to a cross and he hung there for hours and died. Isn’t that a big loss? What a loser! That loss is the biggest victory in all history, it turns out. That loss of Jesus is your victory and my victory, as He suffered there for you and me He purchased eternal life.

In our circumstances we might be losing but with our Jesus in our hearts we have a huge, huge, huge win. It’s like a get out of jail free card, our circumstances may well be a prison for us. It may well be that we cannot change that one thing that’s hurting us, but inside that prison cell we can be free as a bird. We can live life to the full no matter what. And when we do that people notice.

Paul goes on to say:

Work out this salvation with fear and trembling because it’s God who’s working in you enabling you to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do everything without murmuring and whinging and arguing so you’ll be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation in which you shine like stars in the world. (Philippians 2: 13-15)

Pride is one of the hardest things to let go of, are you dealing with that today? “Father I pray for anyone today who is dealing with pride, who’s looking at their circumstances and comparing themselves to someone else, and father we know that pride is hard to let go of. But Father I pray in the name of Jesus that you would place your spirit into the heart of anyone who is struggling with this at the moment and set them free. I pray that is Jesus’ name, Amen.”

You know when Jesus puts His Spirit, His hand on our heart we have a security and a safety and a future and a hope and a joy and a peace no matter what. I’m enjoying my journey. I’m on a road that Jesus has put there just for me. And you’re on a road, you’re on a journey that he’s put there just for you. And even though my journey’s not perfect. You know maybe I’d have some things different on my journey, I wouldn’t have your journey for quids.

I love the journey that He has put me on, and the stupid thing is when we compare our journeys we only look at the bad things in our journey and compare them with the good things of other people’s journeys, don’t we? You think that’s a good idea? Does it make sense?

This Jesus kind of humility helps us to let go of that stuff.

When life gets a bit tough, one of the things we all want to do is focus on ourselves – to make things better.  But somehow, the more self-absorbed we become, the worse it ends up feeling.   

It’s great to be with you again today. Ever had that ‘I’m feeling down’ kind of feeling? Just one part of our lives isn’t quite right and it can rob us of life and joy and peace and vibrancy. Just one relationship, one situation, one aspect of life can be a ‘wet blanket’ over the whole lot. And part of the problem is that we become all self-absorbed over that one thing, it’s like, until we can deal with that one issue that’s all we can think about.

When we’re freezing cold all we just want to do is get warm, when we’re thirsty we just need a drink, when we’re in our own personal little prison cell we just need to get out. Some people spend years in being self-absorbed over one issue and you know what? They’ve missed out on life. I’ve seen it happen over and over again and I think to myself, “Well, that makes sense. That’s a good idea or maybe we should all try that.” Yeah right! So how do we deal with that?

We can feel as though we’re in our own personal prison cell. Maybe you’re caring for someone who has been sick for years or you have a loved one with Alzheimer’s or a sickness or disability or your husband or wife just isn’t what you want them to be, or your kid is on drugs or goes astray, or you’re in a wheelchair, I mean the list is endless, isn’t it?

Sometimes that’s the reality, now I’m not making light, these things aren’t trivial, they’re a big deal but sometimes it’s just the reality, we can’t change it, we can’t remove the prison walls, we have to live life anyway. I wonder if you’ve been struggling with something like that and it’s just one area of your life that’s not working for you. Maybe it’s been going on for a week or a month; maybe it’s been going on for years.

I wonder whether today, we couldn’t together, make a decision. Decide to live life to the full no matter what life throws at us, no matter what the prison walls look like. To live life in a way that when we get to the end of it, no matter what happened, we can look back and say, ‘You know something, I’ve lived the most outrageously amazing life with no regrets.’ Regret’s a funny thing. Sometimes we think that regret is about the external things, things that we can’t control. Well maybe, but I think more than anything, regret is about our lost opportunities.

You see life can take a turn this way or that. Tomorrow, I could end up a quadriplegic, that would be terrible but what would I do with that? Would I sit there for the rest of my life and just not live life? Or would I say, ‘Well that’s what’s happened to me, I have to move on, I have to live life.’ My hunch is if I became a quadriplegic tomorrow and I got to the end of my life, the thing that I would regret the most is not becoming a quadriplegic; the thing that I would regret was if I gave up on life.

The things that we tend to regret are our own lost opportunities. It’s when we respond to something badly and we look back and think, ‘Oh, I could have responded better. I could have actually lived life.’ Wouldn’t it be terrible if we got to the end and we had huge regrets? And so when there’s something going on in our life and it feels like a prison cell, I think we need a radical shift, a shift away from my problems to my reaction and that’s what we’re looking at this week, a letter from someone called Paul, on death row. It’s a letter that he wrote in a Roman prison in the 1st Century AD, to some buddies of his in a Church at Philippi and he said to them, here he is on death row, he said, ‘My friends, this is my prayer for you, that your love may overflow more and more as you get to know Jesus.’ This is a guy on death row and he’s using language of abundance, ‘Overflow more and more as you get to know Jesus.’

What’s going on inside Paul? He’s got Jesus in him. He’s got the Spirit of God in him and the focus is off himself and off his own problems, onto his friends. He can talk abundance language because he’s got an abundance of Jesus happening in him, he can’t help it. He overflows the love of God.

I don’t know about you but I could never do that until I had a relationship with Jesus. I used to hate it when other people would succeed around me. Their success was my loss. But now, now in a relationship with Jesus, my hearts full to overflow, there’s more than enough love and grace and comfort and peace and credit to go around, and that’s what’s going on with Paul here. Paul’s got Jesus and so he has this overflow in his heart, his love and his concern for his friends.

Jesus does that. It’s a radical shift in focus and it takes the focus off me out onto others, off you out onto others. That is a huge shift. And truly, I don’t think we could do that shift without a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

We have a volunteer, here at Christianityworks; every program that I record, both this program A Different Perspective and a much longer program, a half hour program called Christianityworks, each audio track is taken and we have some volunteers who type up the transcripts. And so those transcripts are then posted onto our internet site and people from right around the world read those transcripts, pull them down, copy them and use them in their lives.

And this volunteer, I won’t use her name but she suffers from Agoraphobia. So she’s in a prison of her own. Agoraphobia is a condition where you have a fear of wide-open spaces and so by and large, she doesn’t go out of the house much. And she had a heart to do things for other people so when we sent a letter around to many of our supporters, the people who help keep this program on air and we said, “We’re looking for a handful of volunteers, people who have a PC and internet access, doesn’t matter where you are in the world, we just needed some people to type the transcripts for our website.” And so she does that now and here is this woman who struggles in a prison with something that you and I can’t understand, she probably can’t understand either and yet she’s taken the focus off herself and she, through what she is doing in her home, taking these audio tracks and typing them up into text transcripts is blessing people right around the world. Just recently we had an email from a woman in Rowanda who listens to this program there in Rowanda and she’s using those transcripts to lead a Bible study in a woman’s group in her Church.

Isn’t it amazing what happens when in God’s power we take the focus off ourselves and put it on other people, no matter what’s going on in our lives and it’s not a ‘head’ attitude, it’s a ‘heart’ attitude. When I speak to this woman who volunteers with us she says, ‘What an incredible blessing it is.’ When we get the focus off ourselves and we start doing things for other people out of the abundance of the love that Jesus puts in our hearts – oh wow that is awesome. Can I encourage you? If you’ve got a Bible get it out and open it up towards the end of the New Testament and read this short letter of Paul to the Philippians. It gives you a whole new outlook on life because the context is this wonderful letter is written by a man in a dungeon on death row. He is a political prisoner chained to a guard and he says, ‘Man, my prayer for you is that your love would overflow more and more as you get to know Jesus.’

You feeling down, circumstances are weighing you down? Get close to Jesus, real close, do something for someone else, use your gifts and your abilities, and when we stop being self-absorbed all of a sudden we start getting on with life.

Sometimes when things go wrong in life – it feels as though we’re all alone, locked in our own personal prison cell – no escape.  When that happens, what can you do?

I can’t quite imagine what it would be like to be locked up in a jail on death row. Not only wouldn’t I be free to come and go as I please but the certainty of imminent death hanging over my head, augh, can you imagine? Completely trapped, nowhere to go, no future, no hope, just fear and dread. It’s unimaginable. I’ve been reading a letter from a friend of mine, a guy called Paul, who spent quite a bit of time on death row, ultimately they killed him. He wrote this letter, not to me but to some mates of his at a place called Philippi and not this year, it was sometime in the first century AD.

I’ve read his letter so many times; he’s become quite a good friend to me. The crazy thing is that this letter from a dead man walking is so full of hope and joy. I thought we could spend some time, just a bit of time together this week, figuring out what a perfect salve for anyone who has ever felt trapped in a hopeless set of circumstances.

Ever felt all locked up? You know, it’s like being in a prison, there’s something about our circumstances or our situation, it gives us no ‘out’, there’s no hope, there’s no future, its like being on our own personal death row. It’s a funny thing but 95% of stuff in our life can be going just fine and then one thing goes off the rails.

Maybe it’s something in our marriage relationship, maybe it’s a difficult teenager. Maybe we’re just exhausted, or a work relationship or it’s just the drudgery and the grind or some money problems or loneliness or depression or anger or fear. Just one of those things, it’s like it wipes out the other 95% of life that’s going well. It’s like all that stuff that’s going well doesn’t matter, the one that dominates is that one that is dragging us down into the pits, the one that becomes our own personal death row.

I don’t know how it is for you but for me it’s like a dark, impenetrable hole. When you’re in a set of circumstances you can’t change and they’re weighing you down, this hole is an impenetrable blackness. Nobody else can get through, it doesn’t matter what they say, it doesn’t matter what they do, they just can’t penetrate, they can’t connect. No other good circumstance seems to be able to come into that space with me.

Maybe you’ve felt like that, I think I heard a couple of pennies dropping. The question is what do you do? How do you cope? Do you just live in that dark impenetrable hole all the time or is there something to draw on when you’re in that place? We all need hope and I remember a good decade ago now, when I was in the darkest place of my life and everything fell apart, the worst thing was that my hopes and dreams for the future were broken on the floor. You know all that stuff that we look forward to. When we feel we’ve lost it, when all those hopes and dreams are shot, oh man that is such a dark place.

We need a light to burn in that place, we need just a flicker of a candle to shine in the darkness and when we’re in that prison, (you know a prison is big concrete walls and big metal doors with locks on them and guards and towers), when you’re in that prison you can’t change it sometimes. You can’t escape. We can’t always change the circumstances that we find ourselves in. As much as we’d like to fly out of this prison cell, some days you’re in that prison cell buddy, and that’s where you’re staying just for the time being.

So what do we do on the inside? Pardon the pun. Well, my mate Paul, (he was one of Jesus’ Apostles), writes this most amazing letter to his buddies at Philippi. You can read this letter, it’s really quite short, it’s about 3 or 4 pages, you’ll find it in the New Testament part of the Bible, towards the end. It’s called, The Letter to the Philippians from Paul. Good read. Here’s this Paul on death row and he writes a letter of incredible joy and hope and there are four bits that we will unpack over the course of this week that really blow me away.

For a man who is in a dungeon, chained to a Roman guard, waiting to be executed, and execution in those days weren’t all this ‘have a quiet injection and just quietly die in your sleep’. Executions were brutal, any execution is awful but these were brutal executions, if you understand what I’m saying. And my buddy, Paul writes this incredible letter of joy and hope and the four key bits of advice that we’ll unpack during the course of the rest of this week on A Different Perspective is firstly – he starts with a heart of love. He writes to his buddies:

This is my prayer for you guys that your love will overflow more and more as you get to know Jesus better and better. (Philippians 1:9)

Hang on, Paul’s the guy on death row, Paul’s the guy that should need encouraging and he’s writing to these friends saying, ‘Oh Man, I hope God’s love will just overflow as you get to know him more.’ Yep, he has a deep concern for his friends, there’s a love relationship there. He takes the focus off him and puts it onto others. Hmm, we can get terribly self-absorbed and we’ll look at that cost of that self-absorption, if I can call it that, on tomorrow’s program.

The second thing is he comes at it with a heart of humility. The context is there’s a whole bunch of his competitors, or rivals I guess, Paul was a really well-known guy. He went and preached Jesus for over a decade in a whole bunch of different exotic places. And he’s locked up now in a dungeon, he’s no longer in the limelight and there’s a whole bunch of other people out there preaching and digging the knife into Paul a bit.

Of course you and I would never do that but they’re doing that, right? Paul’s in jail and he turns around in the face of that and he says, ‘My buddies in Philippi, don’t do anything out of selfish ambition but consider others being better than yourselves.’ He comes at it with a heart of humility in the middle of these circumstances.

The third one is he has a heart of rejoicing. He says, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I tell you – rejoice.’ Now that is bizarre and he says, ‘No, no, you don’t understand. Be gentle, Jesus is in this place.’ Can you imagine being on death row and writing, ‘Hey friends, rejoice, be glad. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.’ So in the middle of these dark circumstances, this relationship he has with Jesus, he found enough in that to rejoice.

And the last one of the four points in this letter, there are a few more but these were the ones that really jumped out at me, is he had a real heart of contentment. He said:

I have learnt to be content with whatever I have, wherever I am. I know what it’s like to have not much and I know what it’s like to have plenty. I’ve learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry. He said, ‘Look, I can do anything in Jesus who strengthens me.’ (Philippians 4:11-13)

Now I have to tell you, going hungry is not really high on my list of things I want to do, I know there are plenty of people in this world that do go hungry but we men, in particular, don’t focus very well, at all on anything when there’s a rumbling in our tummy. And yet Paul has said, ‘You know, it doesn’t really matter if I’ve got a little or a lot, I’ve been in both places and well, you know, if I’m not getting enough food or if I am getting enough food, it doesn’t really matter. I have learnt to be content because I can do all things in this Jesus who strengthens me.’

Here is this man on death row and he’s talking about love and humility and rejoicing and contentment, which we’ll unpack through the remainder of this week on the program. If you miss any of those you can listen to the programs online at our website. I will tell you later on how to do that.

I want to encourage you in your prison and your death row the things that are eating away at your life at the moment, what are they? Put a name to them, confront them, look at them and say, ‘That is exactly my prison, that is exactly my death row’.

It is time for a radical change of focus to something that actually works. So stick with us over the next week as we explore that dark place from A Different Perspective.

We race through Easter.  A long weekend, a chance for a break.  Maybe a trip to church … but then again, perhaps not.  And to do that, we have to shield our eyes.  We have to avoid looking at the cross.  Because when you do, when you turn your eyes to Calvary, let me tell you, it’s something you just can’t ignore.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged and the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on His head and they dressed Him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to Him saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews’, and striking Him on the face. Pilate went out again and said to them, ‘Look I’m bringing Him out to let you know I find no case against Him’. So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, ‘Here, here is the man’. When the Chief Priests and the police saw Him they shouted, ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him’. Pilate said to them, ‘Take Him yourselves and crucify Him. I find no case against Him’. The Jews answered, ‘We have a law and according to that law He ought to die because He has claimed to be the Son of God.’

Now when Pilate heard this he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters and again asked Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate therefore said to Him, ‘Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you know I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?’ And Jesus answered him, ‘You have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’

From then on Pilate tried to release Him but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor’. When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement or in Hebrew Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, ‘Here is your king’. They cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him. Crucify Him’. Pilate asked them, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The Chief Priests answered, ‘We have no king but the emperor’ and he handed Him over to be crucified. So they took Jesus and carrying a cross by Himself He went out to what is known as The Place of the Skull which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

There they crucified Him and with Him two others. One on either side with Jesus between them. Pilate also had an inscription written and put it on the cross, it read ‘Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews’. Many of the Jews read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

Then the Chief Priests of the Jews said to Pilate, ‘Do not write “the king of the Jews” but “this man said, I am the king of the Jews”.’ Pilate answered, ‘I have written what I have written.’ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took His clothes, divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took His tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Lets not tear it but cast lots for it to see who will get it’.

This was to fulfil what the Scriptures says, “They divided my clothes among them and for my clothing they cast lots.” And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile standing near the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.” 

When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loves standing beside her, he said to His mother, ‘Woman, here is your son’. Then He said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother’. And from that hour the disciple took her in his own home. After this when Jesus knew that all was finished He said, in order to fulfil the Scripture, ‘I’m thirsty’.

A jar full of sour wine was standing there so they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the wine He said, ‘It is finished’. Then He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath especially because that Sabbath was a great day of solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. 

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with Him but when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead they didn’t break His legs. Instead one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and at once blood and water came out.

He who saw this has testified so that you may believe. His testimony is true and he knows that he tells the truth. These things occurred so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, “None of His bones shall be broken.” And again another passage of Scripture says, “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”

After these things Joseph of Arimathea who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission so he came and removed the body.

Nicodemus, who had come at first to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths according to the burial custom of the Jews.

Now there was a garden in the place where He was crucified and in that garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid and so because it was the Jewish day of preparation the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

It’s an amazing story. And I thought that on this day, the day that we call Good Friday, there was nothing to share with you, no words that I could possibly say that could come anywhere close to the power of this account. This Jesus, this Son of God who came to earth and became a man. Who grew up a Jew, who loved the loveless. He healed the sick, He blessed those who were cursed in this world, He taught those who didn’t understand, He liberated those who were captive. Arrested, beaten, tried and found guilty.

This Jesus who came for the people in that crowd, the people who just days had shouted Hosanna in the Highest as He rode into Jerusalem on that colt, the foal of a donkey. The people who now, whipped up by the religious leaders, bayed for His blood. These people are the ones that had Him crucified. Common, ordinary people. People in fact just like you and me.

And there He died, bloodied and beaten, the death that I deserve for my sin. The death that you deserve for yours. He died that we might live again. He died to give us a new life, a life where for all eternity we might be with Him where He is and behold His glory. For this reason Jesus came, to die for my sin and for yours that we may have access once again to God the Father.

To give you and me a new life. My slate wiped clean, completely clean. Forgiven by God. To give you a new life, your slate wiped clean, completely forgiven by God. But what a terrible price He had to pay this Jesus who knew no sin. In fact He became sin on that cross so that you and I might have a right standing with God.

Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down His life for His friends. You are my friends, said Jesus, if you do what I command.

Friend, this story of Easter is simple and powerful and profound. May you be blessed, may you be blessed richly as you drink in His blood red message of Easter. They don’t call it the good news for nothing.

Judas Iscariot would have to be one of the most infamous men in all of history.  The friend of Jesus who betrayed Him.  The man who betrayed the Son of God.  Have you ever wondered – what made him do it?  What if I told you that the trigger, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was a love of money?!

All of us have experienced some time in our lives the betrayal of a friend. It’s a terrible thing and in fact it is quite possibly the worst thing we could ever experience. When a trust is broken. When there’s an infidelity or a betrayal where there should have been faithfulness and trust. Where there’s hate where there once was love. Where there’s strife where once there was peace. These are the most painful of all pains.

The greater the love, the greater the trust that once was, the deeper and darker the betrayal. As I speak these words no doubt your mind turns to a betrayal in your life. Your heart remembers the darkness and the depth of the loss. That’s because betrayal was never meant to be. And so when we talk about Jesus betrayal by Judas Iscariot, this man whom Jesus took to be one of His closest disciples, then this is the thing of which we speak.

It’s not just a story as familiar as it may be, it’s a real human and spiritual drama based on betrayal and desertion. And as it turns out Judas wasn’t the only one of the disciples who betrayed Jesus. When push came to shove they all fled, they all left Him completely alone in His hour of need.

Jesus didn’t just die on that cross, he was betrayed and He was deserted by His closest friends. Turns out He suffered in a whole bunch of different ways, in ways that we sometimes gloss over and miss and ignore.

Betrayal is something that begins in the heart and that is exactly what happened with Judas Iscariot. Interestingly the thing that seemed to trigger it was money. Have a listen, John chapter 12 beginning at verse 1:

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus whom He’d raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for Him. Martha served and Lazarus was one of those at the table with Him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard and anointed Jesus feet and wiped them with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume but Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, the one who was about to betray Him said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?’ He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.

So there they were just six days before the Passover, less than a week before Jesus was arrested and tried, that money was playing merry hell in Judas’ heart. Am I drawing too long a bow here? Well I don’t think so particularly when you look at a similar thing that happened also in Bethany just four days later. Matthew chapter 26 beginning at verse 1:

When Jesus had finished saying all these things He said to His disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming and the Son of man will be handed over to be crucified?’ Then the Chief Priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the High Priest who was called Caiaphas and they conspired to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill Him.

But they said, ‘Not during the festival or there may be a riot among the people’. Now while Jesus was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper a woman came to Him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it they were angry and they said, ‘Why waste this for this ointment could have been sold for a large sum and the money given to the poor’.

But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world what she had done will be told in remembrance of her.’

Then one of the twelve who was called Judas Iscariot went to the Chief Priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I betray Him to you?’ They paid him thirty pieces of silver and from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray Jesus.

So there it was. It was Judas’ love of money that caused him to go out after the thirty pieces of silver and sell out the Son of God. It is the sin that triggered the crucifixion of Jesus, the love of money. And it wasn’t long before the wheels were set in motion. John chapter 18 beginning at verse 1:

After Jesus had spoken these words He went out with His disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden which He and His disciples entered. Now Judas who betrayed Him also knew the place because Jesus often met there with His disciples. So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the Chief Priests and the Pharisee’s and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to Him, came forward and asked them, ‘Who are you looking for?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ Judas who betrayed Him was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he’, they stepped back and they fell to the ground. 

Again He asked them, ‘Whom are you looking for?’ And they said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Jesus answered them, ‘I told you I am he, so if you are looking for me let these other men go.’ So the soldiers, their officer and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound Him.

And of course Jesus was tried several times and unjustly eventually condemned to death. Judas suffered a lot as a result of this and actually he had a change of heart, we read in Matthew chapter 27 beginning at verse 3:

When Judas His betrayer saw that Jesus was condemned he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the Chief Priests and to the elders. He said, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ But they said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ So throwing down the pieces of silver in the Temple he departed and he went and hanged himself.

Do you see how normal, everyday, human sin and frailty were involved in the arrest and the crucifixion of Jesus? How the lure of treasures of this world placed in Judas’ heart and fanned by satan himself were at play here. You and I, we’re so quick to cut ourselves some slack, to rationalise and justify our own sin and sweep it under the carpet. And yet it was your sin and mine that Jesus went to the cross to pay for.

And one of the most common of all sins friend is this love of money. The delight in the riches of this world which rises up and sets itself above God in our hearts and our lives. That’s what happened to Judas. He saw all this money being poured out on Jesus by way of these perfumes, he wanted that money, he wanted money and so he went and sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Friend, sin is as insidious as it is dangerous. It is all the sort of sin that God views so gravely that He sent His Son to die for it so that you and I might be forgiven. We can fool ourselves sure but only for so long. At some point we come to the painful realisation that Judas Iscariot came to. That it just ain’t worth it. That setting up other gods above the one true God is just about the dumbest thing that you and I could ever do in our lives.

And maybe, just maybe right now as we’re heading towards Easter you and I have the opportunity to ask ourselves, are we in that position? Is there something in our lives that we’re setting up above God? Are we, in anyway shape or form, like Judas? Because no sin is small sin, it starts as a seed, it festers, it grows and before we know it its fully blown sin which leads to death.

Judas discovered that, when we do that it has the most dire of consequences. Let me ask you to examine your heart, is there something that you are placing above God because if there is it’s time to let it go?

You discover a lot about someone when you see how they behave and react under pressure.  That’s when you see the real man or the real woman.  And one of the things that Jesus does just before He’s about to be crucified, is that He prays.  Question is – who or what does He pray for?  Now that’s an interesting question, because the answer tells us an awful lot about Jesus.

Prayer is something that most of us, well we don’t have time for, right? I mean life’s busy, we’re under pressure and so we’re just flat out getting through life. The idea of spending twenty minutes or half an hour or maybe even an hour praying each day, well I guess that’s nice, maybe it’s good for the minister to pray every day, I mean after all it’s what we pay him for but me, I’m just under too much pressure, I don’t have time.

And you know when we’re in a difficult place if we do pray then the things that we’re praying fervently about are the things that are putting us under pressure. If it’s a financial thing we pray for that. If it’s our children we pray for them. Whatever’s affecting our little world that’s where the focus of our prayer is. Imploring God, make a difference, fix this up.

Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, we should take our problems and our pressures to God, we should lay them at His feet and ask Him for His help, all good. That’s why when Jesus prays just before He’s about to be handed over and crucified, that’s why this pray completely blows me out of the water. John chapter 17.

The theologians call it the “high priestly” prayer. Bit much for me. Here is Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of man, praying to His Father in heaven just before He’s about to be nailed to that cross. What do we imagine He’s praying about? Who or what is He praying for?

I know who I’d be praying for I have to tell you if I were in His shoes. So let’s go and have a listen, it’s rather a long prayer but it’s a beautiful one and it’s worth eavesdropping to see who or what He prayed for. Come on, let’s have a listen and carefully, who’s He actually praying for?

After Jesus had spoken these words He looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hours come, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you. Since you have given Him authority over all people to give eternal life to all whom you have given Him. And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent.

I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I have made your name known to those whom you gave to me from the beginning from the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything you have given me is from you for the words that you gave to me I have given to them and they have received them and they know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I’m asking you on their behalf, I’m not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me because they’re yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and I have been glorified in them.

And now I’m no longer in the world but they are in the world and I’m coming to you. Holy Father protect them in your name that you have given me so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

But now I’m coming to you and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I’ve given them your word and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

So they do not belong to the world just as I don’t belong to the world. Sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth as you have sent me into the world so I have sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself so that they also may be sanctified in the truth.

I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word that they may be all one. As you Father are in me and I am in you may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them so that they may be one as we are one. I in them and you in me, they may be completely one so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

Father, I desire that those also whom you have given to me may be with me where I am to see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father the world doesn’t know you but I know you and these know you that you have sent me. I made your name known to them. I will make it known so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.’

So, a long prayer but who’s He praying for? Well for His disciples and not just for His disciples back then but actually for us here and now. Very specifically, did you pick that up? Let’s have another look, verse 20:

I ask not just on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may also be one.

Well we’ve believed in Jesus through the word of the disciples so Jesus is praying for us quite specifically here. Jesus is praying for you and for me. Friend I love doing what I do. I love being part of bringing the word of God to you and I’m so blessed in the knowledge that from time to time in different people’s lives God uses the foolishness I preach to transform them.

Truly I’ve dedicated my life to that BUT I have to be honest here, I am struggling to imagine myself on death row about to be nailed to a cross praying for you instead of me. Do you get my point? Maybe the Spirit of God will fill me in a way where I could do that but I have to be honest here I’m thinking I’d probably be praying about saving my own skin.

And yet here Jesus, just before He’s about to suffer the most gruesome death, is praying for you and for me. And what’s He praying? That God would protect us from the evil one so that you and I could be one just as Jesus and the Father are one.

You discover what’s in a man’s heart when you see how he reacts under pressure. The real man, the real woman comes out when we’re under pressure. And here we discover the real Jesus. Jesus is so passionate about you and me, so passionate about making us one with Him and with the Father, so passionate about uniting us in His body the Church as one that He would lay down His life to achieve that passion.

Just stop and think about that for a moment, let it sink in. If someone said, “Would the real Jesus please stand up?”, well here in John chapter 17 in this beautiful prayer, this is where we discover the real Jesus, the heart of God beating. Glory for Him isn’t about being on a throne, being glorified is about being nailed to a cross so that you and I could be part of His glory.

Do you see how sad it is when we just breeze through Easter as though it’s just another holiday or maybe a religious festival? I’ve heard the story so many times, I mean I know how it ends but do you see the tragedy of that? Of missing the heart of God, of missing what Jesus is all about in coming to be a man to suffer and to die and to rise again. Because there’s a point to it all.

That we are invited to a completely new life, a life based on the sacrifice of Jesus that includes being one with God with an intimacy that we could never have imagined. Just in the same way as Jesus and the Father are one.

It includes a unity and a fellowship and a family of God’s people being one with them. It includes beholding the glory of God for all eternity, being with Jesus where He is forever. That’s why Jesus went to the cross. That’s why we celebrate Easter. That’s why sailing through as though it’s just another holiday is such a tragedy.

Back in the days leading up to that very first Easter, the Disciples were afraid.  Petrified.  There was a plot afoot to assassinate Jesus. That was bad enough. But were they in the firing line too? Were they going to die too?  And into that little mess, Jesus spoke to them about joy and peace.

The days leading up to that first Good Friday, which incidentally at the time must have felt anything but good, they were frightening days. Not for Jesus. Of course His impending crucifixion weighed heavily upon Him but He didn’t seem to be afraid since He knew where He was going and what He had to do.

But His disciples, they were very definitely afraid. Why? Not just because they felt the plot to assassinate Jesus, not just because they were aware of the under currents and the plotting and the scheming and the conniving that was afoot to rob them of this amazing Jesus but because their lives were under threat too.

I mean they were His disciples, they were widely recognised as being the inner circle of Rabbi Jesus followers. That’s why Peter ended up denying Jesus three times because he feared for his own life.

So while on these days leading up to Easter you and I may well be looking forward to a long weekend and a rest and having just a bit extra chocolate that frankly our waistlines and cholesterol levels just don’t need, these disciples of Jesus were living in fear.

Fear not just of losing Jesus but fear of losing their own lives, fear of their whole belief system collapsing. Everything they’d dedicated their lives to these last three and a half years and fear for their own skin. No, that Friday looked anything but good and it’s into this reality, this fearful reality that Jesus speaks these words to His disciples. John chapter 16 beginning at verse 16:

‘A little while and you won’t see me any longer and again a little while and you will see me.’ Then some of His disciples said to one another, ‘What does He mean by saying “In a little while you’ll see me no longer and again in a while you’ll see me, because I’m going away to the Father?”’ They said, ‘What does He mean by this “a little while”? We do not know what He’s talking about.’ 

Jesus knew they wanted to ask Him so He said to them, ‘Are you discussing amongst yourselves what I meant when I said “A little while and you’ll no longer see me and again in a little while you’ll see me?” Truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice and you will have pain but your pain will turn to joy.’

When a woman’s in labour she has pain because her hour has come but when her child is born she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.

On that day you’ll be asking nothing of me. Very truly I tell you if you ask anything of the Father in my name He will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive so that your joy may be made complete. I’ve said these things to you in figures of speech but the hour’s coming when I’ll no longer speak to you in figures but will tell you plainly of the Father.

On that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I’ll ask the Father on your behalf for the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into this world. Again I am leaving the world and going to the Father.’

His disciples said, ‘Yes now you’re speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech. Now we know that you know all things and do not need to have anyone question you. By this we believe that you came from God’. Jesus answered them, ‘Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you’ll be scattered, each one to his home and you will leave me alone yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace.

In the world you face persecution but take courage I have conquered the world.

Now as I put myself in the shoes of these disciples, this rag tag group of fishermen and tax collectors, uneducated yokels by and large who had fallen for Jesus, I have to say what Jesus just said to us, its frightening and confusing, it just doesn’t make sense.

For a little while and then I’ll be gone and then you’ll see me again and then I’ll speak plainly instead of in riddles and you’re going to suffer pain but your pain will turn to joy.

I mean give me a break Jesus, I would have been saying, can you please, please tell me exactly what you mean.

So are you saying the forces of darkness that are plotting against you, they’re going to win? Is that what you’re saying? And if it is so what about all your miracles? What about all the amazing things that you told us and taught us, is this how it’s all going to end? Are we just going to be left behind? And how can you come back again from all of that?

Do you think in this fearful confusing time, isn’t that what you and I would be thinking and wanting to ask Jesus? Why are you promising me pain? Why are you doing this if you’re the Messiah? I left everything to follow you and now it’s all falling in a screaming heap and what about me? What’s going to happen to me? Am I going to die too or do I just go back to the fishing boat and forget the last three and half years of sacrifice?

The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you’ll be scattered, each one to his home and you will leave me alone. Yet I’m not alone because the Father is with me.

Why is He telling me this stuff? Why is He doing this? Jesus?

I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. For in this world you will face persecution but take courage for I have overcome the world.

Jesus was telling them things just the way they were. And I love that about Him. He’s never one to sweep things under the carpet or to coat them in sugar or to hoodwink us with some false reality that we’re all floating around like angels on cloud nine. Jesus came to do something tough and brutal.

So seriously does God take our sin, yours and mine, so big a deal is it to Him that our sin separates us from Him for all eternity. So great is His love for us and His desire for us to spend from now until the rest of eternity in His presence that He sends us His one and only Son to be brutally nailed to a cross for thee and for me. That’s how big a deal my sin and your sin is for God lest we should ever be inclined to think we can just sweep our little sins under the carpet.

And He speaks into their fear with words of confidence in His Father and with words of peace. For in this world we will all have tribulation, we will be persecuted, the going will get tough, it will be difficult and fearful and confusing and unpredictable. That word there for persecution, the Greek, is the word Thlipsis which means literally to be put under pressure like grapes in a wine press, to have the juice, the life squeezed out of you.

That’s what He’s talking about. And I know you’re going to travel through all of this and I know it isn’t going to make sense and I know you’re going to be afraid but as you’re in this place remember my words because I’m coming back for you. I haven’t left you alone. You won’t be orphaned. I’m telling you the truth, the way things are, in this world you will be under pressure but take courage, be strong, gird up the loins of your heart for I have overcome the world.

Jesus has won. He defeated sin on the cross. He defeated death in the empty tomb and He has said these things and done these things so that in the middle of our fear and our pain and our tribulation we might have peace. Shalom. A complete peace and trust and confidence in Jesus.

Just before He was betrayed, Jesus got down and washed the dirty, smelly feet of His disciples.  Have you ever wondered how you’d react if He knocked on your front door tonight and offered to wash your feet?  I’m not sure I’d be all that keen to let Him do that … but as it turns out, that’s exactly what He came to do!

An amazing week coming up this week. Not just here on the program but in life generally as we head towards Easter. Here we are on the Monday before that Friday where we celebrate, oh maybe celebrate isn’t quite an apt choice of words here, when we remember that Jesus was nailed to that cross.

We call it Good Friday but back then it didn’t look too good, it didn’t feel too good and those days and weeks leading up to that fateful day, a day on which the whole of the history of humanity pivots. They were tense and dangerous days and for the disciples it was quite a frightening time.

And so today and over the coming days we’re again going to spend some time just travelling alongside the disciples, seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard and hopefully feeling what they felt. Why? Well that’s simple. Because I for one am sick of kind of just zooming through Easter as though it’s just a long weekend and a religious celebration, a time for some extra chocolate which truly I just don’t need.

No this Easter thing is huge, I mean it’s huge and my hunch is that as we walk beside the disciples, as we’re going to do by recounting the Apostle John’s account of events through the Gospel, my hunch is that Gods Spirit will touch our hearts with a fresh revelation and what it is that our mighty God was up to. And today we’re going to take a look at this thing that Jesus did of washing His disciples feet, what was that all about?

John chapter 13 beginning at verse 1:

Now before the festival of the Passover Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world and to go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world He loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Him. And during the supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands and that He had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off His outer robe and tied a towel around Himself.

Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciple’s feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around Him. He came to Simon Peter who said to Him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” And Jesus answered, “You do not know what I’m doing but later you will understand”. Peter said to Him, “You’ll never wash my feet” and Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share in me”.

So Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, not just my feet but also my hands and my head’. Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash except for the feet but is entirely clean and you are clean though not all of you’, for He knew who was about to betray Him and for this reason He said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

After He’d washed their feet and He put His robe back on again and He returned to the table He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord and you are right for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you. 

Very truly I tell you servants are not greater than their masters nor are messengers greater than the one who have sent them. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them. I’m not speaking of all of you, I know whom I have chosen but it is to fulfil the Scriptures that “The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.” I tell you this now before it occurs so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He.

Very truly I tell you whoever receives one whom I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who has sent me.

So there’s Jesus, the Son of God, He washes the feet of His disciples on that night as they celebrated the Passover meal together in the upper room and literally just hours before He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a difficult time, a dangerous time. I suspect the disciples had never celebrated the Passover quite in this way, with this dark cloud of danger and betrayal and fear and death hanging over them.

The thing we can so often forget is that they knew there were plots afoot to kill Jesus and they simple couldn’t imagine that happening after having seen Him do all the things He’d done. The miracles, the acts of kindness and after having heard all that He had to say, the wisdom and the truth and the love in His words. But that wasn’t all, they were afraid for their own lives too. Would they be arrested? Would they be tried and crucified too?

So they eat the meal, roast lamb with the bitter herbs and unleavened bread and they drink the wine and then Jesus gives them a foot bath. Now think about this, the Son of God girds up His loins, gets a bowl and a bath and washes their grubby smelly feet. And they were really grubby and smelly. These people had been walking out their on the roads with animal excrement and dust and dirt wearing just sandals. Who knows how long and how dirty their toenails were. I mean let’s get real here right?

This wasn’t some nice clean safe sanitised religious ritual. This was a grubby, dirty, smelly thing that Jesus was doing, washing their feet and He, the Son of the living God. Do you see how low He was prepared to bow? Do you see how humble He was? And He didn’t just wash the feet of those disciples who loved Him, He washed the feet of that one disciple, Judas Iscariot, who had already plotted to betray Him and sell Him out to the authorities. Judas the assassin who’d taken thirty pieces of silver for the life of Jesus. Jesus washed his feet too.

And Peter had the reaction that I think I would have had. Peter said to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet”. In other words, it’s just not right. You’re the Lord, you’re the Messiah, you’re the Son of God, what are you doing washing my feet? It’s not right. This reaction, it was a reaction against grace so Jesus answered him;

Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.

So Peter being Peter gets this quickly and dives in boots and all and says, “well Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head”. No Jesus was right, they didn’t understand what He was up to but this act of complete servitude, complete humility, complete stepping down off the throne of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and washing their feet was a symbolic act.

It was acting out the grace of the cross which was about to come. It was explaining in a way that one day they would understand looking back on it, what the cross was all about. Jesus became a nothing and a nobody. Jesus bowing His life down at our feet in order that we might be saved. And the whole point of grace is that it’s not right, it’s not just, it’s completely wrong, it’s completely the wrong way round that Jesus should have to suffer on that cross and to die for my sin and my rebellion and yours.

On that cross He died my death, the death that I deserve and yours. Completely unfair, completely the wrong way round and we could protest, we could say that’s unjust but no doubt He would answer:

Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.

Unless we accept what He’s done for us, He who knew no sin becoming sin so that we might be completely right with God, unless we accept that and trust in that and believe in that with all that we are then quite simply we will have no share in Jesus.

When someone hurts us, what we want is recompense. But often that’s not possible. And so the thing that we really need to do is to forgive. Often we don’t – and that’s something that will sap the life out of us.

The 9th of November 1989 is a significant day in history. One of the most significant in my lifetime and one that I’ll never forget. It’s the day that the Berlin Wall, erected by the Communists, started to come down after almost 30 years of dividing a nation, dividing a community and dividing many families. But sadly many walls still remain.

This is our very last message in a series that we’ve had on the program called, ‘The Art Of Living’. There were so many ways that I could have finished this series off but there’s one thing that I see time and time again that so robs people of a life of impact and a life of joy and so that’s what we’re going to chat about on the program today.

That picture of the Berlin Wall is a powerful one. Germany, you may recall, after World War 2 was separated into east and west by the allies. The majority of the country, which had been under control of the Americans the British and the French, evolved into an open democracy.

The East however, which had been occupied by the Soviets, became a closed nation annexed to the eastern block. The capital of Germany was Berlin and this was in the Soviet zone so as part of the arrangement Berlin itself was divided so the Soviets controlled part and the democratic government of West Germany controlled the other part.

The reasons for erecting the Wall to separate the two parts of Berlin are complex but they were largely driven by economics. The Soviet-controlled portion was not doing very well at all so people were flooding out of East Berlin to the west. Had the Soviets not erected the wall their quarter would have become a ghost town.

That wall was a terrible thing separating families: parents from their children, husbands from their wives. It was the brutal thing of division and suspicion. I wish we had the time to chat about the events that culminated in its destruction in 1989 because that was a fascinating time in history.

Walls are always damaging, sometimes they exist as a physical structure but most often they live in the hearts of people. We saw it for centuries in Northern Ireland where historically, peace is a relatively recent phenomenon. We’ve seen it for centuries in Israel. In many parts of Africa there are tribal, national and international wars that continue to rage. You see religious divisions you even see sometimes violence around sporting teams.

Somehow our capacity to divide people, to set one against the other, to live in suspicion and fear of one another is incredible. But it’s not the macro perspective that I’m so much interested in today, it’s the micro, the individual, the personal.

Many people live their lives with walls in their hearts, rejecting loved ones over all sorts of ridiculous things, being suspicious of people in the work place of their motives. Sometimes we build walls around our hearts for protection after being hurt. You see that a lot sadly in marriages where husband and wife have their own Berlin Wall running right through the middle of their relationship; a wall that together they built brick by brick over many years until finally they find themselves living on the other side of it.

Do you recognise any of that in your life? It’s just as destructive in our lives and relationships tearing us apart as the Berlin Wall was in tearing families apart. What walls do you have in your life? What unforgiveness, fears, suspicions are you carrying around in your heart? Because these are the things that rob us of life; these are the things that stunt our growth; that gives us an outlook on life that just ruins everything.

I want to share with you today, as you look forward to the rest of your life, how you can tear down the walls in your life brick by brick. The Germans tore that wall down with their bare hands, this wall that had limited them for too long, and what followed was a united single Germany.

And in a very real sense that’s what I’m talking about here, tearing down the walls that divide us by hand, brick by brick. I don’t care what you believe, what you don’t believe, there’s really only one way to do this and that’s through forgiveness and reconciliation, not through religion. This is how Jesus put it, Matthew chapter 5 beginning at verse 23:

So when you’re offering a gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you leave your gift there before the altar and go first to be reconciled with your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift to God.

He’s talking about people putting reconciliation before sacrifice to God. He’s saying here, “look you can’t have a right relationship with God when you’ve got an argument going on with someone else. First go and be reconciled with that person then come and make your peace with God.”

As I said I don’t care what faith you belong to, what belief or set of values you have in your life, we all need to deal with these issues. Just picture that mighty Berlin Wall that divided families and communities for such a long time. The change happened when the mood of the people swelled up, enough of this division, enough of this separation, enough.

I remember at the time on television seeing people tearing that mighty wall apart literally with their bare hands, that would have been hard work, that would have been painful, that would have left some hands bruised and bloody but they tore down the wall.

Who are the people on the other side of your walls? Maybe it’s a family member, a mother, a child that you haven’t spoken to for years. Perhaps it’s a wife or a husband whom you’ve isolated, who knows? Perhaps it’s someone in your community who believes something different or lives differently to you.

I’m not saying that anything goes. I’m not saying that we have to say that wrong is right, just that it’s time to forgive, just that it’s time to lay aside the fears and the prejudices and the anger and the animosity and all that stuff that tears us apart.

Listen to me, love is always better than anger, forgiveness is always better than unforgiveness. If you and I want to live the life we’ve been made to live love is the answer, tearing down the walls is the answer, laying aside old angers and animosities and divisions is the answer, forgiving people is the answer.

What walls need tearing down in your life? What walls are limiting you and stunting you and robbing you of relationships and life? It’s time to tear down the walls. It’s time to forgive and get on with life.

Now I’m not talking here about something that’s usually complicated, it’s simple. I love the way the Apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesian Church, chapter 4, verse 32:

Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

There’s the key, if you believe in Jesus God has forgiven you just as He’s forgiven me everything. He did that at a huge cost, the torture and the brutal death of Jesus His Son.

When we carry around unforgiveness it eats away at us like a cancer; it rots the soul; it robs us of an outlook on life that could be so full of anticipation of what the future holds. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Jesus? Do you want to live the life that He always intended for you to live? Then my friend unforgiveness isn’t an option. Let me say that again unforgiveness is not an optional extra to our relationship with God, it’s a vital element. Mark chapter 11, verse 25:

Jesus said, ‘whenever you stand praying forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven will forgive you your trespasses.

Colossians chapter 3, verse 12 and 13:

Put on then as Gods chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, neatness, patience, bearing with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another forgiving each other just as the Lord has forgiven you, you also must forgive.

The list of those Bible references go on, trust me. As hard as it may appear forgiving those who’ve wronged you is the most powerful thing that you can do to get a fresh beginning in your life. What walls is God calling you to tear down in your life?