God’s promise to us is that He would put a new spirit in us, and a new song on our lips. That can be hard to swallow if last year was a rotten year, but if it was, you’re precisely the person that this promise is for. Are you ready to receive them? A new spirit, a new song.

Last week on the program, we were talking about the amazing fact that the moment you and I believe in Jesus, we become a completely new creation. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; and see, everything has become new!

A new identity, a new start. And what an appropriate thing to be talking about as we set out on a new year in our lives. So many people, because of their failures, their losses, perhaps because of the abuse that’s been inflicted on them one way or another in the past, have come to the conclusion that they’re worthless.

And yet what the death of Jesus on the Cross tells me, is that God was prepared to pay the highest price possible – highest price in the universe – to give you and me a fresh start, the price of His Son’s life, Jesus. So no matter how you see yourself, you are worth so much, that’s the evidence. Look at what God was prepared to pay, to sacrifice to give you a new identity and a new life.

Jesus put it a little differently, He talked about being born again. He was chatting with one of the religious leaders, Nicodemus, who came to Him in secret one night. Let’s tune into that conversation, John chapter 3, verses 5 to 9:

Jesus said, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into their mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I say to you, ‘You must be born again.’ For the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not see where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

No wonder Nicodemus was confused. It’s a very strange concept to be born again, but that’s exactly what God wants to do – He wants to give you a new life. And the only way that can happen, is when the Holy Spirit enters you. After all, that’s how the first man was given life. Genesis chapter 2, verse 7:

The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

There are a few words used in the Old Testament for ‘breath’ – but they are generally synonymous, with Spirit. So the idea here is that God breathed His Spirit, the Holy Spirit into this man. That’s where life comes from. Matter itself can’t produce that. Energy itself can’t produce that. Only God can, by His Spirit.

The problem is for you and me that we have all gone astray and fallen short of God’s glory. We have all rebelled. And so although we were made in the image of God, male and female, we now have a problem. Our rebellion has corrupted us deep inside somewhere, and that’s why we need to be born again, as Jesus put it. We need a new life, a new start and, as things turn out, a fresh breath of the Spirit.

What an amazing thing to be talking about as we head into this new year, a fresh life, a fresh start and a fresh breath of the Spirit and that’s exactly what God promised us. Have a listen to this, Ezekiel chapter 11, verse 19:

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31:

Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.

Ezekiel chapter 26, verses 25 to 27:

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.

Three times God promises to deal with our hearts hardened through our rebellion by breathing new life into us – a new spirit, the very essence of God dwelling in you. That is mind–blowing. A new heart, a soft, tender heart of flesh, and a new spirit – the Spirit of God, whom Jesus also promised in John chapter 14, verses 15 to 17:

Jesus said to His disciples: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

All He’s asking us to do here is to turn away from the things we know are wrong, to turn our lives back to Him and His Spirit will fill us full to overflowing. With new life, with a new identity, new power, the ability to live our lives for God rather than to continue in the old ways that hardened our hearts.

If anyone wants a fresh start this year, here it is:

Lord God please forgive me, please, I want Jesus. I want to put all of my faith and all of my trust in Him and I want to be filled with His new Spirit, to have the joy and the peace and the power to live for you. So today I want to accept Jesus into my heart, I know that’ll mean changes, I know that it’ll be hard, I know some people may laugh at me but from this day forward, I belong to you, through what Jesus did for me, and I know that right now, this moment you have filled me with your Holy Spirit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus name. Amen.

And that’s the truth. If you prayed that prayer with me you are forgiven, you belong to Jesus and you have received His Spirit.

And seriously, that right there is the beginning of your fresh new start for this year. I want to encourage you to go on being filled with the Spirit, which is exactly what Paul the Apostle encourages us to do. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20:

Do not get drunk with wine, because that is debauchery; instead be filled with the Holy Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There’s a clear choice here about how we live. We can keep in our old ways, keep rebelling, or we can be filled with the Spirit (and the tense of the verb that Paul uses there means literally: to go on being filled with the Spirit) as we live the life that God wants us to live – worshipping Jesus and living our lives for Him.

I don’t know how last year played out for you, but I’m certain that you’re looking forward to something better this year, something more, something that fills that hole inside of you that nothing else and nobody else seems to be able to fill.

If that’s where you’re at right now then with all my heart, I believe that this is what you have been looking for. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, dwelling inside you, giving you the strength to be holy, filling you with joy unspeakable, and guiding you into what God has ready and waiting for you.

Many years ago, when I was a cadet at the Royal Military College Duntroon – the Australian Army’s officer training academy, I found the going really, really tough.

On top of your university degree, you had military training, room inspections, dress inspections, parades every morning, not to mention the bastardisation that went on. As a whole, it was mentally and physically punishing for four years of my life. On top of that, my body wasn’t made to run – walk with a pack and a machine gun for days, sure – but this unit, this body wasn’t made for running I can tell you.

So I’d often fall behind on the long and arduous runs that we had to endure, earning the scorn and ridicule of fellow cadets. In my final year I failed the cross country run by 22 seconds and then again 12 seconds and almost ended up being kicked out. It was a six day work week, with study heaped on top of that. And whilst I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad I survived to graduate to become a commissioned officer, I wouldn’t do it again for all the tea in China. Really, it was the most brutal four years of my life.

But there was one highlight in all of that, that I looked forward to every week. We had an Army Band stationed at the college, and the conductor, the leader of that band, Major Fischer, decided to form a cadet’s choir. Once a week on a Wednesday afternoon, we would have an hour and a half’s rehearsal, and that was about the only thing that kept me sane.

Just thirty or so of us getting together to make music. There was something so incredibly special about that – it lifted my soul, it brought some joy to my life – it’s kind of hard to explain. But if you’ve ever been in a choir or a band and made music with other people, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

For most of the other guys, they loved playing rugby or cricket or some other team sport that I loathed. For me it was choir rehearsal and going out from time to time to perform in public. Music is special in a way that you can’t explain in words. It’s just how God made us and that, I think, is why He wants to put a new song into your heart.

Here we are in the middle of the first teaching series for the year. It’s called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’; and I know there are a few people today who need a new song in their hearts. Before the break, we looked at this Scripture verse and I want to come back to it again because it is so powerful. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20:

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The bit about not getting drunk isn’t just about drinking too much. It’s symbolic of all those things out there, the things of this world that we can get involved in that distract us from God. What a stupid way to live – and yet it’s so easy to get caught up in all those distractions.

The clear alternative here is not to get drunk, but to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. The question is … how do you do that? How do you experience God’s Presence in your life? Well, it goes on to tell us in that passage … by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves … in other words with each other, as part of a faith community AND making melody to the Lord in your hearts AND giving thanks at all times for everything in Jesus’ name.

Three things. Here they are in case you missed them. Singing praise and worship songs together, having a melody in your heart for God on your own, and being thankful and grateful for everything all the time.

And by doing those things we are going to continually be filled and refilled with the Holy Spirit. Hey, you may have read or heard that verse before in your life but did you realise the power and the punch that it packs.

I love going to church. Not because the sermon is always brilliant, not because I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning and not because of the instant coffee we drink together afterwards. I love going to church because it is such an amazing opportunity to sing with my brothers and sisters in worshipping God.

Still to this day, it lifts my Spirits and I experience the powerful Presence of God in me and in our midst. Did you realise that’s what’s supposed to happen? Worship isn’t just about singing songs, it’s about bowing down to God and being filled by His Spirit.

And often in the morning when I’m praying alone in my study, just spending that one-on-one time with the Lord, I’ll listen to one or two worship songs on my iPad and those songs, those melodies are rattling around in my heart all day. I find myself humming them while I’m driving, or just feel them going round and round inside me.

And all day, I feel so much closer to God. All day, the power of God to resist temptation is so much stronger in me – because I am doing exactly what God’s Word says I should do, I’m getting on with the business of continually being filled with the Holy Spirit. Trials are much easier to cope with. Difficult people are so much easier to forgive. I’m a better husband, I’m a better teacher, I’m a better father when I’m living that way.

And finally, I have to tell you, the third point on my list is constantly thanking God. To be honest, there are many times when I don’t feel grateful. Gratitude is the last emotion that I experience when the going’s going tough. But what I’ve discovered is that if we do what God tells us to do, give thanks at all times for everything, the feeling of gratitude follows the act of obedience. It’s counterintuitive I know, but that’s how it works. Here it is again, Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20, listen to it carefully and let it sink into your heart:

Do not get drunk with wine, that is debauchery; but instead be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Look, try it, it actually works.

And as this New Year gets underway, I am believing that God wants to give you a fresh start. That’s why we’re talking about this stuff today – because being filled with the Spirit, having a melody in our hearts for God, giving thanks for everything all the time – no matter what it is – is so refreshing.

Listen up – God wants to put a song into your heart today. I know it mightn’t feel that way for you just at this moment. I know your circumstances might be pressing in on you and the idea of having a melody in your heart for God, well you know, it seems impossible. But have a listen to what King David wrote when men were trying to kill him. Psalm 40, verses 1 to 3:

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

We imagine that when the going is tough, singing a new song is impossible. But that’s precisely the time when God wants to put a new song in your mouth, in your heart. So, if you’re in a desolate pit or a miry bog right now, wait patiently for the Lord, He will incline His ear to you, He will hear your cry, He will draw you up out of that place and put your feet on solid ground and He will put a new song in your heart and on your lips.

He does all of those things, all we need to do is to wait patiently on Him, believing that His Word is true, expecting Him to act, crying out to Him … and in that place the Spirit of God will fall on you and fill you and put a new melody, a new song in your heart.

The simple how–to of going on being filled with the Holy Spirit, start singing some songs, start giving thanks for everything all the time and God will show up. Trust me. He will show up!

It’s hard to imagine a new spirit being poured into you and a new song being put on your lips, when you know that you’ve done things to hurt God. When you know that you’ve sinned against Him. Sure you’ve asked for His forgiveness, but somehow guilt is still robbing you of the new beginnings that God has for you.

So I want you to imagine for a moment that you committed a horrendous crime, and you spent a long time in prison. So, you wore those orange overalls, you had a number, Prisoner Number 478653. You slept in a cell, you only came and went when the guards allowed you to. And as far as the guards and your fellow prisoners and indeed society as a whole was concerned, you were a criminal and a prisoner.

But today … today is the day of your release. You’ve done the crime, you served the time and right now, right this minute, you walk out of that prison. And the moment you step over the line between inside the prison and outside the prison, you cease to be a criminal and a prisoner, because your debt to society has been paid.

The reason that so many prisoners re-offend and end up back inside again, is because once they step over that line, they never come to grips with their new identity. They never lay hold of the new freedom they have because of how the law and how society now sees them.

And the problem for many people in life too, is exactly the same. They never lay hold of the powerful truth that we discover here in God’s Word – 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, that the moment you believe in Jesus, the moment you step over that line from rebellion against God to faith in Jesus – you have a completely new identity:

For if anyone is in Christ Jesus, there is a new creation, all the old things have passed away and behold, everything is new!

See, you have a complete right – standing with God, so much so, that He declares you to be a new creation. Completely new.

That’s what’s on offer here: a new identity and a new life. Not because you or I paid the debt, but because Jesus did it for you. No matter what this year holds, there’s one thing for certain: wrap your heart around this truth, accept the new identity you have in Christ, and it’s going to be an awesome year.

Me – I’ve failed so many times. I have made so many mistakes in my life. If I kept carrying all those around with me every day, I’ve got to tell you, I’d be exhausted, I’d be depressed, I’d be completely without hope … in fact, I’m not sure I’d even still be alive.

So whatever you have going on at the moment, whatever loss or failure or regret that is robbing you of a sense of hope and anticipation of what this year ahead might hold … call to mind, and therefore have hope, real hope … God’s hope. This passage from Lamentations chapter 3:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; for great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

God can and will make everything new. Like the droplets of rain that glisten as the sun rises each morning, His mercies for you are new every morning and when God forgives and when God restores and when God shows up as He always does in His faithfulness, everything is new. His touch restores your soul. His voice banishes your fear. His presence puts strength and courage and resolve and purpose back into your heart.

So if last year wasn’t all that you wanted it to be, if this year isn’t shaping up as something to look forward to, then let me encourage you, implore you, to cast yourself on the mercies of God that are available to you right now through Jesus Christ, through what He did for you. Go and give it all to Him, go and pour your heart out to Him, this Jesus who wants to lighten your load and give you hope for tomorrow.

And watch, just watch what the Lord will do for you.

As we set off into yet another new year, it’s amazing how many people can’t see the new beginnings that God has ready and waiting for them. So for some of us, it’s time to open our eyes … it’s either that, or miss out.

Have you ever been at a New Year’s eve party, and everybody’s celebrating and yahooing and carrying on, and then there’s the countdown: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year! And there’s lots of kissing and hugging and all that stuff, and yet the last thing you feel like doing is celebrating. What is there to celebrate? Last year was somewhere between a real shocker and nothing out of the ordinary. This year, well … It looks a bit … well, you know … and so you look around at all these other people smiling and laughing and slapping each other on the back, and inside you feel just a bit empty.

If that’s a bit how the beginning of this year feels for you, well, you wouldn’t be alone, seriously. So many people have nothing much to celebrate really, or so it seems, and for many, there’s a sense that the business of last year isn’t finished yet. A lot of that has to do with the regrets of the past; the hurts of the past; the losses or the abuse or the rejection of the past, and the biggest one of all, the failures of the past.

So many people feel as though they’ve failed at their job, at their marriage, at bringing up their kids, at loving God, and the problem with those failures is that it’s often somewhere between very difficult and absolutely impossible to set things right. I suspect each one of us, if we’re a bit honest with ourselves today, we have some regrets from last year that are still hanging over us, and often, those regrets have a lot to do with our failures.

So we set off into this New Year with a sense of failure, and the sense that we’re a failure. I am a failure, and if we’re not careful, that sense of failure, that sense of doom and gloom, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The next year turns out just the same as the last one. If you’re anywhere near to being in that space at the moment (come on, be honest with yourself), then I have some great, great news for you today. Our God is a God of new beginnings and His mercies are new today, tomorrow, the next day – indeed every day and every morning.

As the writer of the book of Lamentations looked around at the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, after the Babylonians came as an instrument of God’s judgment and raised it to the ground, taking the Israelites captive as slaves into exile, he was devastated, but then somewhere inside, the Holy Spirit moved him to say and to write these words. Lamentations 3:19-26:

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall. My soul continuously thinks of it and is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: For the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him, and it is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

That is such an incredibly poignant passage of Scripture. This man who is devastated not just for himself, but for his homeland, for his people, for the destruction of God’s temple even and the loss of His presence, this guy is stirred and moved deep inside somewhere to declare that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases! His mercies never come to an end, for they are new every morning.

Let me take that and personalise it for you. God’s steadfast love towards you never ceases. His mercies for you are fresh and new for you each and every morning. Now if you’re at all human, you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh, Berni, that’s all fine, but if you knew how badly I blew things last year, how badly I behaved, how badly I failed other people and God, you’d know how hard it is for me to accept that.”

We often think we’re the only person thinking like that, when in fact this sense of guilt that flows out of failure is one of the most common things that people experience. It’s a natural response-mechanism that God’s put in each one of us to get us to realise that our only answer, our only refuge, our only future, our only hope, is in Him.

Do you remember the story of Moses going up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God? And God writes those commandments on two tablets of stone, but whilst Moses and God are up there doing business on the mountain, God’s people have cast an idol for themselves. Led by Moses’ brother Aaron the high priest, they melt down all their gold and cast a golden calf that they bow down and worship.

Moses comes down the mountain; he’s so angry, so incensed at these faithless people that he smashes the stone tablets with the commandments on them. You’d think (wouldn’t you) at this point, it’d be over. It probably would have been, had you or I been God, but you see, God’s mercies are new every morning, so Exodus 34 starts off this way (verses 1 and 2):

The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on-top of the mountain”.

And so he did. He went up to the mountain again and God gave him the commandments again. Why? Well, God explains Himself a few verses later. Exodus 34:6:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”.

That’s who God is. God is mercy; God is love, and that mercy and that love are for you, here and now, at the beginning of this year. If only you’ll turn your regrets and your failures over to God, what a fresh start this New Year could be for you.

Even the strongest among us find ourselves feeling tired and weak sometimes. It’s not that you’re a loser, and it’s certainly not that you’re the only person on the planet that feels that way, but the daily grind has a way of … well … grinding you down, doesn’t it? Add to that the stresses and strains that life brings, especially if last year wasn’t all you wanted it to be, especially if last year had some hurts or some failures or some losses that you weren’t anticipating and you’re struggling to get over them.

You see, it’s easy to start the new year off feeling drained; not ready to face the challenges that lie ahead. We’re kicking this year off with a series of messages that I’ve called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’ because God is a God of new beginnings, and one of the things that He wants to do for you is to renew your strength.

Now, renew is a word that I love. It’s an amazing word, two parts: Re and new. We all know what the new means. Something that’s new is brand-new: A new experience, a new mercy, a new love, a new hope, a new life … Newness is fresh! It’s exciting! It’s a new start! But that re part of renew is about doing something new again. Most of the time in the English language, when a word starts with the syllable re it means again: Repeat, review, re-enter, reactivate, reaffirm and on it goes, so humour me, and think about this word renew for just a moment.

It means to do that new thing again. It means to enter into newness a second time, a third time, a fourth time, a thousandth time, and that’s the sense with which I’m asking you to understand this amazing passage of Scripture. Isaiah 40:27-41:1:

Why do you say, o Jacob, and speak, o Israel, ‘|My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn’t faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and He strengthens even the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Listen to me in silence, o coastlands. Let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak.

What’s God saying here to His people Israel through the prophet Isaiah? Well, this message comes at a time when they’re weak and exhausted. Almost seventy years earlier, the Babylonians as an instrument of God’s judgment came and destroyed Jerusalem and took God’s chosen people into captivity as slaves. They’ve been living out that slavery for almost three generations, as long as most of them can remember – a lifetime and then some, and they’re tired. They’ve had it, and they’ve lost sight of their God, so He speaks to them through Isaiah to remind them.

If you’re tired today, and if you’ve had it, and if you’ve perhaps lost sight of your God, He is also speaking today through His Word to remind you. Don’t you get what He’s saying? ‘I’m the God who created the whole universe. I haven’t run out of steam. I’m not tired or exhausted. In fact I have so much power, such a deep inexhaustible store of strength, that I’m going to give power to the faint and strengthen the powerless’.

Now are you feeling faint and powerless? Well, by His Spirit and His Word, God is giving you today power and strength. That’s what He’s saying, and just in case you’re feeling inadequate or guilty for feeling the way you do at the moment, remember: Even youths will faint and be weary. Even the young and the fit will fall exhausted. That happens to all of us. The daily grind grinds us down, and it drains us of our strength, and there you have it: The reality of life on this earth, right? But, and here comes the turning-point in what God’s saying to us today, here comes the kicker: But those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength.

There it is: That amazing little word, renew. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not grow faint. Why? How can that be? Because when we go to God and wait expectantly for Him to act, for Him to renew our strength, that’s exactly what He’ll do. And that’s the meaning, the sense of the original Hebrew word used here for wait: It is to wait expectantly; not grumbling, not losing your faith, not flapping around in despair … It’s a picture of going to God in prayer, of putting your trust in Him, of waiting at His feet with the expectation for good, the way a child does with its father.

What God’s saying here to you and to me today is that if we’ll do that, He will renew our strength, but not in the way that you and I might, should we take a break or have a rest, because in our own strength, time and time again, we will run out, just as the strong youth does. Now as Jesus said, He doesn’t give the way the world gives. When you and I wait expectantly (with a sense of anticipation) on God, He will renew our strength with His strength: A strength that takes us to heights we never thought possible. They shall mount up with wings like eagles! A strength that never, ever, ever runs out. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint.

Time and time again, I run out of my own strength, and it’s in my nature to be a strong person. It used to frustrate me that I’d hit a wall; that I’d run out of steam; that me, this naturally strong guy, would be left feeling drained and listless and ineffectual. And when you feel that way, you end up heading down a spiral. It’s easy to enter into depression. Look, I’m no shrink. I’m no physician. I have no expertise in dealing with clinical depression, except I know that a couple of times, I’ve been there in my life, and I know that when I took this passage of Scripture to heart, I started to experience a strength that I just can’t put into words.

Seriously, God’s taking me higher than I ever imagined in my walk with Him, and that’s despite the many low points that I’ve experienced. And each morning, as I take time to speak with Him, to hear from Him, to open His Word, to wait on Him, I end up receiving a strength from Him that I can’t put into words. It’s a strength that comes from His peace; from His joy. After all, His Word says that the joy of the LORD is our strength. It’s a strength that comes from experiencing God’s presence; from waiting silently with your heart and your mind open, your whole being focused on Him, and can I tell you? It’s absolutely true.

Those who wait expectantly on the LORD, those who wait quietly expecting Him to act, believing He will act, will renew their strength. They will rise up as on eagles’ wings. They will run and not grow weary and walk and not faint, and this is something that God wants to give you today, tomorrow, the next day, and for evermore: The renewing of your strength. Entering back into a new experience of freshness and strength, again and again, so that you can live your life in victory: The victory that Jesus died and rose again to give you.

When the nation of Israel faced the daunting task of heading into the promised land, knowing that they would have to take it battle after battle, God said to them through Moses (in Deuteronomy 31:6):

Be strong and bold and have no fear or dread of them, because it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.

When the apostle Paul was lying in a Roman dungeon on death row, chained to a guard, he wrote this to his friends at Philippi (Philippians 4:13):

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

God’s strength is for you. It’s ready and waiting, and He means for you to renew your strength; to drink deep from His well, as you wait quietly and expectantly on Him.

This week, we’re kicking off the new year with a series of messages that I’ve called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’. After all, as I mentioned earlier, that’s what celebrating the new year is all about. Right now, as we see people for the first time in this new year, we’re greeting them with, “Happy new year.” Aren’t we? That kind of runs out sometime in the second half of January, I guess, but right now, today, tomorrow, this week and next, you and I will welcome people, greet people with, ‘A Happy New Year’ quite a few more times. The sad truth however is that many of those people, by far the majority, aren’t in fact looking forward to a happy new year.

They’re carrying around heavy burdens: The regrets of the past, the worries of tomorrow. It’s not just other people. Each one of us to some extent has doubts, uncertainties, about whether we’re up to it. Whether we have what it takes to face this new year. A lot of it comes back to who we think we are, and how we see ourselves.

Years ago in my late twenties, I became involved in an IT consulting firm. I was one of the partners, the owners, but we had another guy (Graham is his name) – the managing director, the boss, by virtue of the fact that he was twenty years my senior and much smarter and much more mature than me. And when we would go in to a potential client/organisation to listen to their needs so we could bid for some new consulting work, he would always ask them a series of questions about their recent experiences with technology.

Any recent projects; recent implementations; recent experiences. “How did it go? How was the project perceived? Was it a success? Was it a failure? What did you learn from your experience?” Those are the sort of questions that he asked. When I asked him about it, why he was asking those questions, he answered with this incredibly illuminating idea. He said it’s because people’s recent experience shapes their perception and their outlook of the future, and do you know what? He was absolutely right!

In each consulting proposal, we would include our understanding of those recent experiences and the perceptions and therefore the client’s felt need, and as a result, time and time again, because of that one thing, because we demonstrated we understood where they were at and what their needs were, we would win the consulting work.

But let’s come back to that piece of insight: People’s recent experience shapes their perception and their outlook of the future. That is so relevant today, as we stand on the threshold of yet another new year, because the unpleasant experiences from last year and the year before and maybe the year before that, seem to accumulate in our hearts and minds, and what those experiences often seem to be telling us is that we failed. “I failed; therefore I’m a failure.” It makes us insecure. It makes us fearful. It makes us unable to lay hold of the amazing new things that God has planned for the year ahead.

People who have a low sense of their own worth can’t enjoy their lives. They can’t love other people. They can’t be loved by other people. They certainly can’t carry joy and peace, and hope around in their hearts.

So what if I told you that this is one of the main reasons that God sent Jesus, His Son, to this earth? To save you and me from slavery. Way back in the Old Testament, when the Israelites were indeed slaves in Egypt, God said this to Moses. Exodus 3:7-8:

I have observed the misery of My people, who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them.

And years later … years later … when Jesus commenced His public ministry, quoting the prophet Isaiah, this is what He had to say about the reason that He came to this earth. Luke 4:18-19, He said:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour.

And the way He does that, the way He sets us free, the way He removes this distorted view that so many people have of themselves, is that He renews who they are. Jesus used the term born-again when He was talking to Nicodemus one night, and Nicodemus just didn’t get it, so later in the New Testament, the apostle Paul explains it this way. 2 Corinthians 5:17, he says:

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; and see, everything has become new.

You and I, we’re not defined by our failures – the abuses, the sins, the regrets, the hurts and the losses of our past because the moment we believe in Jesus, we become a new creation. In God’s eyes, I am no longer the old sinner Berni; rebel Berni; failure Berni or hurt Berni, because I believe in Jesus. I’m a new creation, completely new, because God has made me so. And therefore everything … Did you get that word? Everything old has passed away; it’s gone; God has wiped it away. Psalm 103:12 says:

As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.

And so everything has become new. The past is no longer part of who I am; I’m not defined by the past anymore, but there’s a word in that verse (2 Corinthians 5:17) that I want you to notice; just three letters, so it’s easy to skip over … It’s the word see. See? Everything has become new. See? Because God wants you to see! That’s why He’s brought us together today. His Word has the power to set you free from your past. It’s a new year. It’s a fresh start, and that fresh start begins with a new you, so let me give it to you one more time – this powerful, life-changing Word of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17:

If any of you is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; and see, everything has become new.

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like, to have been there on that very first Christmas, when Jesus was born into this world? In one sense, it would have been very ordinary. A little village, Bethlehem. People all over the place. Business as usual. But in another sense … it would have been totally, mind-blowingly, gobsmackingly amazing!

There’s a bunch of guys in the Bible who I envy. Now I know what you’re thinking, the tenth Commandment:

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife or male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour. (Exodus 20:17)

Yeah, we’re not supposed to envy or covet anything because it leads to some really bad behaviour. I get that. But hear me out.

If there was anyone I could have been with in the Bible, it would have to be those shepherds who were out there watching their flocks by night. We don’t quite know what night it was. But you have to gather by what the angel said to them that Jesus had already been born so I prefer to think of it as Christmas night. Only to them, sitting there in the field watching their sheep, it wasn’t Christmas night at all. It was just another night at the office doing what shepherds did. It was a mundane part of their lives. They may have been enjoying the evening. They may not have been enjoying the evening. It doesn’t matter. They were doing what shepherds did out there on the side of a hill somewhere just outside Bethlehem.

The sun had gone down like it goes down every night. And tomorrow morning the sun was going to come up again, like it did every morning and nothing much changed in between. Maybe the moon was out, maybe not. And in the absence of the bright light and the pollution you and I have to put up with these days, the Milky Way was spread across the firmament in all its glory and all was well with the world.

That’s the picture, that’s what was going on. But on that particular night God had a plan to break into this world in the most amazing and spectacular way.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night and then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.’

‘This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of clothing and lying in a manger’. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.’

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go down to Bethlehem and see this thing that’s taken place which the Lord has made known to us’. So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in a manger.

When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all that they’d heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 8-20)

I often wonder how I would have reacted had I been with those guys on that starry starry night. I wonder how I would react if that happened to me tonight at home or on the way back from work or whatever mundane thing I happened to be doing tonight. Because for me, the idea of a cosmic light show and angels filling the sky and all that jazz, well for me, it’s pretty easy to believe because it happened at a nice safe distance of two thousand or so years ago. Because you and I have watched the kids Christmas pantomimes so many times and sung the Christmas carols so many times, it’s become part of our psyche that this thing with the shepherds actually happened. We accept it pretty much without thinking.

But bring it back to reality and how would we cope if it happened to us here and now or if we’d been back there with the shepherds’ back then sitting in that field on that night. I think I would be petrified like they were to start with. It would be so unexpected, so out of this world, so impossible and yet there they were and it was happening to them and God broke into their world in this startling ‘in your face’ kind of way.

You know something? I believe that that’s what God wants to do today in your world and mine. I believe God wants to shake us out of our comfortable little Christmas ritual, our “business as usual” approach to Christmas and get right in our faces and say, “Don’t you realise what this Christmas thing is all about? Today, I’m bringing you good news for unto you a Saviour has been born for you”. And the reaction He’s looking for out of you and me is the reaction that the shepherds had.

Because when the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, “Well, what are we going to do? Why don’t we go down to Bethlehem and see what has taken place that which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste, they didn’t dawdle; they went with haste. They found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.

God wants us to come to Jesus for ourselves – to worship Jesus for ourselves, to tell the world what we’ve seen. Imagine His frustration, His great frustration when He sees people, like you and me, just going through the motions at Christmas time. Imagine how that makes Him feel when on that first Christmas, He gave to you and He gave to me the single most precious gift that has ever been given in all of human history.

So how about it? Will you grab onto this Christmas present with both hands? Will you come to Jesus and worship Him? Will you rejoice at what you’ve seen? Will you tell people what you’ve seen? Will you let Christmas impact your heart in the most miraculous way? Well, will you or are you just going to do the same old Christmas ritual this year like you’ve done for the past umpteen years?

Because here’s the thing, one day Jesus is coming back. One day, Jesus will return to this earth and when that happens it will make the cosmic light show that the shepherds experienced look like a little sideshow, I’m telling you. When Jesus ascended back into heaven this is what happened:

So when they’d come together they asked him, ‘Lord is this the time when you’ll restore the Kingdom of Israel?’ And he replied, ‘It’s not for you to know the times or the periods that the Father has set by his own authority but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and then you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria and even to the ends of the earth’.

When he had said that as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards the heaven suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards the heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1: 6-11)

See, that’s going to happen one day, just as unexpectedly as the angels appeared before those shepherds, just as unexpectedly as Jesus slipped into the world the first time. One day this Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. One day He will break back into our physical world just as unexpectedly as He did back then. Only this time there will be no mistaking Him, this time He will come just as He left, in amazing glory to gather His own unto Himself.

So as yet another Christmas slips by, I’m going to ask you this … are you ready? Because one day Jesus is coming ready or not. And with all my heart, I want to wish you and those whom you love the most radically wonderful Christmas you have ever had.

Today, as they say, is the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s a funny time this time of year just after Christmas and just before we step into the hurly burly of a new year. It’s a time of rest and reflection for most of us. For some, it’s a time of regret. For others, it’s a time of celebration. For some, it’s a time of anticipation over what next year will bring. And yet for others, it’s a time of fear and worry.

At this time of year, we’ve all experienced those different emotions at different times so let’s spend a few minutes looking back on the year that’s just been. And perhaps a few minutes looking forward at what might be in the coming year.

Christmas is such an incredibly special time because it marks a new birth, bringing a new life into this world is singularly the most special and privileged thing we can ever do. Any parent will tell you that, particularly the mother’s in our midst, it’s just so special. And it’s that new birth that I want to revisit with you today because Christmas is a time to remember that in Christ you and I have a new birth, a rebirth if you will.

And there are a few people today I know that need to experience that rebirth for themselves because you’re wallowing in the regrets of the past. In the regrets perhaps of things that could have been but weren’t, in the regrets of the things that shouldn’t have been but were.

But in Christ, something special happens. It’s a new birth and for many, even for those who heard Jesus talk about it, it wasn’t an easy thing to get a handle on.

See there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said, ‘Rabbi we know that you’re a teacher who’s come from God for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God’. And Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly I tell you that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.

Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can you be born after growing old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ And Jesus answered, ‘Truly, I tell you no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born both of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, what is born of the spirit is spirit.’

‘Do not be astonished that I say, ‘You must be born from above’, the wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit’. (John 3: 1-8)

See, that new birth is about a new start in life. You’ve heard the term being born again Christian. Some people roll their eyes when they say it. They use it as a form of derision but Jesus means it for real. Jesus means it as a new start, as a complete rebirth, a fresh start, the slate wiped clean through faith in Him.

Every now and then when I’ve had a really long day, I’m one of these crazy early starters, so in the late afternoon I might have a short nap and a shower to freshen up. And I come out of the bedroom into the living room and I say to my wife, “Ah, I feel like a new man.”

In a sense that’s what Jesus is talking about because our faith in Him doesn’t just bring forgiveness, it brings that ‘new man’ feeling as He wipes away all our sins and all the regrets and all the consequences of the past. See, new birth equals new start equals new life. When you’re born again, the old life doesn’t matter anymore, it’s completely meaningless because your slate has been wiped clean.

The Apostle Paul put it this way, he said:

If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become as new. (2 Corinthian 5:17)

So right at this special time of the year, I believe that God wants to give you a new start by reminding you that if you’ve accepted Jesus as your Saviour and your Lord, then you are a new creation, completely new. And the result of that, is that everything old is gone. It’s completely wiped away which makes it completely irrelevant to you today and to all your tomorrow’s.

The powerfully operative word in this little verse is the short word ‘see‘. Let’s listen to it again, 2 Corinthians 5:17.

If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new.

God is imploring you to look at your life through His eyes. SEE! See that the effect of the new birth that you have in Jesus Christ means that EVERYTHING has become new. The past is gone, forgiven and done and dusted.

Now, you can look forward to the New Year ahead in a completely new way, completely uninhibited and unconstrained by the failures and the hurts and the losses and the regrets that you have over your past. Completely unaffected by your low self-esteem, completely unaffected by nasty hurtful things that people have said to you and done to you because by the miraculous power of your complete rebirth in Christ through the Holy Spirit – you are a completely new creation. And as a result of that, everything in your life, everything in your world has become new. SEE!

Nicodemus found that hard to believe and hard to understand. You and I can find that hard to believe and hard to understand. But your God wants you to live your life as though the slate of your past has been wiped clean. Because you know something? If you believe in Jesus, it has and what lies ahead of you is a completely new life full of exciting God-type possibilities and amazing things that God wants to do to bless you. And to let His blessing flow out through you into this parched land of people who are in desperate need of a Saviour.

To Israel, His chosen people, at the end of seventy years in captivity as slaves in Babylon, He said this:

‘For surely I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord, ‘plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. When you search for me you’ll find me. If you seek me with all your heart I’ll let you find me’ says the Lord, ‘And I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I’ve driven you’, says the Lord, ‘And I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile. (Jeremiah 29: 11-14)

Do you see? Are you looking? Are you hearing? Do you perceive what God is saying to you through His Word today?

God has great plans for you and those plans are about your future. And He has made all provision for you through Jesus, to wipe your slate clean and to restore you and to bless you. And all He needs now is just one thing … He needs for you to take His Word into your heart, to believe it, to act on it as though it’s true. Because you know something? It really is.

And if you choose to step out into your future, a future that maybe would have been otherwise constrained by regrets and hurts from the past. But if you choose now to step out into your future knowing that the regrets of the past are completely wiped away – completely gone, completely irrelevant – if you choose to believe God and take Him at His Word and believe that you can live your life from this day forward on the basis of what God is saying about you is true, then what you’re in fact doing is stepping out into your own rebirth.

Christmas is a time of celebration of new life – the life of Jesus who slipped into this world to set captives free, to bind up the broken-hearted, to bring Good News to the poor. This Jesus, He came for you, He came to set you free, He came to bind up your broken heart, He came to bring you Good News and this is the Good News that I bring to you today.

Today is the beginning of a new life – a life of freedom and a life of joy and a life of power and yes a life of sacrifice. A life that is so much more than any of us could have ever dreamed.

This past year is done and dusted and in Christ you can leave behind. This New Year is full of possibilities, full of potential and in Christ, you can step out into it with the confidence of knowing that you’ll be playing your small part in Gods mighty plan.

Hey, if that’s not Good News, tell me what is. 

As you look forward to the rest of your life, I know that some of what we’ve spoken about today isn’t easy to swallow. Especially if you’re in the middle of a rough trot. But remember, Mary and Joseph didn’t have the big picture of what God was up to back then. They were immersed in trial after trial.

But the beauty of it is that you and I do have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s accounts of what they went through. We know the big picture, we can stand back and see what God was up to in a way that the players back then simply couldn’t. To them, it felt like they were being swept along by events completely out of their control.

On top of everything, of course, Caesar had declared that a census was to be taken, which in the absence of today’s modern technology, meant that Mary and Joseph, like all the other people, had to travel back to their ancestral homes and that was a long slog.

But from God’s vantage point, these weren’t unconnected, random events. These were all part of His plan to usher a Saviour into this world. A Messiah that nobody expected. See, God is the God of the unexpected. There are no events or circumstances that are beyond Him. There are no events or circumstances in your life that escape Him or pass Him by.

He’s across everything, in absolute detail, in the minutest detail, everything that’s going on in your life. And I’m here to tell you that if your Christmas wasn’t quite what you wanted it to be, wasn’t quite what the advertisers said it should be, if you didn’t quite get the standard issue Ho, Ho, Ho kind of Christmas this year, then your God is still with you today.

Your God just showed up through His Word. Your God is with you in that place you’re in right now. And nothing, not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of your God in Jesus Christ.

And that my friend, is worth celebrating not just at Christmas time, but for every day for the rest of your life.

And just as He was with Mary and Joseph, even though they didn’t have the full picture, even though it was uncomfortable, so He is and forever will be, with you.

I’ve called this series of messages “Old Story, New Twist”. I did that for a reason. Because I know that this Christmas story, far from being some distant, archaic tale of which pantomimes are born, is a gritty, real story of the journey of the Creator of the Universe into the lives of men and women, into the lives of you and me.

And when we look at that old, old story from His perspective (from the vantage point of heaven’s balcony if you will), when we allow God by His Spirit and through His Word to guide us on that journey over the dusty trails that Mary and Joseph trod, we discover a God who is on that same dusty, difficult journey with you and me today.

Peter the Apostle in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7 said that we should:

Cast all our anxieties on God because he cares for us.

So whatever anxieties and discomforts and fears and disappointments you happen to be carrying on your rocky road from this moment forward, this God who is above all your circumstances, this God who is in all your circumstances, this God who sent His Son to lighten your load, wants to take your burdens from you.

So how about it? Is it time to hand all that stuff over to Him and to get on the journey and head towards the rest of your life with the joy and the anticipation and the excitement of a new life in Christ for you?

Because Jesus came for you. He came to set you free. He came to bring you forgiveness and a future and a certain hope and an eternity with Him. That’s what He ushered in, on that very first Christmas. And that, I reckon, is something worth celebrating at Christmas … and beyond.

Have you ever felt like your life has been taken over by events outside your control? It’s something that people can feel quite strongly, heading into Christmas, as other people seem to be getting ready to celebrate.

Well, if you’re in that place, where events beyond your control have taken over your life, you’re not the only one.

There are times in our lives when it feels as though circumstances or events outside of our control have completely taken over our lives. We’ve all been there and some people I know are there right now.

Perhaps you were looking forward to a family Christmas and your marriage or somebody else’s marriage in your family is starting to fall apart. Or perhaps, you find yourself completely alone or maybe sickness has struck and you’re wondering how to get through it. And at this point, the whole idea even of celebrating Christmas seems completely irrelevant, off this planet.

Despite what all the happy Christmas ads on television would have us believe, Christmas is not a happy time for many people. It’s sad but true. Now, that’s not to say that we’re all going to have a lousy Christmas, no. But when we scratch the glitzy veneer of what Christmas has become in the twenty-first century, when you go below the surface, most people have something going on in their lives that takes the shine off what should be (according to what everybody else is telling us) the celebration of Christmas.

Season’s greetings, peace on earth, merrrryyyyy Christmas, ho ho ho. Yeah, right. Somehow the umpteenth re-enactment of the Christmas pantomime at Church and that nativity scene in the store window (if you can even find one anywhere these days) just doesn’t seem to connect with life’s realities when we’ve been swamped by a wave of whatever it is in our life, in your life, this year.

I’ve had many a Christmas like that over the years. Truly, I have. Life can be tough sometimes. And when you’re involved in ministry in any way, shape or form, you’ll know that it’s even tougher because the devil is on your case. You run into opposition and attacks sometimes seemingly from every direction and on those Christmases the pantomime version of Christmas simply isn’t enough. You with me?

But let’s wind the clock back to the old, old story, to the days leading up to the birth of Jesus, the Christ. Because when I go back to that story, there’s nothing safe, there’s nothing comfortable, there’s nothing pantomimey at all about it. The road to that very first Christmas was a hard road and it’s on that road that we discover a God who’s prepared to get on the journey with us.

Think about the circumstances that had overtaken Joseph and Mary’s lives to that point. Firstly, they’d fallen in love. Hey, that’s a good thing, that’s a great thing, that’s a special thing. But then Mary falls pregnant to the Holy Spirit, out of wedlock in a day and age where that was a scandal. You can imagine how Joseph felt, right? – robbed, betrayed, dismayed, hurt, alone, disappointed, angry, the full gamut of emotions. Events had overtaken his life.

This one painful event which was completely outside of his control. It hurt so much but being the good guy that he was, he planned to cut off the engagement and to dismiss Mary quietly so as not to make a big thing of it in public. Events, circumstances, things out there that were going to rob him, unbeknown to him at the time, of the very first Christmas.

You see if you’re in that boat, you’re not the first one. This old, old story has a modern twist in its tail, does it not? The truth of that first Christmas (even though it happened two thousand years away) is here and now when you get behind the pantomime version and you check out what really happened.

So there’s young Jo about to be robbed of that first Christmas and then God. Whenever circumstances are about to roll over the top of us, it’s always, always a case of ‘then God’ because this God who loves you beyond any measure that you would care to apply to His love, He always shows up. He showed up back then for Joseph. Let’s have a listen:

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph but before they lived together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

But just when he had resolved to do this an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the Prophet, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel which means God is with us’. When Joseph awoke from his sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son and he named him, Jesus. (Matthew 1: 18-25)

I wonder how many times you and I have skimmed over that old, old story with the attitude, “Oh yeah, I know that one. Yeah sure, it’s fine,” without ever really thinking about what it meant for Mary and poor old Joseph. The stress it put on their relationship, the glances and the whispers of scandal that happened in their tight-knit little community.

And just when Joseph was about to do what he thought was the decent thing out of his pain – God showed up. God showed up in a mighty way to speak truth and comfort and love and destiny into Joseph’s heart.

I don’t know how real that dream felt to him at the time, probably it was a really powerful dream if it was from God. But when he woke up it was still only a dream but it was enough for Joseph to act upon. He didn’t have the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John to rely on back then, like you and I do have now, he didn’t know how it was all going to turn out. But when he heard the voice of God he acted on it.

Christmas is about difficult circumstances. Christmas is all about God breaking into this world in an exquisite blend of love and power and humility. Christmas is about God and it’s about you.

Now I know that this is not going to come as any great surprise to you but I have never been pregnant. Something (by the way) that I’ve often given thanks for because I’m your typical male – the idea of going through childbirth is something I can’t comprehend. Which is why, I guess, God didn’t leave it up to men to be mother’s – wise move God, wise move.

Anyway, back to Christmas, I’m trying to imagine what it was like for Mary who was pretty much full term to travel from Nazareth the Bethlehem for the census. We don’t think too much about it because these days the drive from A to B would take, umm, two to three hours I’m guessing; maybe four, if you took it slowly and you had a break for lunch along the way. You’d probably do it in a comfortable air conditioned car although even then, let’s say a three to four-hour car ride wouldn’t be particularly the most delightful experience for a woman who was close to full term, would it now? But back then it was a one to two-week journey.

Tradition has it … if you believe all the paintings and drawings that Mary rode on the back of a donkey, of course, there’s no Biblical evidence for that, we’re not told how she got from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But for her sake, I’m hoping she was on a back of a donkey or riding in the back of a cart somewhere rather than walking the whole way because one thing’s for certain she wasn’t riding in an air conditioned car.

My point is this … we often look back on the old, old Christmas story as though it’s a fable or a pantomime or, I don’t know what. It was so long ago and we’ve heard it so many times that we just have this two-dimensional view of what went on. Yeah, yeah Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, wise men, Bethlehem, manger, yeah all that jazz. And when we look at Christmas that way, it’s almost as though we’re closing our hearts off to the wonderful real, gritty, here and now things that God’s wanting to speak into our lives.

Mary and Joseph didn’t have an easy run of it. It was time for a census. The Roman emperor had decreed that it was time to do a people stocktake. And the way they did it back then (before marks sensing, computer readable census forms distributed to each household) was that you had to head back to your ancestral home and for Joseph that meant Bethlehem.

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David. He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. (Luke 2: 1-5)

See, the Romans were nothing if not efficient administrators. They, in fact, had a huge impact on the distribution of the Gospel after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension because of the road and port infrastructure that they’d built and the relatively peaceful and homogenous Roman Empire that dominated the known world at the time.

But on this occasion, as far as Mary and Joseph were concerned, they were being a right proper pain in the backside. Quite literally for Mary if she was fortunate enough to have travelled the journey on the back of a donkey. I imagine that if you or I had been Mary or Joseph, we would have had a few choice words and thoughts about the timing of this rotten, lousy census. Why now? What a pain! How inconvenient! Mary is almost full term and she and Jo are travelling with a sea of humanity in all different directions heading for their ancestral homes, in their case that was Bethlehem.

Isn’t that how it feels when circumstances and events beyond us seem to dictate the course of our lives? Pretty frustrating, isn’t it? – inconvenient and sometimes, downright dangerous and hurtful.

But this census wasn’t just some random event. It wasn’t a happen chance thing. As with everything, God was in it because centuries before through the Prophet Micah, He had spoken to His people about their Messiah whom He would send who would be born in, yeah you guessed it, Bethlehem. Let’s take a look, Micah 5: 2 and 3:

But you O Bethlehem of Ephratah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth, then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel.

See, God had a plan. His plan was that Jesus, the bread of life as He later referred to Himself as, would be born in the town of Bethlehem, a word which literally means ‘the house of bread’. God’s plan was to speak powerfully to His people through the Words of Micah’s prophecy and through the fulfilment of that prophecy in the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.

My point is this, events are never random. Events that seem to roll over the top of your plans and your hopes and your dreams even never just happen by chance. Sometimes the most difficult and devastating events are the most powerful moves of God in our lives and through our lives and into the lives of other people around us. Of course, it never feels like it at the time. And rarely (if ever) does God give us the big picture if you will to explain what’s going on and what He’s up to when He’s doing that and letting these things happen to us.

But that doesn’t change the fact that God’s sovereign will is playing out right there and then. Psalm 135 verse 6 says:

Whatever the Lord pleases he does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps.

So whatever that looks like in your life right now, remember your God is up to something good … I mean really good.

Well, here we are on Christmas Eve and I’m guessing you know where I’m headed with this story, right?

I remember a few years back, my wife and I flew from Australia to the US, to Chicago, in fact. That’s a long flight, about twenty-four hours door to door. We had a room booked at a hotel on the Golden Mile in Chicago because I was speaking at an IT conference there and the conference organisers had set it all up for me.

In LA where we had to clear customs, we discovered that they’d lost Jacqui’s suitcase (along the way), fantastic! And then when we landed in Chicago, we had to part ways because I had to fly on for a couple of days to Minneapolis, St Paul. So the plan was Jacqui would catch a cab to the Chicago hotel and I would join her in a couple of days time.

Now, it was her very first trip to the US of A. She doesn’t do a lot of travel so heading to the hotel on her own was just a little bit daunting. So not only is her luggage missing but she has to find her own way to downtown Chicago and when she arrives, get this, she’s told, “No, sorry but the hotel is fully booked.”

“Hang on, there’s a conference here and my husband is the keynote speaker and the conference organisers have booked a room and …” Well, you can imagine her despair, right? She was ready to cry and she’s been travelling now for the last twenty-four hours so she’s exhausted. She’s alone in a foreign country, her luggage is missing and now they tell her there’s no room at the hotel.

Two hours it took to get it sorted. At one point they found a room but because the booking was in my name and not hers they weren’t going to let her have it. Fortunately, the hotel manager got involved and saner heads prevailed. We did, by the way, eventually find her luggage but that’s a whole another story.

Now, if you have any sort of heart beating inside you, you’ll be feeling a bit sorry for poor old Jacqui. A bit like a lost soul in a foreign land, all alone with waves of exhaustion and despair crashing all over her. For her fortunately, it all worked out.

But if I now take you back to the old, old story, the first Christmas story, there was a couple who rocked up to Bethlehem for whom things didn’t work out so well – Mary and Joseph. They’ve come down to Bethlehem from their hometown of Nazareth, up north. A few hours by car these days, as we saw yesterday but for them it’s been a one to two-week journey by foot perhaps with the aid of a beast of burden to carry the full term, very pregnant, almost due Mary but perhaps not.

It’s a journey that makes our twenty-four hour flight from Sydney to Chicago look like sheer luxury by comparison. They’re tired, they’re exhausted, they’re ready to get to their room and dive into the Jacuzzi and relax, but let’s pick up their story:

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration that was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered, Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem because he was descended from the house and the family of David.

He went to be registered with Mary to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there the time came for her to deliver her child and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them at the inn. (Luke 2: 1-6)

Much of the nation of Israel was on the move at this time because of this wretched census ordered by the Emperor Augustus. So, there really was a convention in town when they arrived in that small village, as it was back then, the village of Bethlehem. They weren’t in downtown Jerusalem there on the Golden Mile but out of town in this hamlet. And frankly there weren’t a lot of five-star or even two or three star hotels available, those that were choc-a-block.

And so after, presumably, a few hours of schlepping around and discovering there wasn’t a room to be had anywhere some kind inn keeper, seeing Mary’s condition, offered them a shed out the back which housed animals. Now I don’t know, sheep, goats, maybe the odd cow if he was really wealthy.

Can you imagine how Mary’s heart sank when she entered that stable where she knew she would give birth? After that whole fanfare with the angel and falling pregnant, not the normal way but through the Holy Spirit? Hey, surely God was with her. Surely, God knew what was going on, His Son, the very Son of God is about to be born. “My son too” Mary is thinking to herself and now I get a stinking stable?

Come on you women who have had children put yourself in Mary’s shoes, how do you feel? Not all that impressed, right? Your water’s break, the pain starts and you lie down on the floor of a stable that’s been pooped on and weed on by the assemblage of farm animals watching you give birth. Just fantastic.

I don’t know what you’re expecting of Christmas this year. It’s almost upon us and it’s supposed to be great. The world hypes it up as being a great celebration, Christians and Churches hype it up as being a great celebration. I don’t think that’s how it felt for Mary on that day and I know that’s not how it feels for a whole bunch of people today.

But let me tell you this … God was in that place with Mar. He was watching over her, He was with her and yes He chose a humble, uncomfortable place for His Son – the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, to be born as a man. God often chooses humble, uncomfortable places for His people. It’s just His way.

But no matter how uncomfortable it may be for you, no matter how God forsaken this place may seem in which you’ve found yourself, I want to tell you this, God is with you because Jesus on that first Christmas, Jesus came for you.

Do you remember what it was that the angel said to Joseph in his dream when he was explaining to him what had gone on with Mary falling pregnant? Matthew 1: 21-23:

‘She will bear a son’ said the angel, ‘and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins’. All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet ‘behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call him Emmanuel which means ‘God is with us’.

Jesus is God on the journey with us.

Back in Chicago when Jacqui stood negotiating with those difficult hotel employees over the counter, she no doubt felt incredibly alone, lost in a foreign land. Her husband off in another city, completely uncontactable.

Perhaps, as you face whatever it is you’re facing the same thoughts race through your mind as no doubt went through Mary’s when she lay eyes on that crummy, stinking stable for the very first time. Doesn’t God get it? How can He let this happen to me? Why doesn’t He fix it?

And so you’re sitting here on this Christmas Eve wondering even what Christmas is all about. If that’s you, if that’s a bit of what you’re feeling right now, then I have just one word for you from the Lord, ‘Emmanuel‘. God is with you. You are never alone.

And though He may have chosen circumstances for you right now that you may not have chosen for yourself, on this day, on this Holy day, know this … your God is with you and that beautiful wondrous truth, this truth that we are celebrating right now, at this time that we call Christmas, that truth is something that nothing and nobody can take away from you.

Your God is with you.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this, but on the surface of things, Christmas was a crazy idea! I mean, what exactly was God thinking by sending His Son to become a man – and then to be born in some drafty, smelly shed out the back of Bethlehem? 

Yeah, absolutely, on the surface of things, Christmas is a crazy idea. I mean stand back and think about it … God’s God, He created the whole universe. Okay, He’s Father and Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one, something that’s not that easy to wrap your mind around. But let’s just leave that to one side for the moment.

God is God. God creates everything. We read about it in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. It’s pretty straightforward description of what He did and it was amazing. And the crowning glory of all His creation is humanity – you and me, male and female. And the very last thing that He does before He rests to enjoy His handiwork of creation is that He hands the whole thing over to us. God said:

Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind, cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind and it was so and God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind, everything that creeps along the ground of every kind and God saw that it was good.”

Then God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

So God created humanity in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue the earth and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to every thing that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life I have given every green plant for food’ and so it was.

God saw everything that He’d made and indeed it was very good and there was evening and there was morning of the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 26-31)

So far, so good. Adam and Eve go and enjoy all of this amazing creation but God does one thing, just one thing that is so crazy, inexplicable.

The Lord commanded the man, ‘you may freely eat of every tree of the garden but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16)

Well, you know the rest. They couldn’t help themselves, Adam and Eve, they just had to try to be like God. They ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the rest as they say is history.

Sin entered the world, sickness entered the world and just as God had promised them death entered the world. Life became hard. That’s something you and I can attest to – life is hard and all because God had to forbid them that one tree and they just had to try it anyway. Could it be all of your misery and mine hangs on just that one crummy apple? For Pete’s sake, that’s nuts!

And then as humanity spirals ever downward, as we become ever more debauched and depraved, after that moment God mounts a rescue mission – He sends Jesus to save us. What’s that about? Why didn’t He just give them access to every last tree? Why did He have to hold that one tree back from them and why did they have to blow it for the rest of us and after all that, why did God mount that rescue mission and send Jesus?

It defies human logic until you realise that love and logic have nothing more in common than their first two letters. Love isn’t logical. Have a listen to this:

But the free gift is not like the trespass for if the many died through one man’s trespass, Adams, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift and the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin for the judgement following the one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

If because of the one man’s sin death has exercised dominion through that one much more surely will those who receive the abundance of the grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man’s trespasses lead to condemnation for all so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

For just as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. But the law came in with the result that the trespass multiplied but when sin increased grace abounded all the more. So just as sin exercised dominion in death so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. (Romans 5: 12 – 21)

There you have it. There you have the reason that God did what He did. If you love someone you give them free will, right? He gave Adam a free will by excluding that one tree and Adam chose against God and so sin, with all its consequences, entered the world for you and me.

Now, before you think to yourself, “I am going to punch Adam in the nose when I see him in heaven.” Ask yourself, if nobody in all of history before you had sin and ultimately you were living in that garden, would you have resisted the temptation?

So sin entered the world through one man and forgiveness came though one man as well, Jesus. God sent Him into this world as that little babe we remember each year around this time so that we could be forgiven. And notice how that ‘grace‘ word comes in. Forgiven by the free, unmerited favour of God so that we could know what? God’s love.

What greater expression of love is there than to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it? I guess only one, to do it and to take his or her punishment on their behalf, to give your life to suffer in order to purchase their forgiveness and their freedom. To step out of heaven into this hurly-burly of a sinful world and be punished even though you’d never done anything wrong.

And this is not as some Plan B because Plan A didn’t work. This was always Gods Plan A. God always knew Adam would blow it. He always knew that you and I would blow it. None of that was ever a surprise to Him and yet out of His great love, He gave us a free will to accept or reject Him. And out of His great love, He came to purchase us back from death by offering up His Son as His sense of justice demanded – to take all the fall for you and for me, to pay the price, to die the death.

Now, I know you have a lot going on in these days leading up to Christmas – those last-minute presents to buy, the things to clear off your desk perhaps before you have a few days off, the turkey to buy, the decoration to get up, all that stuff.

Now I know that you may not have a lot of time to think about this Christmas stuff but at the heart of Christmas lies a Father’s love. At the heart of Christmas – in the most unhygienic, feed trough called a manger, in that even more unhygienic stable filled with animals, right where that child was born and lay and cried and gurgled – is a love so sublime that there are not enough words to describe it. There are no words ever invented that can really explain a love so great.

So as you hurtle towards yet another chaotic Christmas, let me say to you quietly, kindly, gently, ‘Take a moment to wrap your heart around that love. Just let that love touch you deep inside and change you and change your life and change your world.”

After all, what do you have to lose?

I know, it’s kind of a weird perspective from which to come at the story of Christmas, but hopefully as we chat together, it will start to make sense.

Death … dying is pretty much the one taboo subject left in our society. We can talk about pretty much anything else but not dying. And the last thing that you and I really want to think about is dying. But humour me because I want you to put yourself on your deathbed. Hopefully, quite a few years away from now, and imagine how you’ll feel. Would you be afraid of dying alone? I’m guessing you would particularly in a hospital room, sterile, white, disinfected, clinical, with tubes coming out of you, those squeaky sounds the nurses shoes make on the floor. The idea of being completely alone at the end is a terrible thought.

Now and then, you hear about an elderly person who died all alone in their home and their body wasn’t discovered for seven or eight years. That’s frightful. Imagine how the end must of come for them. Of course, you don’t have to wait to die in order to be alone.

So many people are desperately alone, sometimes through circumstances but mostly as a result of their sin. That may sound a bit weird but sin – turning our backs on God and going our own way usher’s in death very quickly. That’s what God promised Adam and Eve would happen if they ate from that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he forbade them to eat from.

The Lord commanded the man, ‘you may eat freely of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Genesis 2:16)

The result of that apparent minor transgression? Well, God said to them:

I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers, he will strike your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing, in pain shall you bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.

And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you ‘you shall not eat of it’ cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground for out of it you were taken, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3: 15-19)

The immediate result of that sin was broken relationships, a broken relationship between God and Adam and a broken relationship between Adam and Eve. And broken relationships mean loneliness and strife.

So … what was God’s solution to that distance that we put between Him and us through our sin? How did He address that?

Well, it’s simple really. It was a complete no brainer for Him. All He had to do was to follow the longing of His heart and we know what that is because He tells us what it is over and over again in the Old Testament. Let’s have a look at just one example, Leviticus 26: 11-13, God said:

I will place my dwelling in your midst and I shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be slaves no more, I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you to walk upright.

The longing of God’s heart is to be close to His people. He’s our Father, He loves us, of course, that’s the longing of His heart. And yet, through the whole of the Old Testament we see how God’s people struggle to honour Him. In fact, the name Israel literally means ‘to struggle with God’.

They failed, all the time, over and over again. And over and over again, He forgave them. It was this constant merry-go-round and it wasn’t working so here was His plan, a plan that, as I said yesterday, wasn’t some fall back, it was always His Plan A. Are you ready for it? Here God’s plan, John chapter 1:10-14. Speaking about Jesus, it says:

He was in the world and the world came into being through him yet the world didn’t know him. He came to what was his own and his own people didn’t accept him but to all who received him, who believed in his name he gave them power to become children of God who were born not out of blood or out of the will of the flesh or of the will of a man but of God and the word became flesh and lived amongst us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and of truth. (John 1:10-14)

The plan was for God to take a giant step towards us even though we’d drifted so far away from Him that we really didn’t know Him anymore. This God who had an intimate personal relationship back then in the beginning with Adam and Eve, the Word (that’s Jesus), the Word became flesh and lived amongst us. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas

But can I give you the literal meaning of that verse because when you have that, it makes a lot more sense. It literally says that Jesus became flesh and tabernacled amongst us, set up His home amongst us, it’s the language of the Exodus where God’s presence travelled on the forty-year journey through the wilderness with His people in that tent, in that tabernacle.

Jesus coming to this planet is Jesus stepping out and coming close to you to travel on your journey with you on your exodus. That’s what makes this Christmas thing so amazing – to set you free, to make sure that you are never alone. Not through the problems of this life, not through the fractured relationships and the enmity that exists in this world through our sin, not through that time where we come to the end of this life and not for the rest of eternity.

Christmas is Jesus coming close, Christmas is God following the desire of His heart to be close to you and me by sending His Son to be on our journey with us.

Are you getting this? Is this touching your heart as I tell you this age-old story with a new twist? That new twist is that Jesus came for you. Jesus came to be on your journey. Jesus came to bring you comfort to bind up your broken heart, to bring release from captivity of your sin, to be on this journey every step of the way. And what a terrible price He paid for that so that we could see His glory and know Him and experience a one on one intimacy with Him.

Now let me bring you back to your death-bed … what if, instead of being terribly alone on your deathbed you experience the very presence of Jesus right there with you on your journey with His love and His forgiveness and His grace and His peace and His mercy? What if instead of being terribly alone, you come to know as each second ticks by on that clock, you are drawing closer and closer to that time that you will see that Jesus face to face?

I don’t care what bad things have happened to you in your life. I don’t care how lost and alone you may feel. It doesn’t matter because Jesus is in this place with you and He will never leave you and never forsake you because on that starry starry night in Bethlehem, He came for you.

He came to say, “I love you”, He came to suffer and die for you. He came to rise again and give you a completely new life with your slate wiped clean. He came to set you free. He came to bring you peace. He came to be with you for every minute of every day for the rest of eternity.

That’s Christmas. That’s what God was doing by sending us His Son. That’s what we’re celebrating or at least, what we’re pretending to celebrate over this coming week.

Do you get it? Jesus came for you and if you have nothing else to celebrate this Christmas then celebrate that. It’s all you need to make your Christmas the best one ever.

And remember, I’m praying for you that this message, this incredibly Good News of Jesus, will light up your heart with a joy unspeakable.

I just want to pick up on something really insightful my pastor said last Sunday, about being with someone who is dying. He made the point that one of the most powerful things that we can do is simply to touch that person. Whether it’s holding their hand, or giving them a hug.

I remember when my dad was in intensive care just before he died, that’s exactly what the nurse told me to do. Why? Because that sort of intimacy brings a powerful comfort and reassurance to the person who is dying.

You know yourself, just knowing that someone is here, standing with you, caring for you when you’re going through a difficult time, is in and of itself truly powerful. It may not make the problem go away, but it brings a comfort that nothing else can bring.

And in many respects, that is what the physical Presence of Jesus, which began on this earth on that first Christmas, is all about. Of course, you and I can’t touch Him physically right now, but one of His great promises, just before He ascended into heaven was that He would pour out His Holy Spirit on every man, woman and child who believes in Him.

I just want you to quietly reflect on that powerful, powerful truth. Because according to Jesus, that’s even better than having Him around physically. Speaking about His departure and the Holy Spirit, He said this: John 16:7:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

The Holy Spirit, better than Jesus, according to Jesus. More intimate than Jesus, because when the Holy Spirit fills us, He never leaves us. He is always there to empower, to comfort, to guide and to give us wisdom and power.

With Jesus, if the disciples were in another place, then He wasn’t there physically with them. But with the Holy Spirit there is no place that you or I can go to flee from His Presence. As the Psalmist writes:

Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness isn’t dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)

What we tend to do is we chop God’s great story up into little bits. We separate the birth of Jesus from His death, from His resurrection, from His pouring out of the Holy Spirit, from the powerful things that were ushered in through the early church.

But you can’t do that. All of those things happened because Jesus stepped out of the Spiritual dimension into the physical dimension, onto this planet to be close to us.

That closeness, that intimacy, is like touching a dying person. You and I, until Jesus touches our lives, we are dying people. And then, He brings new life. And then He fills us with His Holy Spirit and then, you and I are never, ever, ever alone again for the rest of eternity.

That’s what Jesus’ coming has given you. That’s why Christmas is such an amazing time to remember this radical plan of God’s to show us His love by being close to us, by touching us, even though we were dying in our sin until He came.

My prayer for you … is that as you drink in this wondrous message of Christmas. As you reflect on it in your heart, the Holy Spirit will do an amazing work of joy in you, to cause your spirit to soar into heavenly places – and receive this amazing Christmas present that we call Jesus.

Well, here we are again, it’s December. It’s almost the end of another year and it’s almost Christmas time, again. It happens year after year. Christmas. The question is, what do you make of it, what do you do with it? It’s an age-old problem, Christmas.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this but Christmas is a real problem for guys like me, preachers I mean. Year after year, we have to crank out yet another Christmas series. And for the first few years, that’s pretty easy but then after a while you start thinking to yourself, “Well, how am I going to put a new twist on Christmas this year?”

Last year, I approached it from this perspective, the year before from that perspective, the year before that from … well, you get the picture. There are only so many different perspectives on Christmas. Well, we’ve all been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Yeah, so it’s Christmas again, so what?

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere it’s an excuse for a few days off.

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere as I do, it’s probably the summer holidays that you’re looking forward to more than Christmas itself. A chance for a decent break, a bit of a much-needed R and R and sure Christmas is part of that but the Christmas bit can be a bit of a hassle. Buying presents, figuring out who has Christmas lunch with whom and then perhaps scooting off to Christmas dinner with another part of your family. Kids, uncles, aunts, grandparents – it all gets complicated. And then there’s the fact not everybody in the family gets on. You know Christmas day is one of the peak times of the year for domestic violence.

Even if it doesn’t get that bad you know there are going to be clashes or you’re going to have to smile sweetly at someone that you don’t really like or you just know that so and so is going to have too much to drink again this year.

Those are the burdens that many people carry into Christmas, it’s just the reality of life. So as things turn out, Christmas isn’t just a problem for preachers like me who have to dream up something fresh and new each year, it’s a problem for many, many people. I heard someone say once, a Bible believing Christian she was, “I hate Christmas, I wish we could just skip over it.” It’s pretty sad but it’s the reality for many people even those who actually believe in Jesus. So Christmas gets something of a bad rap, I wonder how many people who are out there who would just love to skip Christmas. I wonder?

Well, as you look ahead to the next ten days or so in the run up to Christmas, I wonder how you’re feeling about it all, exhausted, frustrated, anxious, stressed. What are the emotions that generally accompany this thing we call Christmas in your heart in your life? What are you feeling? Is Christmas a problem for you?

Can I be honest here? I struggle with the kids pantomime version of Christmas. I struggle with the whole Carols by Candlelight phenomenon around Christmas where people get together in parks and sing Christmas carols as though they believe them, when most of the entertainers up on the stage and on our television screens don’t have the remotest faith that Jesus is actually the Son of God.

It’s like we wrap this whole Christmas in tinsel and lights and tie a neat bow around it. And we make it out to be this happy time, when the truth is, for many people, well, they struggle with Christmas. Now I don’t mean to be a Christmas Grinch here. Personally, I love singing Christmas carols because they mean something to me but what I really want to know is why don’t we sing Christmas carols all year round? Why don’t we celebrate the coming of Jesus all year round?

I remember hosting a Christmas in July service at our Church some years back. It’s a bit of a phenomenon down under as many restaurants put on Christmas dinners in the middle of winter when it’s cold and at the service we actually sung Christmas carols. I can’t tell you the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me how weird it was singing Silent Night in the middle of July.

Yeah, we wrap a whole bunch of rituals up in a nice neat package in December and we call it Christmas. And it’s all supposed to be sweetness and light and yet how much of it really, really, really speaks into our hearts about the wonder of what God did on that first Christmas?

What I want to do today is to unsettle you, to drag you out of your Christmas ritual comfort zone and ask you, “Why do you do what you do at Christmas time? Why are you racing around buying presents for people who don’t really need anything? Why do you put tinsel and Christmas decorations around your house and maybe even a Christmas wreath on your front door? What are the candles and the Christmas tree and presents and all that food really about? What do you do it for?”

If you stripped away all that packaging and paraphernalia what would Christmas actually be for you? Luke 2: 8-14:

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, “don’t be afraid, for see I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

“This will be a sign for you, you’ll find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger” and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, “glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favours.”

So if you took the packaging and the paraphernalia and the ritual and the racing around away, is that what Christmas would mean to you? Would you in your heart shout out, “Glory to God in the highest heaven. Glory, glory, glory. Hallelujah?” Because if not, don’t you think you just might be wasting your time with all this Christmas nonsense that you go through each year?

All this pressure you put yourself under, all these presents you buy and the money you spend and the decorations you put up and the food that you stuff yourself with – is that what Christmas is all about?

Or in your heart, is it about the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God to be the Saviour of this world? The biggest Christmas gift of all history – the Son of God given to all humanity, given to you and given to me.

So let me ask you, what is your Christmas all about?

I guess when it comes to this whole Christmas thing; we see it from where we sit. And for most of us, our perspective (our take on Christmas) comes through the ritual that surrounds it – a ritual that we’ve acted out year after year for as long as we can remember.

Sure, it’s changed a bit. When we were kids it was all about the excitement of presents. But you know the deal, you know all the things that you do in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you know how Christmas Day is going to pan out. You know the carols you’re going to sing and the food that you’re going to eat and the people you’re going to celebrate Christmas with. If it’s at all possible, this exciting celebration of Christmas has become something of a routine for you. A bit of a contradiction but it’s true for most of us, life is full of contradictions right?

When it comes to Christmas we kind of narrow our view, we lower our gaze and focus on the well-worn familiar path of the Christmas ritual. Whatever that looks like for each one of us, we narrow our perspective and like Pavlov’s dogs we get on with that part of life and in many respects, that’s how it was on that very first Christmas two thousand odd years ago. Although it wasn’t called Christmas back then. In fact, the first record of there being some celebration of Christmas doesn’t appear until 354 AD, three and a half centuries after the birth of Jesus.

And of course many of the modern-day traditions of Christmas that we celebrate on December 25th – for instance, eating turkey, having a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, presents, tinsel, lights, all of those are much, much more recent. In fact, the Christmas ritual that you and I take for granted today, as though it’s been around forever, is little more than a hundred years old, it’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?

But let’s wind the clock back even further to that first Christmas. People by and large were just going on with their daily business. The big news in town was of course the census. The Romans had ordered a stock take of all the people and in the absence of the technology we use today, the way you did it back then was to go back to your ancestral home.

And in the case of Joseph and therefore Mary, his embarrassingly pregnant betrothed, that meant going back to Bethlehem. The inns were full, the shepherds were out doing what shepherds did, tending their flocks in the field by night. Other than the disruption of the census, it was pretty much business as usual. And then wham, the light show in the skies in front of these shepherds. God broke into that “business as usual” in a spectacular way. You know what, I’m praying for this Christmas, God is going to break into your “business as usual” in a spectacular way too.

All these people were just living their lives, just like we do, head down, doing stuff that they did day after day when all along God had promised a Saviour.

There are quite a number of prophecies in what we now call the Old Testament (the Scriptures to the Jewish people) of the coming of a Saviour and principle among them is that He would be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5: 2-5:

But you O Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel whose origin is of old from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel and he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God and they shall live secure for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth and he shall be the one of peace.

The prophecy of the coming of the Saviour in great power in this tiny humble little village of Bethlehem and by the way the word Bethlehem means literally “the house of bread”. Remember how Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

How appropriate that He should be born in Bethlehem – the house of bread. And then there was the prophecy that He would be born to a virgin, now that’s pretty outrageous when you think about it, Isaiah chapter 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look the virgin woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel which means ‘God is with us.

And that is, of course, exactly what happened. There are quite a few more prophecies about the birth of Jesus that were given centuries before that He fulfilled – His lineage, the slaughter of the infants by Herrod, His need to flee to Egypt. The bottom line was that there were plenty of signs, plenty of prophecies, plenty of predictions.

Okay they were cryptic. I mean God revealed His Son in mystery and wonder. We always try to analyse God and put Him in a box. We try and figure out how He operates and then make a bunch of rules about Him. But you can’t do that with God. He does startling, creative, outrageous things like sending His Son, Jesus as the son of a carpenter in humble circumstances in some shed out the back of Bethlehem.

But the picture was always there, the big plan was always there. God had given some predictions about what was going to happen even as way back as His promise to Abraham. Right back there in the first Book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, God said to him, “Through you all nations shall be blessed” pointing forward to Jesus. But the people were just chugging along, business as usual and it was difficult (if not, impossible) for many of them to see, to perceive, to understand. Not all of them had the light show like the shepherds and the wise men.

As I look at the world today, it seems to me that still today most are asleep to what God did back then and what God is doing now. The only difference is that we know the whole story, we know what was going on and how it ends.

So as this Christmas approaches, you find yourself asleep to the wonder of what God is doing then let me say to you with all love and with all care, “Wake up. Don’t be asleep through yet another Christmas.” The wonder and the power of what God did back then, the doors that He opened for you through the coming of Jesus, the joy of what He brings to you today, the unspeakable glory that He opens up through His Son for you to spend eternity with Him, why would you want to sleep through that? Why would you want to be blind to that?

Those prophecies of old which is the faintest hint of what was to come. But now we know, now we can see … the sheer wonder.

There is something incredibly powerful about “business as usual”. If you think about how your life has played itself out, so far, I suspect that it’s been ninety nine percent humdrum and about half a percent of wonderful mountain top joy and another half a percent of tragedy and loss.

Sure, some people seem to have better lives than others. Some are born rich, some are born poor and very sadly for some people life is one long tragedy. I wish I could wave a magic wand and take all that away for those people who find themselves in that boat. But I just can’t and yet for most of us, most of our lives are occupied by the normal every day, business as usual, monotony which consumes most of our time, most of our attention and most of our focus. Am I right?

But beneath that monotony there is always, always, always a sneaking suspicion that there must be more. You’ve had that feeling, right? This sense that something is oppressing you, something is sidling you out of the sort of life that you think you should be living. There are in fact very few people on planet earth today that don’t have that feeling.

I used to have it but I don’t have it anymore. I’ve always been someone who’s tried to get out there and live life to the full. And all along, as hard as I tried, something was missing, things weren’t quite right and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I want to wind the clock back to what was going on in the history of Israel around when Jesus was born. Not just the history of the nation but the lives of the ordinary people like you and me. In fact there’s a particular bunch of guys I want to focus on because they, to me, exemplify this “business as usual” but something was not quite right in their world. What am I yabbering on about here? I’m talking, of course, about the shepherds who were out watching their flocks by night.

Now, no doubt you’ve sung the Christmas carol many times and heard their story many times. By the way, the fact that they were out there watching their flocks by night makes it pretty certain that Jesus wasn’t born in December, Israel’s winter. Average December maximums of fifteen degrees Celsius or around sixty degrees Fahrenheit and of course nights were quite a bit cooler.

So in winter they generally brought their sheep into town where there was a communal pen where they were cared for overnight. So even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it probably didn’t happen then on the first Christmas.

Anyhow, here were these guys living out their “business as usual” tending their flocks by night but they weren’t living as free men, they were living as men in an occupied country. The Romans of course had occupied and ruled most of the known world back then. And in fact, the Romans had been the rulers for the last sixty or seventy years in Israel.

Now, in the overall history of Israel that’s pretty short but for those shepherds it was all that they could remember. The Romans were tough task masters and what made it even harder for the Israelites is that they knew they were God’s chosen people. They knew they were meant to be free and so they expected, kind of, sort of, maybe one day for God to send them a King – a Messiah, as He was called back then, God’s anointed King – in order to boot the Romans out and restore the kingdom of Israel, to set God’s people free. After all, God had done it before.

He’d set them free from captivity in Egypt. He’d set them free from captivity in Babylon. He’d set them free from the Seleucid Empire through the Maccabean Revolt only a century and a half before. That was their simplistic understanding of what should be going on.

So there they were, business as usual. But something wasn’t quite right, they were oppressed and that simply wasn’t the way it should have been. They were being robbed of the freedom, the life that they knew they were entitled to as God’s chosen people. Does that sound vaguely familiar to you? Does that sound like anyone that you know?

Now, people back then were kind of expecting this Messiah to come. But when you and I used this term “Messiah” we think of Jesus, right? That’s not who they were thinking about at all. They were thinking more about a strong warrior king, someone like King David of old who could muster an army, defeat the Romans and set the people free. After all, isn’t that what God promised to David years before? 2 Samuel 7: 12 and 13, He said to David:

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

So in effect, they were looking in the wrong direction for a saviour because they misinterpreted what God was on about. They thought they were going to get another King David. Again a bit like, in fact a lot like people today, that’s what was going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people like those ‘business as usual’ shepherds back then and in many respects it’s what’s going on in the popular consciousness of ordinary people today.

People are looking for someone or something to set things right. They know that life is not all it should be so they turn to money or career or reputation or luxury or holidays or friends, you name it. They turn to it expecting “it” to make things better but it never does.

People have been looking in the wrong direction for a Saviour for thousands of years just like those shepherds and then God breaks into the world with such power and with such might and in such a surprising way that we can’t even begin to imagine what He’s up to. Luke 2: 8-14:

In that region were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, ‘don’t be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.

This Messiah, this Saviour, He wasn’t what they expected Him to be – He still isn’t what we expect Him to be. What are you expecting Jesus to be? As we roll inexorably towards Christmas, yet again, what are you expecting to discover or are you so busy looking in a different direction that you’re going to miss this amazing surprise in Jesus?

Or are you running away as I was for many years because like the shepherds I was kind of afraid? This idea of God breaking into history by becoming one of us is too startling and too incomprehensible to begin to make sense.

Just listen with me quietly to what the angel went on to say to those startled, frightened, ‘business as usual’, confused shepherds. Luke 2: 15 – 20:

This will be a sign for you, you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

And so …

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made known to us’. So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and a child lying in a manger.

When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. (Luke 2: 15 – 20)

Seems to me that you and I, like the shepherds, have a choice. We can continue to get on with business as usual, stay in our field and ignore Jesus. Or, we can go and check Him out for ourselves.

The only question that I’d ask is this; so how well has your ‘business as usual’ worked out for you so far?

Christmas is just around the corner, can you believe it? But the sad reality is that domestic violence will again spike sharply over the Christmas period. Can you believe that? Well, too often, anger spills over during the holidays, so I thought that this week, we’d share in a timely word on anger management.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when a seed falls to the ground and dies, ultimately it sprouts and takes root.

And if it was the seed of a plum tree – we can be pretty certain that the thing that’s growing there is going to one day produce – not apricots, not apples, not pears…..we all know, it’s going to produce plums.

Because it’s a plum tree that’s taken root. In fact, the root produces the fruit.

It’s just one of those basic facts of life that actually we don’t have to think about. The root determines the fruit.

And it’s a bit like that in our hearts. IF our hearts take root in goodness then we’ll produce good fruit. In bad things and we’ll produce bad fruit.

In sweet things and we’ll produce sweet fruit. In bitter things – and we’ll produce bitter things.

This is not rocket science – right?

This week on the program….Want to take a look at the phenomenon of anger in our society and in our lives.

Anger is a real phenomenon in the hearts of so many people. Pressure building up in life – people explode.

Like a pressure cooker – vent the steam otherwise it blows up. It’s the same with people – so many people venting their anger – epidemic proportions.

• Road rage
• Supermarket rage
• Call centre rage

In fact, this weeks program is prompted by a real-life experience.

Stan the painter. He was doing some work at our little terrace house. Painting a few walls – at the same time, he was doing a big job in one of the wealthiest streets in the country.

Huge mansion – special paint $1,000 a tin – unbelievable – houses in the street worth $15-$25 million – mega wealthy. Lots of people having building work done in that street – narrow street – yet great views, massive mansions…unbelievable

Been working there for a few weeks now – and he was telling me – “You wouldn’t believe the strife between the neighbours – house I’m working on – 70 year old woman – hasn’t talked with her neighbour for 20 years. Argument over some building work.

All the neighbours are fighting… the woman I’m working for – done some work before – but now she’s so mean and nasty and swears.”

Stand back from that – unbelievable… these people have everything in life – nothing they can’t buy or have or own really… everything their heart desires

Yet there’s – well a spirit of anger and bitterness and dissension…

Makes you wonder – what’s going on here. We, like Stan and his brother Douk – two Greek painters, lovely people do a great job. Honest as the day is long – wonderful men.

How can this woman be so nasty to them?

Anger and bitterness has taken root in her heart. That’s why. You let things get to you and get angry with people over and over and over again – like bitterness takes root in your heart. The root produces the fruit.

God actually talks a lot about anger – you know it’s a word that pops up 375 times in the Bible – makes it one of the leading subjects.

Anger is something that we all have to deal with – and it springs up, out of a root of bitterness.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in the NT – puts it like this:

Hebrews 12:14-15.

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated

See – there it is – the root produces the fruit.

The root of bitterness takes hold in our hearts… it springs up and causes trouble and contaminates everyone around us.

We all have a problem with anger some days – some more than others… the longer we let it go on, the more it takes hold and produces bitterness – and a bitter root produces bitter fruit.

A root – is something we cultivate and if we don’t want it to keep growing – have to stop feeding it.

Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. (Ephesians 4:26)

We all get angry from time to time – that’s not the sin – the sin is letting the sun go down on your anger – keeping it in your heart, brooding, planning revenge, going over it and over it and over it and over it…

The right way of handling it is just – get over it. Forgive and move on. Then, then we won’t be cultivating the root of bitterness which – sure as God made little green apples – will produce fruit of bitterness.

Not something we can do on our own though – I believe we need an antidote to this venom… something that heals and cleanses and just gives us a fresh perspective – let’s go back to that earlier quote….

Pursue peace with everyone – and holiness – because without them you won’t get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble – because through it, so many will be contaminated.

Let’s get down to practicalities… dealing with anger, dealing with that rising temper. When someone provokes us – you know they do something and you can feel your blood boiling and you go all red in the face… right at that moment, it’s so easy to spit out something venomous – words that we can’t take back. Words that damage a relationship. People even throw something – do something…

Sometimes, when we’re provoked, we can be a bit quick on the draw when it comes to responding. Let me share a story with you:

I remember once as a consultant – some years back now – used to run an IT consulting group

I was being mucked around by a large and important client of a particular ethnic heritage…..dealing with them for months to try to kick off a project – meant a lot of money – large, global organisation. After months of investing time and effort with the management… they pulled the plug on the project.

Received an e-mail from one of the consultants working with me – info about the client – explaining that the organisation had decided not to go ahead. I blew my stack – sitting in my office reading the e-mail – couldn’t believe that they’d wasted so much of our time and resources – not fair – losing so much revenue.

I had a few choice sentiments that I almost expressed in reply to that e-mail to my fellow consultant – even typed an angry e-mail… just about to send it I thought better of it and sent a benign e-mail instead.

Just as well, I hit the “Reply to All” button and the e-mail ended up with the client as well as my colleague!!! Gulp.

Can you imagine – my thoughts of anger included some pretty vitriolic stuff about their ethnicity too.

Berni – why are you sharing this with us? Simple – we all go through this sort of thing – day by day. People, organisations, circumstances drive us insane and we want to explode.

Just the other day – a neighbour – asked them to turn their loud music down… not so hard.

Simple thing – their music was too loud. Obviously never been taught to take other people into account.

The vitriol – now he just ignores me Berni – just asked him to turn it down.

You know what I wanted to do? Just explode at him! Just tell him what I really thought. Teach him a lesson. Teach him some manners. You know this feeling don’t you? And then – HE ignores ME – he was the one that did the wrong thing.

EXPLODING is never a good thing. Never. But it’s something we all experience. Some more than others. Some – like on a hair-trigger. Anything will set them off. Anger and tantrums are ugly things.

Talking about it on the program this week – Anger Management

Some great, practical input from God’s Word today

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:19-21)

Practical – special – God’s solution.

Slow to speak and slow to become angry.

SLOW DOWN – you don’t have to react now this instant and rip someone’s head off.

Maybe this is where that piece of advice came from – “count to ten”.

Nine times throughout the Bible you’ll find these words – or ones very similar

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8)

What a great concept – three parts

1. 1. Slow to anger…just hold up for a minute and cut this person some slack for the man who wouldn’t turn his music down.
   2. Abounding in steadfast love and compassion – pray for the guy.
   3. Slow to speak – just don’t say anything – don’t defend, or assert, or criticise, or judge, or belittle, or shout or scream or anything – don’t. Instead, be slow to speak.

Not easy. It begins with a change in heart. Begins by deciding that my anger is a problem. Begins by resigning from the position of tin-pot little god and centre of the universe, begins by deciding the world doesn’t owe me…

Being slow to anger and slow to respond….and when we do respond, what should we say

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) 

Wisdom – God’s wisdom – hard some days to bite our lip Hard sometimes to respond in love – each time becomes easier. Each time heals relationships – people notice this and one day, relationship so strong, have the ability to influence this person who hurt us with the love of God.

Anger is one of those basic facts of life. And in many respects – it’s a natural reaction to a whole range of situations.

Sometimes we think that anger in and of itself is wrong.

Not so – God gets angry – so either God’s a sinner or anger in itself isn’t a sin.

Hmm – makes you think doesn’t it?

I passionately believe that Jesus Christ came and died for my sins and that He was and is utterly perfect – a perfect sacrifice to pay for my sins.

And yet, when He went to the temple in Jerusalem and saw that they’d turned it into a bazaar, He was angry. He made a whip and turned over the tables and drove the traders out of the temple with a whip.

Of course God is a loving God. But God is also a God of anger and ultimately of punishment.

So is anger right or wrong in our lives? And what do we do with anger?

Let’s take a look at the anatomy of anger – basically goes like this:

• I’ve been wronged by someone.
• I, therefore, feel angry.
• They owe me some recompense.
• So – I will respond in anger, to obtain vengeance.

In a sense comes out of our sense of justice

Of course – as we’ve seen on the program this week, we can have quite a distorted sense of justice. We can be touchy and selfish and throw tantrums.

And so even though actually, we haven’t been wronged, they’ve just fallen short of our expectations or we’re just being selfish – we feel wronged, and then the anger, justice, vengeance thing takes hold.

Sometimes, people do things that are clearly wrong – and we are angry.

Question is how we respond? Before the break, read this passage from NT book of:

Ephesians 4:26 – Be angry but do not sin – do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. 

In other words – sometimes we are angry – the question is whether we dwell on it and let it fester overnight and tomorrow and over and over and over – making room for the devil to distort our sense of justice and then this root of bitterness takes hold in our lives? Or whether we, like God are

compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. ( Psalm 103:8)

See anger in itself isn’t a sin. God is angry with those who turn their backs on Him – Judges 2:12-15

They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

And yet the wonder of God is that He is slow to anger – and ready to forgive. But ultimately when we harden our hearts and our ways against Him, we experience His anger.

So how do we make sense of all this? God gets angry but we shouldn’t? Remember – anger has it’s root in our sense of justice. That much we get from God – because we’re made in His image. God is never angry without just cause.

The problem is we can’t say the same thing about us. Our justice gyroscope is so often out of balance. And then when we do experience anger – we want to wallow in it and work it over and over and seek revenge – making room for the devil.

Anger is a natural reaction and in some cases – it’s the right reaction. Problem is when we’re the injured party, our sense of justice is questionable at best and wacky at worst. So what do we do? Romans 12:17-21

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

In other words – leave the justice thing to God. His sense of justice so much better than ours – and in any case who knows what He’s up to in that person’s life? Only He does.

Someone hurts us – the initial reaction may be anger… the same anger that God feels when He sees injustice. The thing that’s wrong is repaying that evil with evil.

Don’t take revenge – leave room for God to act. Instead, bless the enemy – God’s grace may kick in through us and bring that person to Christ. We may never see justice… but then that’s why Jesus died for you and me – so unjust – justice meets love on the cross. That’s called grace.

Grace is shown to you and me – a grace He now calls us to show to others. Yes – you and I will experience anger from time to time – not to repay evil with – leave that bit to God – forgive, forget, live life to the full and bless people with the grace that’s been shown to us….not a bad plan when you think about it.

You know the saying: “no man is an island”. None of us can go it alone. We all need help, wise counsel, a bit of muscle from time to time. The question is, who or what do you turn to, to get that help when you need it? When it comes to getting help, sometimes, we do the craziest things.

There used to be a game show on television called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where they asked you a whole bunch of questions and if you got them all right you would end up winning a million dollars. Well not surprisingly not all that many people won the million.

One of the rules of the game was that you had three lifelines when you ran into a difficult question, you could ask the audience, you could do a 50/50 where the computer removed two wrong answers out of the four multiple choice items or you could phone a friend.

The ‘phone a friend’ always intrigued me. The contestant would run into a difficult question and choose to phone a friend, they would give them a thirty-second call with a friend of their choosing. Sometimes the friend was able to help with the question, other times not.

I wonder when you run into a difficult question in life where do you turn? What option do you take, ask the audience, 50/50 or phone a friend? It seems that often what we do is we try to build ourselves an insurance policy in life to provide a safety net for those difficult times.

Some people try and get a financial buffer by earning lots of money, some people try to build a social relationship safety net so that they have friends and family in place when the difficult times hit. That’s not a bad thing. Other people invest in their career and their reputation as though that somehow is going to make a difference when the tempest hits.

Whatever your safety net is it’s something you’ve had to work hard to build, it’s been an investment. Now there’s nothing wrong with a bit of sound planning, it’s good to have a network of family and friends, it’s good if you can to have some savings to fall back on and if there’s still such a thing a secure job and a career path. Nothing wrong with any of those things until we put all our trust in them as though they’re going to be able to save us when a tsunami sweeps across our lives.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been talking about idolatry. My favourite definition of an idol is anything that we place above God in our lives. We have a innate desire to worship something, that’s how we’ve been made and the crazy thing is that often we worship the wrong things and in so doing we miss out on the very best that God has ready and waiting for us, that God has ready and waiting for you.

Idols are always imposters. Idols can never deliver what we hope they can deliver. So in your life what are the safety nets that you’ve been investing in and building that you put your trust in?

One of the things we can so easily do is to work hard and save hard for a home of our own and when we finally get that we start behaving as though this home is a ‘forever’ thing, that it’s safe and permanent and inviolable. I happen to own a small apartment only several hundred metres from the ocean. We literally live at sea level and as safe and secure as this home feels, hey should a tsunami hit we’re done for.

Why is it that we behave as though the things of this world have the power to withstand the tsunamis of life? When we do that it’s called idolatry because we end up worshipping those things with our lives, we end up placing our trust in them and when you stand back from that behaviour and you evaluate it objectively it’s just nuts and not surprisingly that’s exactly what God says in His Word, lets take a look, Isaiah chapter 44 verses 9 to 20:

All who make idols are nothing and the things they delight in do not profit, their witnesses neither see nor know and so they were put to shame. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good? Look all its devotee’s will be put to shame, the artisans too are merely human, let them all assemble, let them stand up, they shall be terrified, they shall all be put to shame.

The ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers and forging it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and he’s faint. The carpenter stretches a line and marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes and marks it with a compass. He makes it in human form with human beauty to be set up in a shrine.

He cuts down cedars or chooses a Holm tree or an oak tree and lets it grow strong among the trees in the forest. He plants a seed and the rain nourishes it then he can use it as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes some bread, then he makes a god and worships it and makes it a carved image and bows down before it.

Half of it he burns in the fire, over that half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied, he also warms himself and says ‘ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire’ but with the rest of it he turns it into a god, his idol and bows down to it and worships it, he prays to it and says, ‘Save me for you are my God’.

They don’t know, they don’t comprehend, their eyes are shut so they can’t see and their minds as well so they cannot understand. No one considers nor is there knowledge or discernment to say ‘half of it I burned in the fire, I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted me and I’ve eaten, now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood? He feeds on the ashes, a deluded mind has led him astray and he cannot save himself or say ‘is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?

Hmm, isn’t that great? There was Isaiah talking about physical idols, statues but they’re no different to the idol we set up in our lives today, the physical things that we build to worship and place our trust in. I love how he unmasks the stupidity of idols. That’s exactly what we do with the physical things that we turn into idols.

One half of them we consume and enjoy like money or a nice house or friends or our careers, whatever it is that we’ve set up above God in our lives. And with the other half we sacrifice to it and we trust in it as though somehow it has the power to save us like some god.

Even our relationships, good as many of them are, have you ever been in a difficult spot and used the ‘phone a friend’ option and found there’s nothing your friend can say or do to help you? Of course you have. Have you ever asked the audience, gone out there for help and found that there was no help that could withstand the tsunami? Of course you have.

Right at the end of that passage that we just read from Isaiah, the prophet leads us to the right question to ask, the question we should be asking of the idols in our lives, ‘Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?’

And the right answer to that question, the only answer to that question is ‘of course it is, dummy’. When earthquakes and tsunami’s hit your life who’s going to save you? When you come to that final barrier in this life, your physical death and you’re staring down the barrel of eternity let me ask you, who can save you?

Do you see how ridiculous it is for us to set up idols in our lives and to worship them and to sacrifice our lives to them and to put our trust in them? The more we invest in them, the more we trust them, the more deluded we become imagining they have the power to save us. They don’t have that power, listen to me, idols are frauds, they’re imposters and at the very best they’re nothing but second best.

When something or someone who you trust leaves you in the lurch, when your life is crashing down around you that sense of betrayal and disappointment actually makes things worse, that’s what idols do however attractive or reliable or secure they may appear. However much you’ve sacrificed your life to them they are nothing but a fraud and that is the God honest truth.

One of the enduring memories of my childhood is being bored absolutely to tears at Church on Sunday mornings. I was an inquisitive energetic lad as you might imagine, precocious, always on the move, always asking questions, always trying to explore my little world and get the most out of it. Anyhow I digress, back to Church as a young lad.

The things I remember most about Church are the terrible droning sound of the minister’s voice, the boredom and the frustration of not be able to get out there and get on with my life and how incredibly hard those wooden pews were on my backside. I was one of those kids who’d stand up on the pew facing people behind me and making faces at them trying to make them laugh, oh man I pity my poor parents. I remember getting more than just the odd hiding from my father after Church. It wasn’t just the pews that gave me a sore backside.

But can I tell you as adults this remains the experience of many people’s Christianity, a Sunday ritual that for some reason they feel obligated to live out week after week. A droning minister, a sense of duty and boredom mixed in altogether and it’s no wonder that so many of God’s people have set up idols in this world that they worship above God because their experience of Him simply isn’t anything to write home about.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve been talking about how easily we fall into idolatry and exactly how that damages our lives. All those things of this world that appear to be so attractive, so reliable, so trustworthy that we invest in them and put our trust in them above and before God and yet they always fail, they never deliver. Nothing in this world can ever deliver what we’re looking for and that’s why grabbing hold of Gods very best for you is so important.

So what is Gods very best for you, what does that look like? Well here it is, just sit back and soak it in. I’m reading from Matthew’s Gospel chapter 27.

As they went out they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon and they compelled this man to carry Jesus’ cross and when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means place of the skull) they offered him wine and drink mixed with gall but when he tasted it he wouldn’t drink it and when they had crucified him they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots.

Then they sat down there and kept watch over him. Over his head they put the charge against him which read ‘This is Jesus the king of the Jews’. Then two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads saying ‘you who would destroy the Temple and rebuild it again in three days, save yourself. If you’re the Son of God come down from the cross.

In the same way the chief priests also along with the scribes and the elders were mocking him saying, ‘he saved others but he can’t save himself. He’s the king of Israel, let him come down from the cross now and we’ll believe in him. He trusts in God let God deliver him down if he wants to for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’ The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him the same way.

From noon on darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At about three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani’, that is ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it they said, ‘the man is calling for Elijah.

At once one of them ran and got a sponge and filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick and gave it to him to drink but the others said, ‘wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him’. Then Jesus cried again in a loud voice and breathed his last. (Matthew chapter 27 verses 32 to 50.)

There it is, God’s very best for you – Jesus. This Jesus who came into this world to show you exactly what God’s like, this Jesus who suffered so terribly to take the punishment that you and I so richly deserve so that we can have a real, intimate, dynamic, powerful, tender, lifelong, eternity long relationship with God.

That’s the whole purpose of what everything Jesus did for you and for me, to open up the door to that tender intimate relationship with Him. Gods cry from the beginning of the Bible to the end is His desire to be our God and for us to be His people. He wants to dwell in our midst and for us to be with Him and to behold His glory and to enjoy His presence and to worship Him in a way that is completely divine.

Right towards the end of the Bible in the Book of Revelations God repeats His cry, a cry that we hear over and over again through Scripture but this time it is the fulfilment of His deepest desire, it is our glimpse into the future to see how all this ends, Revelation chapter 21, verses 1 to 7:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more and I saw the Holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband and I heard a loud voice saying from the throne, ‘see the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them, they will be his people’s and God himself will be with them, He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more for the first things have passed away’. And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘see I am making all things new’. Also he said ‘write this for these words are trustworthy and true.

Then he said to me, ‘It is done, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things and I will be their God and they will be my children.

That’s Gods very best for you, eternity with Him through Jesus His Son and that’s not something that begins when you die, it’s something that begins, is meant to begin, was always ordained to begin the moment you believe in Jesus. Why does so many of Gods people try to find solace in the things of this world when Gods very best, God Himself is ready and waiting now.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul put it in his letter to the Roman Church, chapter 14 verse 17:

For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Kingdom of God isn’t about the things of this world. Sure God’s blessed us with those things but the things of this world are temporal, they’re here today and gone tomorrow. I hope that my wife and I grow old and dotty together, really I do but either she or I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. Nothing on this earth is forever and when I’m travelling and we’re apart as much as we can chat to each other through the wonders of the internet today, she’s not there with me but God is, Jesus is, the Holy Spirit is.

God never departs and as things turn out He is the only one that can ever give me His righteousness, knowing that I’m forgiven, knowing that I’m washed clean from my sin, knowing that as far as the east is from the west so far He has removed my transgressions from me through Jesus.

He’s the only one who can give me the peace that I need amidst the busyness and the pressure and the turmoil and the demands of life and He is the only one who can fill me with the joy unspeakable irrespective of what’s going on around me. And He does that by pouring His Holy Spirit into me, into you, into anyone who puts their trust, their faith, their complete life in Jesus.

Righteousness, peace and joy granted to us because Jesus, delivered to us through the Holy Spirit. There, right there is Gods very best and nothing in this world, no idol, no possession, no relationship, no position, no recognition, no amount of money even comes close

Back in 604BC a Chinese philosopher by the name of Lau–Tzu observed that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In fact, nothing that we ever plan on doing, happens unless and until we take the first step. And that’s why I asked you that rather awkward question just before. What are you going to do about it?

If you’ve been able to join me over these past few weeks, you’ve probably figured out for yourself that there really are some idols in your life, something or someone that you’re putting ahead of God. Something or someone that you’re putting all your trust in, to the exclusion of God.

The problem with letting go of your idol is, well, it’s a bit like being a chocoholic, and giving up chocolate. You just want one more piece, right?

The thing with idols is that although they don’t, in and of themselves, have any innate power, the fact that you’ve invested so much in them, the fact that you’ve put your trust in them, means that they have their tendrils wrapped around your heart. And letting go isn’t easy. Letting go, in fact, to start with, can be quite painful.

But unless and until you take that first step, nothing is going to change. You’ll keep on settling for second best, and missing out on God’s very best. That’s the bad news.

The good news is this. As hard as it is to let go of your idols, God has all the power that you need to make it happen. He can break their hold over you in an instant, or He might choose to do that over the coming days, weeks and months. He knows what’s best for you. The first step, is deciding that you’re going to make a change here and now. That you’re going to do what the Bible tells you to do, which is this. Romans chapter 12, verse 2:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Are you prepared to do that right now? To lay down your idols at God’s feet and give them up for Him? Well if you are, then it’s time for the second step, and that second step is to lay hold of the only power in the universe that can set you free – God’s Word.

God’s Word says that:

For freedom Christ has set you free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

In other words, you have already been set free by Christ. So right now, I want to pray that freedom over you. Are you ready?

Father God your Word says that in Christ we are already free. Free from the slavery to sin. Free from the power of idols that we have set up in our lives. So today, we are going to claim your Word for ourselves, for our lives. We are going to step out in faith, away from our idols and towards you, believing that Jesus has already set us free. Lord I pray your power on every person listening today whose heart it is to be free from idolatry and completely surrendered to you. Pour your Holy Spirit upon them, that person, right now in great power, in a double portion and do what only You can do – make the freedom that Christ has purchased for us a reality in their lives right now. Right now I pray, In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I’m believing that if you prayed that prayer with me, God has done precisely what we asked Him to do. I know that over the coming days and weeks God is going to make things happen in your life to make His freedom a reality for you.

As your idol is torn away from your heart by the very power of the Holy Spirit, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, God will replace it with His very best for you, His righteousness, peace and joy through the Holy Spirit. And that right there will bring healing to you, and open the door to an amazing future, of God’s very best for you.

The mistake that so many of God’s people make, is that they think that their relationships with other people can fill the deep void within, a void that’s been designed so that it can only be filled by God Himself. And so they spend their lives getting second best, when all along, God’s very best is staring them right in the face. 

Over the last week we’ve been chatting about laying hold of God’s very best for our lives because there are so many imposters out there that claim to be able to give us what we’re looking for, that they lead us astray. An imposter is never as good as the real thing.

I remember once I was travelling in South Africa and I wanted to bring home a special gift for my daughter. I was shopping in a mall in Pretoria and I wandered into a handbag store. I spotted a Louis Vuitton handbag and I thought she would really, really like that. Yeah it was pricey but I thought no she would really like it so I bought it for her.

I was right, she loved it but about eighteen months later the catch that keeps the bag closed came apart. Well not a problem, I thought, this is a Louis Vuitton handbag. So I looked it up on the internet and found the authorised Louis Vuitton repairer here at home and took the handbag into them.

The lady behind the counter took one look at it and she informed me that it was a fake, a knock off and as much as she’d like to help me she was unable to do so. Well I was pretty angry I have to tell you, not with her but with the person who sold the bag to me because I quizzed them over and over again to make sure it was the real thing. And that’s the thing with fakes, they look real, they pretend to be real but they simply can’t deliver what you’re looking for.

I remember when I was studying at Bible College, a good many years ago, one of our lecturers, Dr Barry Chant, gave a class on the things that lead ministers astray, that get them caught up in sin that ends up tearing their ministry apart. And he said something along these lines.

It comes down basically to three things; girls or in the case of women guys, gold and glory. Those are the top three things that lead men and women of God who are called to ministry, astray. That’s always stuck with me – girls, gold and glory. Pretty simple really and when you think about it, it applies not just to people in ministry, it applies to all of Gods people because those three things, girls or guys, gold and glory are pretty much the three main categories of idolatry today.

In this day and age most of us don’t think much about idols. In western countries we don’t see many physical idols and in eastern countries where there are so many religions that use idols routinely, you get to the point of being oblivious to them. I know when I first started travelling to India regularly the number of idols I saw hit me in the face but now I almost don’t notice them.

An idol is an imposter, it’s anything that we set up as an alternative to the one true God, the One who sent Jesus, His Son, to die for you and me. And we take these imposters and we worship them as though they’re real, they’re not of course but we treat them as though they are and we worship them and we sacrifice our lives to them.

So let’s start off by talking about this whole ‘girls and guy’s’ thing. It’s one of the most natural things on the planet, girl meets boy, they fall in love and they want to spend the rest of their lives together. And if you’ve been through that you’ll know how compelling and intoxicating romance is. It plays to our emotional desires and to our physical desires and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Until we start imagining that this is it, this is what I’ve always been looking for and we start expecting our mate to make us happy.

We start expecting this one relationship to give us all the contentment and joy and fulfilment that we’ve been looking for for all our lives. And then all of a sudden we’re heaping expectations on this girl or guy that they simply can never meet up to. The truth of it is my wife, as wonderful as she is, simply cannot fill the void in me that only God can fill. And if she looks at me to do that for her she too is going to be sadly disappointed.

Remember the first Commandment in the Ten Commandments, Exodus chapter 20 verses 2 and 3:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me.

The moment we take something, even something as sublime and as wonderful as this pinnacle of human relationships, the exclusive relationship of one man and one woman in the lifelong relationship of marriage and we elevate that above God then we’re committing idolatry and that goes straight to the second Commandment, Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 and 5:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I am the Lord your God and I am a jealous God.

Of course some people take this one step further, they decide to focus on the physical side of this boy/ girl thing or into same sex relationships and end up turning sex into their idol as though somehow sexual gratification will give them what they’re looking for, that too becomes idolatry, Colossians chapter 3 verses 5 and 6:

Put to death therefore whatever in you is earthly. Fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed which is idolatry. On account of these things the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.

Listen up, it is good for a man and a woman to fall in love and to give themselves completely to one another for the rest of their lives, that’s certainly God’s plan but when we take this good thing and we elevate it and place it above God or when we pervert this good plan and sleep around hoping to find gratification, it’s just like that fake Louis Vuitton hand bag I was telling you about earlier. Eventually it will break and we’re left with nothing because there’s a hole inside you and a hole inside me that only God can fill, it’s just the way we’ve been made.

In the long run idols, imposters, as attractive as they may seem can never deliver what we’re looking for, as attractive as they may appear.

Gold is a symbol of wealth and it’s one of the main things that draws us away from God. Think about it God/ gold, only one letter of difference between those two words and how easy is it for us to substitute one for the other. Even more so because in this world we’re told wealth equals success.

Who among us haven’t dreamed of striking it rich, of being able to live in a big house, a mansion with all the comforts and pleasures that money can buy. A great view, lots of rooms, lavishly furnished, a few high and luxury cars in the multi car garage, flying around the world first class of course or even in your own jet with everyone kowtowing to you because you’re such an important person.

That’s a dream, a fantasy that many people churn over inside themselves over and over again. It’s so seductive that many people are intoxicated by it and they can’t let it go. So here’s what they do, here’s what I did for much of my early adult life, they sacrifice their lives to it. They throw themselves into the pursuit of earning as much money as they can.

I’ve seen some of the houses that people build for themselves, not far from where I live, live some of the wealthiest people in Australia, houses that sell for upwards of thirty million dollars, one recently just went for fifty million dollars. Hey that’s a ridiculous amount of money and these mansions are so big, so ridiculously huge they must be cavernous.

I was having a room in my apartment painted not so long ago. I’m a hopeless painter, best to get a professional in to do it and the painter, Stan, was telling me about a job that he and his brother completed recently in one of these mansions not far away. He said the place was just enormous, three levels plus a fourth for the basement and garage, it has an elevator because the occupants were an elderly couple, obviously very wealthy. Now the middle floor they never went into, it was essentially vacant.

These two people weren’t happy at all, in fact they were pretty miserable. Now stand back and think about that for a minute, that right there is idolatry. With so many people in this world who don’t have a roof over their heads, who don’t have enough to eat, who don’t have even clean drinking water, here you have these two mega rich people occupying a property that they don’t need, that’s way too big for them and that isn’t making them happy.

Psalm 135, verses 15 to 18:

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but they do not speak, they have eyes but they do not see, they have ears but they do not hear and there is no breath in their mouths. Those who make them and all who trust in them shall become like them.

Isn’t that the perfect picture of the futility of idolatry, of setting up the things of this world as our little gods? I think that passage applies so aptly to the picture of that wealthy couple in their golden prison, the emptiness, the loneliness, the futility of it all and yet so many people sacrifice their lives to this idol of gold, of wealth, of what other people will think.

How about you? How much do you dream of being wealthy? How much do you sacrifice your life to the futility of wealth?

You may have heard me tell this story before but I’m going to tell it again. For the first thirty-six years of my life wealth was what mattered to me. It was important to me that I drove a car that would impress other people. It was important to me that I lived in a house that people would look at and think, ‘Wow that’s grand, he must have a lot of money, he must be successful’.

And that constant need to have more and more and more drove me although the more I had the less satisfied I felt, the more I filled myself up the emptier I became, the more that other people looked at my obvious wealth and success the more desperate and empty and lonely I became.

This idolatry, sacrificing your life to gold, to wealth is such a terrible scourge. You’ll understand then how gobsmacked I was when finally I stumbled across this Bible verse, 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 9 and 10:

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Right there was a picture of the first thirty-six years of my life which culminated by the way in me becoming so desperate that I came within inches of taking my own life. Idolatry doesn’t work, these imposters lead us to ruin and destruction. That’s the marque of a idol in fact, it looks so good, it speaks so smoothly, it draws you in so seductively and then it plunges you into ruin and destruction. And gold, wealth, it’s the very worst of all.

We kid ourselves that we can pursue wealth and love God but it simply isn’t possible. This is what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 verse 24:

No one can serve two masters for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth. You just can’t and when we give up the pursuit of wealth, when we put money back in the place where it belongs there is such an incredible freedom in that. Money is a great servant but a terrible master. Let me say that again. Money is a great servant but a terrible master. I didn’t read that in a textbook. I discovered that the hard way and the best way, the only way in fact, to break this idolatry is to start becoming generous and giving lots of it away.

You don’t have to be rich to do that, rich or poor we can idolise wealth, rich or poor we can give sacrificially and allow God to set us free from that. Let me say it again, just in case you missed it, let me say it again, money is a great servant but a terrible master.

Some people, to be honest, are recognition junkies, they live to receive a pat on the back, they live to have other people tell them how wonderful they are and whilst in small doses that’s not a bad thing, once it takes over your life it’s a terrible thing.

The Bible tells us that we all have different personality types, that might surprise you since ‘personality type’ is a contemporary term that you don’t actually find in the Bible but if you go to the Book of Romans chapter 12 verses 4 to 8 you’ll discover there what theologians refer to as motivation giftings. In other words natural giftings which are hard-wired into our DNA. There are actually seven listed have a listen.

For as in one body we have many members and not all members have the same function so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exalter in exaltation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

Actually if you look at any of the contemporary personality typing systems they all pretty much revolve around those seven motivational giftings. A few years ago I co-authored a book about the motivational giftings or the personality types found in Romans chapter 12 called My Personality GPS. It was about locating or discovering your God-given gifting.

In the course of writing that book I interviewed one person from each of the personality types on this program and asked them all basically the same questions and I was completely gobsmacked at how different each one of their responses were. One of the things that I discovered is a few of those personality types really like recognition.

If you’ve ever worked at a place where there’s been a sales team you’ll know that the best sales people are highly motivated by targets and bonuses and awards and rewards, that’s what makes them such good sales people. So the point is that we’re all different but we’re all, to some degree, more or less, motivated by recognition. As I said in moderate amount that’s not a bad thing but in a world that rewards success it’s all too easy for us to become recognition junkies.

Imagine Jesus as He wandered around with kind of rock star status, pulling the sorts of crowds that no one had hitherto dreamed of. Often when He came to a region He pulled crowds of several thousand which given the small populations back then meant that towns and cities basically closed down when He came to town.

There would have been nothing easier than to let that adulation go to your head, would there? But have a listen to how Jesus reacted to all that, John chapter 5 verse 41.

I do not accept glory from men.

And again, John chapter 8 verse 54.

If I glorify myself my glory is nothing, it is my Father who glorifies me, He of whom you say, ‘He is our God’.

And when He preached Gods truth without fear or favour, we’re told in John chapter 6 verses 66:

That because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.

Did He go chasing after them? No, because He wasn’t interested so much in the opinions of people because He knew that public opinion was a fickle and irrational thing. In fact in John chapter 2 verse 24:

Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone for he himself knew what was in everyone.

When Jesus said that the time is coming for Him to be glorified what He meant was that He was soon to be crucified. If we are always pandering to the opinions of other people then we’re going to be slaves to their irrationality, their variability, their unreliability and their sin.

Now that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a few trusted advisors whose opinions and sound judgement we pay attention to but if we’re continually seeking glory for ourselves then we become people pleasers and from experience again I can tell you, that’s a terrible way to live because you’re always marching to someone else’s drum beat and all too often you find yourself with different people pulling you in different directions, you literally end up being torn apart.

In my life I’ve observed a number of people who are addicted to recognition, the old fashioned term is vainglory and it’s a tragic sight. I used to be there too always worried about what other people thought, what other people were saying, what other people might be whispering behind my back. This is a form of idolatry because we end up putting our reputation above God’s glory and God, as things turn out, doesn’t share His glory with anyone, Isaiah chapter 42 verse 8.

I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I give to no other nor my praise to idols. See the former things have come to pass and the new things I now declare before they spring forth I tell you of them.

So here’s a tip, if you’re someone who is constantly being hurt by the opinions of other people then that’s a really strong indication that you have made an idol of your reputation. You know the pain that it causes you, you know that you don’t want to keep living like this. It’s time to give up your recognition and your reputation to God. It’s time to stop living your life for other people and start living your life for God.

Our reputations are an incredibly addictive and powerful idol and like every other idol in this world reputation will end up destroying you. Keeping up appearances is exhausting and constantly straining for glory means that we’re working against God because God doesn’t share His glory with anyone.

As I look back on my journey of rehabilitation, from someone who was so fixated on what other people’s thought and said about me to someone who, these days, doesn’t really care, what I see is how God led me through this in His power. Addictions are something we need help with and God is ready and willing and able to help you if you’re making an idol out of your reputation.

The more I read my Bible the more I wanted to live my life for Jesus and the less I cared about what other people thought about me. Yes I have some close trusted advisors who keep my feet on the ground and who tell me the truth about myself. They are so important but when it comes to the opinions of people out there, don’t take this the wrong way but I simply don’t care.

I’ve decided that I’m going to live my life for an audience of one, Jesus, that’s it and when you do that people are going to criticise you and shun you and pull your reputation down, I’ve simply decided to stop caring. This is how the Apostle Paul puts it in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10:

Am I seeking human approval or God’s approval or am I trying to please people? See if I was still pleasing people I would not be a servant of Christ.

That pretty much sums it up for me. If I was still pleasing people, the people who told me I shouldn’t leave my consulting career to go and preach the Gospel, the people who told me I should focus on myself and my financial future and my retirement, the people who criticised me, if I was still pleasing those people I would not be a servant of Jesus Christ.

So let me ask you, who are you pleasing? Who are you serving? Who are you living your life for? Are you really living out God’s very best for your life, I mean really?

Today I want to introduce you to two people who, perhaps more than any other Bible characters, show us how easily you and I can fall into idolatry. How easily you and I can turn our backs on God, and then tell ourselves that what we’re doing is just fine. These two people are like mirrors of who we are, and how stupidly we sometimes behave. 

As I said I want to introduce you to a couple of Bible characters from the Old Testament Book of Judges who in a single chapter, Judges chapter 17, show us how easily we can fall into idolatry. Now these aren’t any of the A list players like Abraham or Moses or Isaiah, these are just two people who only appear this one time whose story in the context and in the whole sweep of Israel’s story told across the Old Testament is frankly pretty insignificant.

And yet God chooses to have their story included in the Bible in a Book that frankly not many of us go to all that often, in fact when I shared a message about these two people at our Church recently my Pastor came up to me afterwards and commented ‘that’s great, it’s good for us to go to Books in the Bible that we don’t go to all too often’.

Well there is a reason I’ve gone to this chapter. We’re told in the New Testament:

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that everybody who belongs to God maybe proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Now this particular one is one of those sorts of Scriptures. It’s the story about a woman, we don’t find out her name and her son Micah. Now this is not the Micah who wrote the Old Testament Book of Micah, different guy altogether. So let’s dive in and have a bit of a look at their story. We’re going to Judges chapter 17 beginning at verse 1.

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I will return it to you,’ and his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord’.

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal.’ So when he returned the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol of cast metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what’s right in their own eyes.

Now it starts off as quite a bizarre story, mum has lost eleven hundred pieces of silver, that was a huge amount of money for them back then, no doubt this was her life savings. There were, of course, no banks with high interest accounts or even with safety deposit boxes for her to secure her fortune in. So she did what everyone else did back then had to do, she hid it.

Nevertheless, it was stolen. Imagine having your life savings stolen, all of your financial security, any sense of a happy retirement is gone. And then all of a sudden it emerges that her son, young Micah, was the thief, her own flesh and blood. He nicked all her money and now, obviously, his conscience gets the better of him and he returns the money.

Now mum should have been outraged, she should have been angry at this terrible act of theft and deceit. Instead she says ‘may my son be blessed by the Lord’. Well of course it’s good to forgive someone quickly but only Freud would have a field day with that one.

And then to celebrate she does what? She goes and makes an idol cast of metal using two hundred pieces of silver which in itself was a huge amount of money. And she consecrates the silver idol to the Lord our God, have you heard of anything as crazy as that? I mean the first of the Ten Commandments:

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

The second of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God punishing children for the inequity of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. (Exodus 20:4)

How could they have taken something good, the silver and turn into something bad, the idol? The answer comes in the last verse of the passage that we read earlier: Because in those days there was no king of Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

And that right there is exactly what we do, we reject authority, we reject the authority of Gods Word and we do what’s right in our eyes. I had an elder in a Church tell me recently that he doesn’t read the Bible because he finds in boring. Really? That same elder has come to the conclusion that he thinks that sex outside marriage is fine.

Well of course he would because he’s rejected Gods Word and that’s exactly what we do when we take something good and we turn it into an object of sacrifice and worship which displaces our worship of God and the rule of God’s Word in our lives. It removes Jesus as the Lord of our lives. We ignore Gods Word and replace it with what seems to be right in our own eyes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, idols are imposters. They rob us of Gods best. If Micah’s mother had truly wanted to bless God to celebrate the return of her life savings there’s a whole bunch of other things she could have done with two hundred pieces of silver. She could have given it to the poor, she could have taken it to the Levite’s to use in the service of God, hey she could have even thrown a party in honour of God and his goodness.

The one thing she couldn’t do to honour God was to build an idol which by the way then took up residence in Micah’s house to further lead him astray. And just as easy as it was for Micah and his mother to pervert the Word of God, that’s how easy it is for you and me when we reject His Word because we think we’re smarter, we think we’re wiser, we think that our ways are better than His ways.

I see it happen in people’s lives time and time again and I have to guard against it in my own life over and over again. Idolatry is singularly one of the most natural sins that we can commit and we do it at our peril.

Before the break, we met Micah and his mother who took something really good and turned it into something really bad. They took what was, in effect, a blessing from God and turned it into a curse. Something that you and I, if the truth be known, are incredibly adept at doing. Let’s just remind ourselves of their story:

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘the eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I’m going to return it to you’. And his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord.’

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal’. So when he returned the money to his mother his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol cast of metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 17:1-6)

The bizarre twist as we saw in this story is the woman is so overjoyed at getting her life savings back that she decides to take that which is good, the silver or at least part of it and turned it into something which is bad, an idol which then went on to live in her son’s house to lead him further astray.

In fact there’s not a single worse thing that she could have done than build an idol because that’s right at the top of God’s rather small list of things that we shouldn’t do. Why? Because God wants the very best for us and idols fall a long, long way short of that.

God is God, God deserves our honour and our worship and when instead we worship the works of our own hands as it seems we so readily do it’s like slapping God in the face with a wet fish. But right now we’re going to take this idolatry thing a step further because there are those leaders in our Church who not only fail to address the idolatry that’s happening amongst their flock, they not only fail to preach the sort of messages that need to be preached and hold people to account to God’s Word but they actually support and promote idolatry themselves.

‘Impossible!’ I hear you say. Hmm not at all, in fact the very next verses in this story of terrible idolatry that is such a salutary lesson to us, that’s exactly what happens. Let’s take a look, Judges chapter 17 verses 7 to 13.

Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there. This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could find a place. He came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim to carry on his work.

Micah said to him, ‘where do you come from?’ and he replied, ‘I’m a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah and I’m going to live wherever I can find a place to stay’. Then Micah said to him, ‘stay with me and be a father and a priest and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a set of clothes and your living.

The Levite agreed to stay with the man and the young man became to him like one of his sons so Micah installed the Levite and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, ‘now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest.

So along comes this Levite, this priest, who should have known better, he was a Levite after all from the tribe who was meant to be, in effect, the priests who served the one true God and minister to God’s people. And this Levite, instead of showing Micah the error of his ways in this idolatry that he was doing, the priest instead joins him in this terrible act of idolatry and becomes an accessory to this crime against God.

And in his failure to correct Micah in his complicity that is idolatry he further leads Micah astray as Micah concludes, ‘All must be good. Now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest’. In other words given now that he has the Levite’s stamp of approval in effect Micah is now further convinced that what he’s doing is fine by God and that God will indeed bless him and prosper him.

Listen to me, just because the Church doesn’t stand up and speak against the idolatry of our times it doesn’t make it right. Just because some preacher far from speaking against the idolatry of wealth and deceit and sexual immorality and disunity, they even endorse those things, it doesn’t make them right.

Now please don’t get me wrong most Churches are good Churches but there are also many out there who will lead you astray into idolatry and away from God’s Word. See it’s precisely what Jesus predicted would happen, Matthew chapter 24 beginning at verse 9.

Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away and they will betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray and because of the increase in lawlessness the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures to the end will be saved and this good news of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9-14)

In other words, they’re the ones who will tell you that you’re not meant to suffer, you’re not meant to sacrifice, God wants to bless you and make you rich and make your life comfortable. Or others will come along and tell you Jesus isn’t the only way. In fact other faiths and belief systems equally get you into heaven, plenty of those guys out there, there are plenty of those Churches out there.

Just as the Levite, through his complicity, led Micah astray so there are those preachers, teachers, leaders and Churches who will do the same. Be warned. The Churches seal of approval to something doesn’t always mean that it’s right, the only authority for right and wrong, good and bad, blessing and curse is the Word of God and that’s why it’s so vitally important that each one of us should be men and women of God’s Word.

Right, so you’ve decided to deal with the idols in your life. Something or someone has set itself up in your heart above God, ahead of God. It might be a person or a possession or a position, it might be a loved one, it might be that new car you’ve been dreaming of and you’re prepared to go way into debt and compromise your giving to God’s work in order to get it. Or it might be a career or what other people think of you.

You know in your heart of hearts that this one thing has gone from being something good in your life to overtaking your life, from something that was good for you to something that has enslaved you, from a servant to a master, from a thing to an idol, a little god of some sort that you sacrifice your whole life to.

You’ve realised that and now you want to do something about it but it’s just not easy because you are so used to having that idol in your life. Now what? Where do you turn? What do you do? Are you relating to this? Are you feeling God tugging at the tender part of your heart that’s wrapped around your idol calling you to let it go? You know you should but it’s kind of like, like being addicted to chocolate. You know it’s bad for you but man, I just want one more piece, right? It tastes so good, right?

So where do you turn? To God of course, to God’s Word. And that’s why we’re going to spend a few minutes with a man who had exactly this same problem, not just any man but one of the Bible’s A list, his name of course was Abraham. Called out of his comfortable wealthy existence by God to head off on a hair-brain twenty-five year journey.

He and his wife were childless and they were already in their mid seventies but God promised them a son and called them onto a journey to the so called Promised Land that Abraham’s multitude of descendants would inherit. Huh, like I said a pretty hare-brained idea.

Cut a long story short, Abraham and Sarah went on this tortuously long journey, they honoured God, believed in God and eventually having even laughed at God over this stupid, ridiculous promise of becoming parents, father and mother to a multitude of descendants at the age of a hundred. God gives them a son and tells them to call him Isaac which means in Hebrew ‘he laughs’. In other words God’s great sense of humour, God got the last laugh and of course he who laughs last laughs best.

But as times go on this wonderful son Isaac, you can imagine how Abraham doted on him after all that had happened. Isaac starts to displace God in Abrahams heart. So God decides to put Abraham to a test, Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 8:

After these things God tested Abraham. He said, ‘Abraham’, he said, ‘Here I am Lord’, he said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance where God had shown him.

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘stay here with the donkey, the boy and I will go over there, we will worship and then we will come back to you’. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘father’ and he said, ‘Here I am my son’, he said ‘The fire and the wood is here but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

Hey it’s pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? But there’s more, it goes on, Genesis chapter 22 verses 9 to 14.

When they had come to the place that God had shown them Abraham built an altar and there he laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached his hand out and took his knife to kill his son. The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham’ and he said, ‘Here I am’, he said ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

And Abraham looked up and he saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called that place ‘the Lord will provide’, as it is said today ‘on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

Listen to me. God loves you too much to let you continue in your idolatry. If He sees your heart straying away from Him He will put you to the test, He will bring you to a binary decision point, in other words a place where there are only two options, either to lay down your idol or hang onto it and keep worshipping it. To keep heading on into the wrong direction or to give up your idol as much as it may hurt and turn your life back to Him.

The whole point of today’s message is to tell you this one thing, God loves you and if an idol has seduced your heart He will test your heart and give you the opportunity to turn back to Him. He won’t force you but He’ll test you and He wants you to know that and be ready so that when the test comes you’ll know what’s going on.

Oh by the way, would you like to hear how Abraham’s test ended, what God said to him? Here it is, Genesis chapter 22 verses 15 to 18.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, ‘By myself I have sworn’ says the Lord, ‘because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will bless you and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and of the sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessings for themselves because you have obeyed my voice.

It kind of makes you want to pass the test, right? Of course it does because the whole point of letting go of your idols, that person, that possession, that position, whichever it is is so that God can give you His very best for your life. God does want to bless you but like any good father that’s something He can’t do when His child is haring off in the wrong direction away from Him and towards destruction.

He will pull you back, He will bring you to that decision point and with all my heart I want you to be ready for when that happens because passing that test, making the right decision is how we get hold of God’s promises and blessings for our lives.

It of course sounds so simple as I explain it to you, doesn’t it? But let me warn you I know it’s much harder to do than it sounds and because it is, I’ve made a decision in my life, I hold onto God’s blessings loosely. I want to be ready, if God wants to take something away from me to give it up to Him willingly because if that’s how I look at my blessings. If that’s how I treat my blessings they’re far less likely to wrap their tendrils around my heart and become my idols.

An idol is something that you won’t let go of for God’s sake. It’s something that displaces God as your Lord and King and invariably it’s something that leads to a world of pain and hurt no matter how much of a blessing it may have seemed to you. You can’t argue that Isaac was a huge blessing from God to Abraham but even God’s blessings have to be put in the right place in our lives.

Lest they become idols, lest they lead us astray, lest we turn our backs on God and make gods out of our blessings. When that test comes you’ll know it and I pray that you will have the courage to lay down your idols and discover God’s very best for you.