Christmas – they talk about baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph – but this Jesus … is He who He says He is? Can Christmas really make a difference – I mean in your life and mine?

Well, welcome to the second message in a series that I have called, "Message in a Bottle" – in these weeks leading up to Christmas. We are going to take a look at this most amazing night – this Christmas story. You know that wonderful Christmas carol, O Holy Night, the stars, the stars are shining – the shepherds and the angels and Mary and Joseph and that baby Jesus; God in the flesh. And for me, you know, when you strip away all the noise and the rubbish and the commercialism around Christmas, it is the most wonderful celebration.

But it struck me how the very beginning of the story of Christmas in the New Testament – if you have a Bible, go and grab it – we are going to Matthew, chapter 1 – it struck me how often we skim over the first dozen or so paragraphs of what God writes about Christmas.

If you open up the very first page of the first Book of the New Testament – it's the Book of Matthew and it begins, of all things, with a genealogy; a boring list of names. Now I love doing things that surprise people and a few years ago I was sharing a message leading up to Christmas on this passage in the beginning of Matthew and I asked a lady, a friend of mine, Pamela, to do the Bible reading and I ask her to read through this genealogy. Now fortunately, I gave her a week's notice, because some of the names are just a little bit difficult to get the old tongue around. And when she sat down everybody gave her a standing applause for managing to make it through the genealogy.

And I guess most of us haven't heard a message on this genealogy in a long, long time, if ever. I know what you are thinking – genealogy? Berni, are you going to be talking about a genealogy? But listen, listen to what the Apostle Paul writes in Second Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16. He says:

Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness, so that – what? – so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient and equipped for every good work.

In other words when I read through this genealogy, and I probably like you, skip through genealogies in the Bible, you know, I kind of don't like to read every word. But as I began to read through this particular genealogy I thought, hang on a minute, God decided to begin the New Testament with a genealogy. Why did He do that? What was going on? This Book of Matthew – "Matthew" literally means, "a gift from God" and it starts with an account of Jesus blood line; His birth line.

Jesus Christ – "Jesus" means "Yahweh saves"; God saves. "Christ" means "Messiah" – so you put all that together and this book is a gift from God about God's anointed Saviour. So I'm thinking, I've actually got to get into this genealogy and say: why did God put it here? What does it mean that the Christmas story begins with a genealogy? What is God trying to say to you and me, here and now?

Now it's probably not the way that you or I would start a biography of some great leader but genealogies were significant to the Jews. They were about purity of lineage – firstly remember that land was given to Israel by tribes. So your right to own land was affected by your genealogy. If you were a priest, your priestly authority came from your genealogy. And your legal standing – if you were in line for the throne, royal succession came through your genealogy. And the genealogies of people were kept on the public record. In the Sanhedrin and in the temple, you could go and verify that somebody was who they said they were.

So to the Jews it wasn't just a boring list of names – it was fascinating. And have a look to see how Matthew, chapter 1 actually starts out. The first verse, "An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham" – three main characters, Abraham, David and Jesus. And Abraham and David being referred to here, point back to some promises. We are going to look at those promises today because they have everything to do with Christmas.

People were expecting a Messiah – we are going to look at why a little bit later in the programme. But at this point in Israel's history in the first century, they were definitely looking for a Messiah.

So God is the keeper of promises and let's just have a quick look to see what the promise is. If you want to flick back to the promise that God made to Abraham, you go to Genesis, chapter 12, verses 1 to 3. Lets have a look at that – Genesis 12:1-3 says this:

The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing."

And if you flick over to Genesis, chapter 15, verse 5, it goes on to say that:

God brought Abram outside in his tent and He said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you can count them. And then God said to Abram, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed and the Lord reckoned this as righteousness to him.

So here is a promise to Abraham; the father of the whole nation of Israel, that Abraham would have many, many children. Remember he and Sarah were very old and they couldn't have children, yet God was making a promise. So this very first verse of Matthew points back to those promises.

It also points back to the promise that God made to David. Lets have a look at that – flick on a little bit to Second Samuel, chapter 7, verse 12 – this is what it says: "When your days are fulfilled," – this is a promise to David, remember; the King:

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 his throne and his kingdom forever. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before Me, your throne shall be established forever.

So here is the promise to David – that there would be a lineage that would go on forever – that the reign of the House of David would go on forever. David was the Messiah; he was the anointed King of Israel. That's the actual word that they used for the King – the 'Messiah', and the promise of God was the offspring of David – there would be royal succession that would go on forever. So you bring this two promises together and the promise of God is that there will be a King who will rule forever, who will be a blessing to all the nations.

The question is what happens next? Well, just after this promise is given to David, David has a son called Solomon and Solomon is the last King of a united Israel. Israel splits in two; they begin to worship idols; God sends prophets; they reject God and ultimately, in 586/587 BC they are exiled to Babylon into slavery. The monarchy is destroyed and really, the whole thing falls apart for Israel because they rejected God. They just ran away from God; they ignored God and for four or five centuries there was no king.

I mean, to us, that's like not having a democracy. And by the first century, the Emperor was Roman because they were under Roman rule. There was a governor there who was Roman; there was a false King; the Sanhedrin was corrupt. This was a messy, corrupt, religious, political environment. It was brutal – I mean the Roman oppression was brutal. And into this Matthew writes – God speaks through Matthew of the promise made to Abraham and made to David.

They were expecting Messiah. The question is what sort of Messiah were they going to get?

So Israel was expecting a Messiah, but what did he look like? Luke, chapter 3 and verse 15, we read about John the Baptist:

As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah.

Luke, chapter 3, verse 16, we see that John goes on and says:

Well, you know, "I baptise you with water but someone who is much more powerful than me is coming. I'm not fit to tie up His sandals and He'll baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

We read Matthew, chapter 16, verse 13 and:

Jesus says to His disciples, "Who do the people say that I am? And they said, "Well, some say that You are John the Baptist, others say that You are Elijah, others say that You are Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

See, the people expected a Messiah; they expected God to send them someone; they desired one, but they were mixed up as to what He would look like.

There were lots of people called "Jesus" in those days. There were lots of people who claimed to be the Messiah – there was lots of hype. How were they going to pick the right one? And that's what this genealogy is about. Matthew's Gospel was written somewhere around sixty to seventy AD and at this point the Jews and the Christians were arguing about who Jesus was. The Jews said he's not the Messiah; the Christians said yes, He is. No, He's not, yes, He is, no, He's not!

And Matthew is specifically writing to a Jewish audience here and he lists on the genealogy of Jesus, "Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac the father of Jacob and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar" – and on it goes, this long genealogy.

And what it is really saying is, "I know there are a lot of people out there claiming to be the Messiah; I know there are a lot of people claiming to be the one that God sent but here is the genealogy of the Man. Here as a matter of public record is His genealogy and His right to be the anointed King; the Messiah."

See, genealogies, for the purposes of land and for the purposes of legal entitlement and for the purposes of royal blood line in this patriarchal society always went through the father. And what it shows here is that Jesus is in fact, a descendant of David and a descendant of Abraham and He is the rightful King.

If you don't believe me, it's a matter of public record. This was written at a time when the information was still in the public record in the temple and the Sanhedrin, so people could go and check. People could verify the link of Jesus back to God's promises – back to God's vast plan – they could identify that actually He is the One.

There were many prophesies about Jesus in the Old Testament – He will come from a woman's womb; He'll be born to a virgin, He'll be born in Bethlehem; murder will surround His birth; He will be given the name Emmanuel; He will be given gifts; He will be taken back to Egypt – many, many prophesies that Jesus opened up in the Old Testament. But here the New Testament comes with, right at the beginning, a legal verification of Jesus entitlement to His claim to be the Messiah.

It is evidence that God keeps His promises. And when I look at Christmas through this boring genealogy – lets face it, that's the way we would look at it these days – what I read is that God keeps His promises. Jesus was born on that holy night, the stars, the stars were shining; the very same stars that were shining over Abraham those many centuries before, when God made him a promise that he would be a blessing to many nations.

God is faithful – Christmas is about God's faithfulness. This genealogy speaks of God's faithfulness. See, if we just walk into Christmas saying, "I've got to buy some more presents and I've got to get some more food and I've got to do all this, Christmas ends up being meaningless. The New Testament begins with rock solid evidence of the faithfulness of God – that He has indeed fulfilled His promise to Abraham and His promise to David, to send His Son.

It's a leap of faith, but it's not a blind leap of faith. The evidence is laid out – it was laid out at a time when people could either verify it or disprove it on the public record. That's why that genealogy is there. We are going look at what all that means for you and me, here and now, next.

Alright, so we have been looking at this beginning of the Christmas story, this genealogy; this link between the Old Testament and the New; this link that points back to the fact that the whole idea of Christmas began a long, long time before that starry, starry night in Bethlehem.

And when you read through the genealogy – I'm not going to do that now – but when you read through the genealogy you find all sorts of people. There are people who were prophesied about; there were people who were totally unknown. There are sixteen names in that genealogy that are not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament – there are Kings, there are paupers, there are Jews, there are Gentiles, there are good Kings – six of them, nineteen bad Kings.

We think of King David as one of the good guys but he committed adultery; he had someone murdered. And one of the really interesting things that we are going to look at right now is that there are five women in this genealogy. Now sadly, you go back to this time, two thousand years ago, in the first century and women had no rights; they were chattels; they had no legal rights – they couldn't own land; they could inherit anything; they couldn't testify in a court of law and they were never, I say again, never listed in genealogies.

But here in this genealogy we have five women. Now what's that about? In this patriarchal society that never put women in genealogies, why are they there? What is God saying to us, to you and me, here and now about Christmas by putting them there? Well, the first one is in verse 3 – a woman by the name of Tamar. Now she was a temple prostitute; she was Judah's daughter in law and she committed adultery. You can read about her in Genesis, chapter 38, verse 5.

The second woman is Rahab – now remember Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho. You can read about her in Joshua, chapter 2, verses 1 to 7. The third woman is a woman called Ruth – she has her own Book in the Old Testament. Now Ruth is a Moabite – the Moabites were enemies of the Jews. This is what the Old Testament, Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verse 3, says about Moabites:

An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation; none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever.

So we've got a Moabite! Verse 6, look at this:

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.

Now is that damning or what? Remember David committed adultery with Bathsheba – she was another man's wife, his name was Uriah, and he, David, committed adultery with Bathsheba. David had Uriah murdered, their first child died, their second son was gift from God, his name was Solomon. You can read about that in Second Samuel, chapters 11 and 12.

So here in Jesus' genealogy is not just a temple prostitute, not just a prostitute in Jericho, not just a Moabite who was an enemy of God but here is a woman who conceived one of Jesus ancestors in adultery. And then in verse 16, is the fifth woman – Mary – this woman who as far as the rest of society was concerned, had conceived a son out of wedlock, which brought enormous shame on her and on Joseph. And we are going to look at that next week in a message that I've called, "Jesus – the Illegitimate God".

See, here are these five women – five very imperfect women – there are no paragons of virtue; there are no wonderful Israelite, Jewish women. What's God saying to us in all that? I believe He is saying, 'There is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female, because all are one in Christ Jesus.

Have you ever felt that you are just not good enough to be part of God's family? That somehow you and I fall so far short of the glory of God that we could just never fit into God's family? I believe that this genealogy is an invitation which says you don't have to be good enough. This genealogy deliberately puts those imperfect women into the list to speak to you and me.

There are a whole bunch of Christians in God's Kingdom who flounder; who are blown around by this doctrine and that; who don't live in victory; who don't bear fruit; who don't impact other people's lives with the love of Christ – Christians who are hurtling head on towards Christmas just trying to buy presents and just trying to finish off their work and just trying to get all this other stuff done without a deep foundation in their hearts to know what Christmas is about. Listen:

Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness so that everyone – everyone includes you and it includes me – everyone who belongs to God may be proficient and equipped for every good work.

This genealogy is not just a boring list. This genealogy is how the Holy Spirit; God the Holy Spirit decided to begin the very first Book in the New Testament – the very first Book about the grace of Jesus Christ. He begins with a rock solid platform.

The intention of God is that you and I can stand on this rock solid platform. This platform that says at a time when this genealogy could be checked against the public record, it is legally established that Jesus is the Christ. Not just one way but the way, we can know that with certainty through this genealogy.

We look at this genealogy – an account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah; Son of David, Son of Abraham. And we can look at the promises God made to Abraham and David and say Matthew is pointing back to those because Jesus is the fulfilment of those promises. God keeps His promises.

We can pick this Jesus – this authentic Saviour – from all the other people that say, "I've got a way, try my way, follow me". No! This Jesus is who He says He is. He is the Son of God and then through an amazing act of grace, God points out to us here in this genealogy, through listing these imperfect women; through listing people like David who committed adultery; through listing the good Kings and the bad Kings, that Jesus became one of us.

If you ask people who believe in Jesus, is He more like God or is He more like you and me? You know, most of us would answer; Jesus is more like God that He is like you and me. Jesus is fully God but He's fully human too and that's what this genealogy speaks to you and me.

It is time for us to have a rock solid place to stand, to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came for you and me – little old imperfect you and me.

And that is why Jesus begins His story about Himself this way. It's food for the soul.

Christmas is a feast!

My hunch is that the whole Christmas thing began well before that starry night in Bethlehem. A long time before. Question is – how come God came up with it?

I have to tell you it Is hard to believe that we are on the home straight again – just turned that corner into December again – the end of another year. The shops are full of Christmas decorations. You know, it seems like just yesterday it was January and here we are, another one over – it's hard to believe.

As I sat down this year to think about messages for December, you know, the whole Christmas, New Year thing, I just felt that this year, we need to take some time and start looking and talking about Christmas just a bit early. You know this whole rush, rush, rush thing that many of us go through and then in the middle of it all, in this clamber and noise and busyness, the end of the year, you hear ministers talking about the "real meaning of Christmas" – yea, right! I just want to get over the line; I just want to finish the year.

Ever thought about this – the challenge for ministers and people like me is to talk about Christmas each year. In part there's a sense of, "Well, what do I say? I mean, it's Christmas – we all know the story; we all know the meaning." Do we, really? Rush, rush, rush, buy the turkey, the Christmas pantomime and then it's all over. And all the time you know, people are living lives that fall so short of, well, a full life; a satisfying life.

Now sometimes people criticise me for saying things like that. "You religious people are always telling us that our lives fall short; you tell us something is missing; you tell us this and that". There's a tension between what I call the advertising industry view of the world, on the one hand and, you know, the glossy images of success we are all trying to live up to and the reality on the other.

And it's not just me – there's a great song by Sting a few years ago called, "Message in a Bottle" – remember that one? This is how the lyrics start off:

Just a castaway, an island lost at sea.Oh another lonely day and no one here but me. Oh more loneliness than any man could bear Rescue me before I fall into despair. I'll send you an SOS to the world I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.

And it finishes up like this: Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. Seems I'm not alone at being alone. Hundred billion castaways looking for a home. I'll send an SOS to the world I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.

It's a song that connected with a lot of people. It's a song that tells it just the way things are for so many people. It flips under that thin veneer of so called "success" – all those glossy, successful images the advertising industry used to get us to buy their stuff. And somehow, this song, "Message in a Bottle", speaks to the heart – it's real.

So what are you saying, Berni, that we are all a bunch of losers? No, not that. Look around – there are so many people succeeding; doing amazing things: they're talented; their able; their committed – there's lots of good stuff happening in the world. Mixed up with lots of bad stuff too – it's always been that way.

I guess though, I want to think for a moment about this whole "Message in a Bottle" thing. Is it true? Are there a whole bunch of lonely people out there? I was reading an article in the weekend newspaper the other day about the internet and blogging. The word 'blog' is short for 'weblog'. It's where people, mostly young, but plenty of not so young as well, get on line on the internet and they share their thoughts and their photos and their videos on this – it's like a personal billboard – for the whole world to see.

How many people do you think there are on the internet, blogging – you know, people with their own personal blog sites? Over a hundred million! A hundred million – all sending out their 'message in a bottle' – all crying out to be noticed; all wanting to be significant.

I asked my daughter – "what's it all about – I mean, you know, why do you do this blogging thing?" And she said it's all about how many friends you can have subscribing to your blog – whether it's on myspace.com or youtube or – it seems like this "message in a bottle" thing is happening in a way today, that Sting could never have imagined when he wrote that song a few years ago.

Maybe you're not a blogger – I'm not – but you know what I'm talking about. There's this search for significance; looking for that place where, finally "I've found myself. I've discovered who I am. There's a deep sense of satisfaction about life and me and how I fit in."

Well, often it's not so much about our circumstances but just about finding who we are and connecting and knowing why we are here and what our future is and where we're going. People are sending out their message in a bottle in the most amazing way. Sometimes it's through crime – it's about attention; about wanting to be noticed and needed. Yet the vast majority, I believe, live out life without ever really discovering who they are and why they're here and where they are going.

Here we are at the beginning of December, hurtling towards Christmas. I know what you are thinking! 'Isn't it a bit too early for you to be talking about Christmas, Berni? Well not really – the shops have had their Christmas decorations up for weeks now. We are taking an early look at Christmas over these next few weeks because Christmas started well before Christmas; well before that starry night in Bethlehem two thousand years ago. The first Christmas started a long time before that.

We know that Christmas probably wasn't in December because the shepherds were unlikely to be tending their flocks out by night in the middle of winter. And I guess, we all kind of know the Christmas story, the whole baby Jesus, born in a manger thing – Mary and Joseph and the donkey and the shepherds and the wise men from the East – all that stuff. But my hunch is the whole Christmas thing started well before that night in Bethlehem.

I was saying before that the whole Christmas thing started well before that night in Bethlehem. In fact, we know that it did. If you look through the Old Testament – if you've got a Bible, grab it because we are going to go there in a minute – the old Hebrew Scriptures, thirty nine books, written by different people over many centuries before Jesus was born.

And the Old Testament contains a whole bunch of predictions or prophesies about Jesus – some are very, very specific, like: He would be born in Bethlehem, born of a virgin, of the tribe of Judah, the house of David – well over a hundred and that's a conservative estimate. It predicted how He would die; it predicted there would be soldiers gambling away His clothes; all sorts of things, things that Jesus would have found pretty hard to arrange for Himself, unless of course, He was who He says He was.

Kind of a weird thing – what was God up to? Why are these predictions throughout the Old Testament about Jesus the Son of God? In fact, can I ask even a more direct question than that? Why Jesus at all? I mean why send Jesus His only Son to become a man and ultimately to die for you and me? Why not just forgive us and be done with it. I mean, I'm sorry to sound cynical, but why the theatrics? This is how I used to think. Not bad questions really.

One of these places in the Old Testament that points forward to Jesus and shows us the shepherd heart of God happens in the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 34. If you've got a Bible, open it up; let's go to Ezekiel, chapter 34 and verse 11 – this is what it says:

I myself will search for My sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after My sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

And again in verse 16:

I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd My flock with justice.

There's this sense of the heart of a shepherd and you see it right through the Old Testament, over and over again, God talking about His shepherd heart; His heart to be in our midst. What if God saw all our bottles lying on that beach, like we heard in that song; the lyrics from "Message in a Bottle"?

What if He heard the cry of our hearts? What if God always knew that the only way to still our hearts and satisfy our souls was for us to know Him? What if, well, what if Jesus is God's "Message in a Bottle" to us; to you and me? For me the constant theme of the Bible, from beginning to end, is God's heart to be in our midst. You see it over and over and over again.

Remember the Exodus, when God heard the cry of His people who were oppressed in Egypt as slaves and He sends Moses to Pharaoh to tell Pharaoh, "Let My people go." And so eventually they flee and God protects them and they pass through the Red Sea and then they spend forty years in the wilderness. Let me ask you, where's God in all of this? Where's God in the wilderness?

Come with me to Exodus, chapter 40 – the last chapter in the Book of Exodus – we'll have a look at verses 1 to 5. It says this:

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Set up the Tabernacle or the Tent of the Meeting Place on the first day of the first month. Place the Ark of the Covenant in it and shield the Ark with a curtain. Bring in the table and set out what belongs on it, then bring in the lamp stand and set up its lamps. Place the gold alter of incense in front of the Ark of the Testimony and put the curtain at the entrance to the Tabernacle or the Tent. (The word "tabernacle" means "tent".)

And again later in that chapter, beginning at verse 34, it says this:

Then, when Moses had done all of these things, a cloud covered the Tent of the Meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tabernacle, they would set out but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day that it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the Tabernacle by day and fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of all the House of Israel during all their travels.

See, all the other gods that the different nations worshipped were up on hills – they lived in temples. That's why the Old Testament talks about and condemns the high places because people had to go to those tin-pot little gods and idols up on the temples on hills and worshipped them – the people went to the gods. But the real God; the God of Israel – God wanted to be in the midst of His people.

This notion was so radically different. I mean, we weren't there and so it's harder for us to appreciate how radically different God's approach is. And He was the only God who was like this. When they camped, the Tabernacle – the Tent of the Meeting; the Tent where God's presence resided – was right in the middle of them.

There were twelve tribes of Israel – they would camp three to the north, three to the south, three to the east and three to the west. God was smack, bang in the middle. And you notice what it says here:

In all the travels … (Exodus, chapter 40, verse 36)

Notice how God uses "all":

In 'all' the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tabernacle, they would set out but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the Tabernacle by day, fire was in the cloud by night in the sight of 'all' the House of Israel during 'all' their travels.

That's why again, over and over in the Scripture, you read these words and you can read them with me here in Leviticus, chapter 26, verses 11 and 12. God says:

I will put My dwelling place among you and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God and you will be My people.

Please understand with me, how radical this is – how totally contrary it is to people's expectation about a god – how different the true God is from all the other gods that all the nations worship.

Their concept was by and large of appeasing the gods so they wouldn't be punished. Here the God of Israel says, "I'm a God of relationship. I want to be with My people, on their journey, in their midst, all the time, where all the people can see Me." And then the whole of the rest of the story of the Old Testament is about Israel's struggle with God. That word "Israel" literally means "he struggles with God".

Over and over again God sent His prophets to call the people back to Him and over and over again Israel rejects God and suffers the consequences. And for me the whole of the Old Testament is kind of screaming out, "IT AIN'T WORKING!" We can't hold up our end of this bargain – we need a different approach – and so it was.

Christmas is such a wondrous time and it's true for so many of us, it's easy to miss in the hurly burly of life. I wonder as you chew over the Scriptures we've looked at today how radical is it to you, this shepherd heart of God; this heart that God has to be in our midst? It's one thing to read about it, as God expressed it back then, but here and now? I don't know about you, but I find it easy to forget – to forget that God is on this journey with me.

Let's look at Ezekiel's words again. Ezekiel, chapter 34, verse 14:

I will tend them in a good pasture and on the mountain heights of Israel will be your grazing ground. There they will lie down in good grazing land and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I, Myself will tend My sheep and have them lie down', declares the sovereign Lord.

What's this "lying down" business? Have you ever asked that question? Well, it's shepherd language. See a shepherd knows that sheep will only lie down when they feel safe and when they feel at peace. And often you see it, the shepherd walks in their midst and they start to lie down because they feel safe – they don't feel like they've got to run away from danger. And for God in this language here in Ezekiel, He's saying, "By putting Myself in the midst of the people, I want to bring them peace and rest and joy in a good pasture, in good grazing land where they can feed on rich pasture."

So we see God with this amazing heart to be smack, bang in the middle of our lives. And the logical extension of that, as He talks about it in the Old Testament, is He becomes one of us – flesh and blood; human. It's exactly what John writes – he called Jesus "The Word", the expression of who God is; God talking to us and telling us who He is, through Jesus. And the beginning of John's Gospel starts this way:

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning and through Him all things were made. Without Him nothing was made that has been made.

But look just a bit further down in that same chapter – John, chapter 1, verse 14:

Then the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory; the glory of the One and only who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

See the next logical step is that God becomes man. And the word that John uses for "made His dwelling among us", means "tabernacle or tent". "The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us," is what John writes here. He pitched His tent right in our midst. What does that remind you of? The Exodus story, we looked at just before on the programme – God on our journey with us.

It's come back to the radicalness of this thing that God did. The Son of God becomes the Son of Man. We'll look at that and what it says to us a bit more next week. But talk is cheap, right? Anyone can talk – God can talk but actions speak louder than words – that's what Christmas is about.

Christmas is about the shepherd heart of God in action – it's a radical step. God slips quietly into this world in a stable – humble but not unnoticed. At Christmas God slips quietly into our lives and on our journey. How different would our lives look if we truly came to grips with the fact that God is on this journey with us?

Maybe I'm thick, but whenever troubles or opposition or tension or temptation comes in my life, I find it very, very easy to forget that, through Jesus God is on this journey with me. Like all the other nations around Israel who had gods out there; gods that they had to go to; gods that they had to shout a distance to; gods that they had to appease, you and I when life gets hard, can be like them.

You know what; the only thing that stops me from living my life under the yolk of that terrible misconception is that I spend a lot of time in God's Word. My Rock and my anchor – God is speaking to me every day, through His Word, saying to me, "I am on this journey with you. When I sent My Son to become a man, one of the prime things I was saying to you is that I have come to tabernacle in your midst – I have come to be in this place with you – I have come to walk the roads that you walk, to feel the pain that you feel, to deal with the temptations and the trials that you have to deal with."

Jesus is God in our midst. That's why in Isaiah it says:

Thou shall call Him Emmanuel – God is with us.

And as Jesus walks with us and we walk with Him and we build that relationship, His heart is for us to lie down in good pasture, to have peace.

My peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you.

"I know how you feel, not just because I'm God but because I've walked the road ahead of you. I've dealt with all the things you have to deal with."

I don't know about you, I wasn't born in a stable, but my Saviour was. I didn't have to flee King Herod as he tried to kill me, but my Saviour did.

Come on! How different would our lives be if we lived them in the certain knowledge that this radical God took this radical step at Christmas? He stepped out of the comfort of heaven onto the dusty roads of Israel, to walk them ahead of me, to be my God, to be with me on my journey, to be with us in our midst.

God is a supernatural God – God goes ahead of us – God knows all things – God is all powerful – God is all loving and God pours out gifts through His people into other people's lives. And that's the powerful truth we're going to share in today!

Let's imagine just for a moment, that there is a father who has some children – he is their dad - in a very real sense, he created them. He loves them as a father loves his children but well, they've been separated from one another for a long time. He has never stopped loving them; he has never stopped thinking about them and one day they come back to him. They are reunited as a family and the father is just overjoyed. He goes to the airport to meet them; his heart is in his throat, there are tears in his eyes and like any father in that situation, he takes with him some gifts to give to these children – beautifully wrapped and especially chosen for each of them.

To give a gift in that circumstance would be completely in character for a father to do because that is what dads do because there would be love and a joy – and it just makes us want to give gifts. And since we are made in God's image then it would be entirely reasonable to expect that God our Father would be exactly the same.

Over the last three weeks we have been working our way through a series that I've called "The Holy Spirit and Me". Three weeks ago we began looking at how Jesus promised to give each person who believed in Him the Holy Spirit – another Comforter; another counsellor, just like Jesus. And then the next week we looked at the fact that, when that happens; when we accept Jesus and we are filled with His Spirit, then He begins to deal with our sin.

The Spirit is called the Holy Spirit and part of what He does in us is to help us take that rubbish out from our former life and throw it out so that we can be free to live the life that God always intended. And last week we looked at the fact that God knows each one of us intimately. He looks at you and knows you just the way you are. He looks at me and He knows me just the way I am. And so He approaches us in different ways - in ways that He chooses to build a relationship with us through His Holy Spirit.

This week we are going to finish this series off looking at the gifts of the Spirit. It turns out that the New Testament talks about three different types of gifts of the Spirit. Now I'm no Greek scholar but the Greek word that is used in the New Testament for "gift" is "charisma" – we know that word fairly well – and the Greek word that is used for 'joy' is almost the same word, it's "charis" – the same sort of derivative. So they are free gifts that come from God that give joy at being reunited with Him as His children – they are free gifts and they are gifts of joy.

Let's take a bit of time today, if you can hang around with me for a few minutes today, just to look at some of those gifts and just to get a sense of what God is doing. We can't go through them all in detail, but just to kind of expose them and unpack them a little bit and be aware of them so that we can eagerly desire those gifts.

A gift by definition is free but we need to be ready to receive. So it is given as a gift not only to us but for the potential benefit of other people. The first lot of gifts that are talked about in the Bible happened in Romans chapter 12, verses 3 to 8 – it's written by Paul. Let me read it to you.

For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, don't think of yourself more highly than you should but think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as one body we have many members and not all of the members have the same function. So we who are many are one in Christ and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us – prophesy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness.

Now, none of those are kind of spooky, airy-fairy gifts – they are pretty straight forward gifts – to prophesy means to speak God's will; to speak what God is thinking into a situation. We sometimes think of it as predicting the future, but most often, it's about speaking God's will, encouraging, admonishing into a situation. Some people have that gift.

Other people have the gift just to minister to other people. Some people have the gift of teaching. Other people have the gift of exhortation, of encouraging, of lifting them up. Other people are motivated to be givers – they are just really good at giving of their own things and wealth into other situations. Some people we know; we meet them and we go, "There is a natural gifted leader." And some people are gifted in compassion, in mercy; they are pastorally gifted. They are the ones who will hang with someone who is sick over time.

Each one of us has one or two, or maybe even three of those in our makeup:

According to the grace that is given to each one of us, to be used for other people.

You and I have been crafted in our mother's womb and isn't it exciting to know, there is a gift or two or three been put into our DNA; into the fibre of who we are by God.

I encourage you to spend some time thinking about that because each one of us has some motivation – that's why these are called motivational gifts – some motivation to speak out God's will or to minister to others or to teach or to encourage or to give or to lead or just to show compassion. And those gifts aren't gifts for us to hang on to; they are gifts for us to use in the lives of other people. They are gifts through which God flows into the lives of other people.

You might think, "Well, you know, I don't have any real gift. Well, I don't think so." God has gifted you from the time that you were in your mother's womb, with one of those gifts that you can use to take the blessing of God into someone else's life – that's what this is about. We are going to look at some of the other gifts that the Bible talks about next.

We are talking today in our last programme of the series "The Holy Spirit and Me" about the gifts; the spiritual gifts that God gives us through the Holy Spirit. The first lot that we looked at were what are called "motivational" gifts. They are kind of in our DNA – we all have a bent in a certain direction. For some people it is speaking out God's will; for some people it's encouraging; for others it's teaching; for others it's serving; for others it's hanging with people in compassion and pastoring them.

That's one lot of gifts – we all have one or two of those gifts that are wired into our DNA and I would really encourage you to get before God and say, "Lord, I'm looking at this list of gifts that You have put there in Romans chapter 12 – which one is me? God I want You to use what You have put into the fibre of my being to bless other people and to encourage other people, because God I want to be used by You.

Well, the second lot of gifts we are going to look at today come from Ephesians chapter 4 – if you have a Bible let's go there – we are looking at Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 13. These gifts are what are called "leadership" gifts – not everybody is going to be a leader but you know, sometimes we kind of sit there and we think, "Well, you know, I'm not a leader. I look around all these other people in my church and they all seem so important and special and I don't really have anything to be a leader."

God picks the strangest people to be leaders – God really does! You know, I look back on my walk with Jesus and I think, "Why did God ever pick me to do what I'm doing? I never expected Him too." He comes and picks little black sheep and little ugly ducklings and little nobodies and uses them in the most powerful way. We should never kid ourselves that God doesn't mean for us to be doing something that He has planned for us to do.

So we are here in Ephesians chapter 4, beginning at verse 11 – looking at the five leadership gifts - it says this:

The gifts we gave were that some would be apostles, some would be prophets, some would be evangelists, some would be pastors and others would be teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

So there are five gifts: apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. An apostle is simply someone who gets sent out by the body of Christ; by the church to go and do a new work. The twelve Apostles were Jesus disciples who were then 'sent out' to build the church – to plant new churches. Paul was an apostle, someone who was sent out and he planted a lot of new churches. Have to be a special sort of person to be one who is happy to be sent out from the group to do something new. It is a really special gifting and it's a gifting that comes from the Holy Spirit. We don't choose this for ourselves – God chooses it – God chooses to make someone an apostle and when you are you just know and you have a motivation to do something new and you go out and do it.

Then there are prophets – a prophet is someone who speaks God's will into people's lives. It's a gifting that God has given me – not one that I chose (we'll talk about that later) it's not one that I chose for myself, it's the one that God chose for me – to speak God's will. To go to God in prayer and say, "Lord, what are You doing today" and to hear Him really clearly and then to go and speak that into peoples' lives because that's what God has anointed me to do.

Other people are evangelists. I have these friends Peter and Ruth and Peter and Ruth are just born evangelists and they can't help it. They sit at a bus stop and they are talking to someone about Jesus – that's just how they are wired – it's how God has made them. You would never pick them as evangelists – they don't look like Billy Graham but God has blessed them to go and do that and praise God, they do it every opportunity they get.

Some people are called to be pastors. I was having a cup of coffee yesterday with a dear friend of mine Peter Watson, who is a pastor not far from where I live and Pete was talking to me and he said "You know, I just love what I'm doing and I'm here for the long haul and doing this, doing that." I said to Peter, "I'd die if I had to do what you do." I'm not called to be a pastor but Pete is and a whole bunch of other people are and churches are full of people who are gifted to be pastors. And I don't mean by that the "minister of the church" – I mean by that the sort of person who just pulls along and hangs with people for the long term and just hangs there and is with them and walks with them; who pastors them – as a shepherd pastors a flock. There is a real gifting; it's a real calling; it's a real anointing and a lot of times pastors don't look to be anything special and they're the most important people in my view, in the body of Christ.

And then some people are called to be teachers – that's what I am doing now. My two gifting are in the area of prophesy and teaching. If we were all teachers it would be boring – fortunately God only picks a few.

These are the leadership giftings – they are not for all – but their role is to build the body of Christ. We are now going to look at the last grouping of giftings which are called spiritual giftings. If you have a Bible, go and grab it, open it at First Corinthians chapter 12 and we will read it together.

We are talking today about spiritual gifts and God is a Dad; He is our Dad and His heart is to give good gifts to His children. If we, who are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to our kids, how much more will our Dad in heaven give the Holy Spirit to us when we ask Him? And with the Holy Spirit come gifts – gifts that are about who we are but they are what God does through us to bless other people.

We have talked about the motivational gifts in Romans chapter 12; we have talked about the leadership giftings in Ephesians chapter 4 and now we are moving on to the spiritual gifts – these are supernatural gifts – not magic – these gifts come from the Holy Spirit. Flick with me, if you have a Bible, to First Corinthians chapter 12.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, (First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 1), brothers and sisters, I don't want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray by idols who couldn't speak, therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Let Jesus be cursed' and no can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there is a variety of gifts of the same Spirit and there are a variety of services but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities but the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit, the utterance of wisdom, to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit, to another working of miracles, to another prophesy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues and to another, the interpretation of tongues. All of these are activated by one and the same Spirit who allots to each one individually, just as the Spirit chooses.

These are spiritual gifts that come from the Holy Spirit and they are not for super Christians, they are not for special Christians – it says here:

To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Believe in Jesus? God's plan is to manifest His Spiritual gifts in you and through you just as His plan is to do that with me.

Now there are a variety of gifts. Sometimes it is an utterance of wisdom, sometimes it is walking into a situation and discerning what is going on and you just feel God give you this wisdom that you never had and you speak it and everyone goes "Man, that's amazing." And sometimes it's a word of knowledge – sometimes we can't know what is going on in someone's life but the Holy Spirit just leads us to speak something and it's bang on. Sometimes it is the most supernatural faith in the most difficult of circumstances.

Sometimes God says, "Go and heal that person because I am healing them – go and put your hands on them – go and pray for them." The Spirit is about healing lives. Sometimes it's working in miracles – sometimes it's a prophesy; it's a word from God that people just know has come from God. Sometimes it is discerning spirits – the devil is alive and well. And sometimes it's praying in tongues – one of the very common gifts.

Now they are wonderful, wonderful gifts but the most important thing, if you read the next couple of chapters of First Corinthians, which we are not going to, is that we should pursue love. We should – yes, strive for spiritual gifts because God wants to give them to each one – but the most important thing is that we walk in love.

If you flick over to chapter 14 and verse 12, it says this:

So with yourselves, since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for the building up of the church.

Now I am challenged by this; I am a very right-brained, analytical kind of guy and I had a prophesy given to me by telephone from a friend. She rang one Saturday morning and said 'God has just given me Romans chapter 12, verse 6 and that says:

Prophesy according to your faith.

Now the night before I had been at Bible College and one of our lecturers Dr Barry Chant, whom I have just so much time for, said "Today we are going do prophesy." And I'm thinking, "Barry, it doesn't work that way. God doesn't work like this. Hang on a minute." So I challenged him and he smiled at me knowingly and he sat me down with a young man and he said, "Prophesy into this man's life." I thought, "Barry, come on." Barry said, "just start praying for him" and so I did and God led me in a direction to pray for this young man and I opened my eyes when I finished praying and he was sobbing – he was in tears because I prayed and spoke something into his life that I couldn't have known, that was the biggest issue in his life right then. And Barry put his hand on my shoulder and had this knowing smile.

God gave me that day, even though I didn't ask for it, the gift of prophesy and prophesy for me is never easy. It's not something that comes lightly; not something that I open my mouth over easily, but when God calls me to prophesy; to speak His very specific will into some situation into someone's life, I just know. And so I go and do that and I see how God does the most amazing things. I have seen people blessed time and time again. That's the spiritual gift that God seems to give to me most often.

Now, I would really like one of the flashy gifts like healing – that would be good. I'd love to be able to go along and lay my hands on people and heal them all the time but it just seems that the place God calls me into, being who I am and how He has made me, is in this area of prophesy. And it is so wonderful to see that step of faith – and that's what it is for me each time because it's always a bit scary to do – to prophesy into people's lives and see God use that and see lives touched and changed.

This is not the gift I had planned for myself, yet, we don't get to choose.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. All of these are activated by the one and the same Spirit who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

This is a gift from God and if we start taking gifts on ourselves saying, "I'm going to be a healer," and God hasn't put that in us, then, we are going to abuse that, we are going to make mistakes and we are going to hurt people.

God is a good God – God is a supernatural God – God goes ahead of us – God knows all things – God is all-powerful – God is all loving and God pours out gifts through His people into other people's lives. Sometimes they are unusual; sometimes they are scary; sometimes it's a huge step of faith to lay your hands on someone and pray for their healing.

But when God is doing something; when God has shown up, you know something? You and I had better be there along with Him otherwise He will use someone else. Our Father is a Father of joy; He's a good Father. He wants to give us good gifts – they are free gifts – to each one of us – you! You believe in Jesus? God means to use you supernaturally in other people's lives – it's a fabulous plan. And, yes, you know something? It takes a bit of faith but God knows that too and He knows where we are at in our faith.

Prophesy happens according to faith – my gift is a faith gift and I just believe that when I open my mouth, I am only doing it in His power. I won't open my mouth in my own strength and God, time and time again has done that. What if God plans to use you to heal people's lives? What if God plans to use you to put words of knowledge or words of wisdom into other people's lives? You know, if we are not co-operating with God, it's not going to happen – He is not going to drag us kicking and screaming.

It says here that we should 'eagerly desire' spiritual gifts and excel in those spiritual gifts. We have looked at three types of gifts today – motivational gifts, Romans chapter 12, verses 3 to 7; leadership gifts, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 13; spiritual gifts, First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 1 to 11.

God is a good God – God wants to bless people. You know He sent Jesus to this planet not just to speak but to walk on water, to heal people, to give sight to the blind, to cast demons out, to die and rise again – God is a supernatural God – God touches lives supernaturally.

Father I pray for each person listening that You would give us a desire for Your spiritual gifts; a desire for Your Spirit to flow through us; a desire for this world to be blessed by Your Spirit through us. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

God's heart is to make His home in us and to fill us with His joy and His peace and His grace and His power, and I believe that with every fibre of my being. In fact, I know it. And the other thing I know is that He wants to do that for you. Today. Right now.

It is fantastic to be with you again this week on Christianityworks. You know the process of boy meets girl has always fascinated me. Before I met my wonderful wife Jacqui, somebody encouraged me to go out on a blind date with a woman and the moment I knocked on her door and she opened the door, I took one look at her and in the instant, I knew there would be no relationship there - I just knew! And yet the very first time I laid eyes on Jacqui, I just knew that she would be my wife.

How does that work? What is that chemistry all about? How does chemistry and attraction turn into love and commitment and lifelong companionship? I don't know, I really don't know. I guess for one person there are many potential spouses and only a handful of real candidates, and sometimes one or sometimes none that people meet. It's really a mystery, isn't it? how a boy and a girl meet and become husband and wife and share a life together for the whole of their lives.

The same is true with friends – you can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives. And I guess that saying acknowledges this reality, that sometimes there are people with whom we have chemistry and we have relationship and yet other people – they may be similar to us, they may have the same interests – but there is just no potential there for relationship, because somehow you just don't click. You know what I'm talking about.

Well it that's true of people – if there is kind of a custom fit between people for having relationships what about our relationship with God? There is one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God - an amazing mystery of God in three persons. But what about our compatibility with God? We are all different – some of us know things in our heads; some of us know things more in our hearts; some of us are right-brained people, some of us are left brained people; some people are loud and noisy, other people are quiet and deep. For some people experience is the most important way of knowing something but for others, they just know that they know that they know that they know that they know.

Whatever it is – wherever each one of us is in terms of faith – let's just make a couple of assumptions: firstly, that God is God and secondly that it was His idea to make us all so incredibly different. So, if that's the case, how is it that God deals with that reality in establishing and developing a personal relationship with each one of us?

That's what we are going to visit today on the programme. We are in the third programme of a four-week series called "The Holy Spirit and Me". The last few weeks we have been looking at the subject of walking in the Spirit. Two weeks ago we began looking at Jesus' promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised – if you want to read it it's in John chapter 14 – He promised another Counsellor; another Advocate "just like Me".

So Jesus did His public ministry for three and a half years and just before He went to the cross He promised His disciples:

I won't leave you as orphans. I'll come again. I'll be with you through My Holy Spirit, My Father and I will come and make our homes with you.

And then He died on the cross, He rose again, He ascended into Heaven and not long after…and that's what we are going to look at today, in the Book of Acts.

If you have a Bible, grab it; open it at Acts because that's where we are going today. Not long after He poured His Holy Spirit out on His disciples – the Holy Spirit of grace; the Holy Spirit of power; the Holy Spirit of God in us with a relationship that we just can't put into words. And last week on the programme we looked at one of the significant implications of having the Holy Spirit present in us, in that the Spirit who is Holy deals with our sin and that means change; that means repenting; that means ditching that rubbish in our lives. It may not be popular but the Holy Spirit gives us the power to change.

But how does the Holy Spirit deal with each one of us who are so different? And this week we are going to look at how God strikes up a relationship with us. We are all so different – God is God – God doesn't change, so how does He do it? How does He customise or tailor His approach or is it one size fits all? Is there some kind of standard approach that is the same for each one of us? How do I know I have the Holy Spirit?

It's amazing in the church, that the Holy Spirit is a source of great division – people's understanding of the person of the Holy Spirit – one of the three persons in the Godhead, brings a whole bunch of misunderstanding. And we are just going to open the Bible today very simply and very plainly and just read what God says about God, the Holy Spirit.

I was sitting having dinner the other night with a really good friend of mine and this man is very well-known in ministry in Australia and around the world – God has used him to do some amazing things. And you would have to say he is a high-profile sort of person – I won't use his name because we were having a private dinner together. But we were talking about how God deals with each one of us and I was saying. "Well, I love getting up in the morning early and spending forty-five minutes or an hour with God because God speaks to me." You know, I find out what God is doing. "God what are You up to today?" And God gives me guidance as I do that – as I read His Word, as I listen to Him, as I pray. God just impresses on me what He wants me to do.

And this friend of mine – and people look at him from a distance; they see him on television, they hear him on radio, they read his biography and they look at this man and they say, "WOW, here's this super-spiritual man that God has used powerfully," and he said to me, "It doesn't work like that for me." He said, "You know, I go to God and ask Him, 'What do you want me to do, God?'" And God says to me, "I have already given you a job, go and do it."

You think, "Well, it doesn't sound very spiritual", but on the other hand "the proof of the pudding is in the eating". I mean, look at the fruit in this man's life and God has clearly used him amazingly. God knows each one of us. He knows exactly what you are like. He knows exactly how to connect with you, just as He does to connect with me. So over the next twenty minutes or so we are going to spend some time looking at three different examples of how God connected with people, with the aim of getting the sense that God knows how different each one of us are. We will look at that when we come back.

What I said earlier, that the person of the Holy Spirit is one of the greatest sources of division in the Christian church right now and it is true. On the one hand it's very clear from the Bible that everyone who believes in Jesus has the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, verse 9:

Anyone one who does not have the Spirit of Christ doesn't belong to Him.

And again in Ephesians chapter 1 and elsewhere, Paul writes along these lines – he says:

In Him, in Jesus also, when you had heard the word of truth; the Good News; the Gospel of your salvation and you believed in Him, you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. This is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God's own people to the praise of His glory.

So in other words, any person that has believed in their heart that Jesus is their personal Saviour has received the Holy Spirit; the promised Holy Spirit; the Spirit that Jesus promised in John chapter 14.

Another comforter; another one just like Me, is what He said about the Holy Spirit.

But, it's also true by observation that this Holy Spirit makes a difference in some people and not in others. Jesus said:

You will know a tree by its fruit. Good trees have good fruit and bad trees have bad fruit.

I don't know where you are on your journey – I have a bit of a sense where I am on my journey but we are all on a journey. If we are walking with Jesus, if we have accepted Him and said, "Lord, I want You to be my Saviour, I believe that You died for me on the cross" – if we are with Jesus then somewhere in our lives, Jesus is making changes – we are on a journey.

And I know that today I make fewer mistakes that I did five years ago and my prayer is that as I grow in God's Word and in my relationship with Him and through the presence of the Spirit in me, I pray in another five years I will be able to look back and say exactly the same thing.

But there are some people who say, "I believe in Jesus" and you look at their lives and you think 'I can't see any fruit.' There is that wonderful story in Luke's Gospel of Jesus going to His friend's grave – Lazarus. Lazarus had died; he had been dead for a few days and when Jesus got to his grave, He said"

Roll the stone away.

And they said:

You don't understand he has been dead for a few days, he is going to smell

And Jesus said:

Roll the stone away.

And when they did that He said:

Lazarus, come out.

And Lazarus got up from the dead and walked out but he was bound up in grave-clothes. Now under those grave-clothes there was red in his cheek – the Master had spoken life into Lazarus's dead body.

But Lazarus was still bound up in the grave-clothes. You know, you can't do much for God; you can't serve other people when you are bound up in grave-clothes. And to tell you the truth, I know plenty of Christians that look just like Lazarus when he came out of the tomb. Yes, the Master has spoken life into them – yes, they have eternal life but they are still bound up in the grave-clothes of the past.

Jesus said, "I came to set you free," and I believe that the Holy Spirit – in fact the Bible tells us the Holy Spirit has so much to do with setting us free. Some people believe that you become a Christian, you receive the Holy Spirit and that's it! That's one side of the argument. Other people believe, "Well, no, there is a second blessing. You know, sure you receive the seal of the Holy Spirit – you receive the Spirit when you become a Christian but you have got to be baptised in the Spirit."

There is a significant experiential event of power, of gifts, of tongues and prophets and all those other things that happen after the event. And I know well-intentioned Christians of both sides of that argument – in both camps – who argue their cases strongly and passionately and believe that the other party is just plain wrong. Why is this important? Because it goes to the question 'How do I know if I'm filled with the Spirit? How do I know if I'm walking in the Spirit? Because I don't know about you, but I'm passionate – I want all that God has for me – all of Him, all of His presence, all of His blessing, all that I can do with God, I want everything that God has for me.

How incredibly sad to believe in the cross; to believe in Jesus and then to walk the rest of our lives as though nothing happened? Come on, do you want everything that God has for you? Because I tell you, God has an abundant blessing and over flowing blessing of grace and mercy and joy and peace for each person who puts their faith in Jesus.

And to understand how God approaches this, we are going to look at three very distinct; very different approaches in the Bible in the Book of Acts. The first one happens at Pentecost – let's read it very quickly. Acts chapter 1, verses 4 and 5.

While staying with them, Jesus (this is after the resurrection and before He ascends), this is what it says: While staying with them Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father. This, He said, is what you have heard from Me for John baptised with water but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

And then in Acts chapter 2, this is what happens:

When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as of fire appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.

One thing is clear – God poured His Spirit out on these men and women in the most amazing way. And you read on in Acts chapter 2, 3 and 4 – Peter gets up and addresses the crowd and gives the most powerful message – God filled them with His Spirit and His power. What does it show about God? He does special things - things that we don't always understand; things that don't always make sense to us. He did them then, He does them today – He does amazing things.

And yet He does different things too. We are going to look at two different instances of how God poured His Spirit out on people next.

We are looking on the programme today how God touches people differently with His Holy Spirit. We have just looked at the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on to the disciples with rushing wind and flames of fire – really unusual and amazing and maybe you and I wouldn't have done it that way, but God did.

Have a look at this one though; this is another really interesting one. We are going to Acts chapter 19 – if you have a Bible, go there because God does things differently. Have a listen, this is in Ephesus:

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul the Apostle, passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus where he found some disciples. He said to them "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" and they replied "No, we don't even know that there is a Holy Spirit." Then he said "Into what were you baptised?" and they answered "Into John's baptism." And Paul said "John baptised with a baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in the One who was coming after him, that is in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of Jesus and then Paul laid hands on them and the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke in tongues and they prophesied and all together there were about twelve of them.

See, some people argue so strongly, "Well, you receive the Holy Spirit; it is a one-off thing when you become a believer", as we saw before in the Book of Romans chapter 8 – when you become a believer you receive the Holy Spirit and that's it! That may be how God works with some people but it's not how He worked in Ephesus. In Ephesus, I'm sure that when these people believed in Jesus, they put their hearts into Him, they received the Holy Spirit but they had to be taught about the Holy Spirit. They didn't know that the Holy Spirit existed and when Paul told them about it; when Paul laid his hands on them, they received the Spirit in power and they prophesied and they prayed in tongues. There was a second experience for them.

Don't you love how God does things differently? And the third one that I would like to look at is Cornelius and his family. Let's go to Acts chapter 10 if you have a Bible because Cornelius received the Holy Spirit in a different way.

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian cohort as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God with all his household and he gave generously to the poor and prayed constantly to God. One afternoon about three o'clock, he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel coming and said to him "Cornelius!" He stared at the angel in terror "What is it Lord?" "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God."

And so the angel told Cornelius to send some men to Peter to get Peter the Apostle to come and tell them about Jesus, which happened.

And while Peter was still talking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the Word.

So the example we looked at before, in Ephesus, those people had believed – we don't know for how long – but they received the Holy Spirit after they believed. Here Cornelius and his family were still listening to the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit fell upon them there.

See, how silly it is to have these arguments about "Well, you know, you only receive the Holy Spirit when you first believe," or "You have to receive the Holy Spirit as a second blessing." There are two examples where God did it differently and the one at Pentecost before, these people had walked with Jesus – they had spent three and a half years with Him, some of them, in the best Bible school you will ever come across – the Bible school of Jesus Christ. And God dealt with each of them differently.

I remember, I received the Holy Spirit the way Cornelius did. I remember when I gave my life to Jesus Christ that day, I know that I know that I know that I know that I know that I was filled with the Holy Spirit and it's never changed for me. That joy and that peace has never left me; the courage to keep going has never left me, even through the dark times; even through the painful times; even when I felt like I was walking alone, I knew in my spirit and my heart that my God was carrying me. And that comes from the Holy Spirit.

What about you? Have you been filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit - God's presence in you? You know that joy, that peace, that thing that happens when you all of a sudden get a revelation in your spirit and in your soul, that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Do you walk around every day in that knowledge that you are filled with the Holy Spirit? That the Holy Spirit is just overflowing out of you? Someone is listening there going "I have never experienced that, I have never tasted that, I want that," well I am going to pray for you right now.

Father, I pray for each person who is listening right now. We are together in Your Spirit in Your Kingdom. I pray for each soul who is hungering for Your presence. I pray each person who is aching to receive Your Holy Spirit and I pray in the name of Jesus Christ that You would pour Your Spirit out on them, right here and right now. That You would fill them with the Holy Spirit, not just today but tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next, every day between now and when each one of us stands before You in glory. I pray that You would pour Your Spirit out on us in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.

Well, I know that if you prayed that prayer with me, I know that if your soul is dry and thirsty and hungry and poor and empty and just yearning to be filled with God, I know that God will honour that prayer and when we accept God for who He is, to let Him do just what He wants in our lives, just how He wants to do it in our lives, that is the most awesome and wonderful and amazing thing.

Whether we are a Cornelius and we received the Spirit and were filled to overflowing when we first heard the message or whether we are someone who has been walking for twenty or thirty years and never been filled with the Holy Spirit – it doesn't matter – God shows up for each one of us because if we put our faith in Jesus Christ, His heart is to make His home in us and to fill us with His joy and His peace and His grace and His power and I believe that with every fibre of my being

I have seen it in other people's lives – I have seen it in my life and I am believing for your life too. God is no man's debtor – God has no favourites – God wants to pour His glory out in your life, in my life, in everybody's life, who puts their faith in Jesus Christ.

Let's come back to the question – does God have a standard way or does He customise His approach? Look at Pentecost – look at Ephesus – look at Cornelius, look at my life – look at your life. God will meet you in your place, in your life, in your need, just the way you are. I believe that and I am praying for that, for you, in Jesus Christ's name.

So often we look in the mirror and realise, that we're simply not worthy to come before the throne of grace. And yet, because of Jesus, nothing more needs to be done for you and me to walk boldly before God into His throne room and say 'Father, I love You; I want to be in Your presence.' Nothing more needs to be done!

These days we don't just want to know God – we just don't want to know Him in our heads but we want to experience God and historically, as we look back, Christians have made, I guess, two extreme mistakes in living their lives out with God. The first is that they focus just on truth – truth as head knowledge, studying the Bible, knowing lots of things, getting doctrine sorted out in their heads but you know, that ends up being really dry and there is no joy or peace in that head knowledge and it becomes like "religion".

The other extreme – right at the other end of the scale, people have said, "You know, we are rejecting that, we are sick of that kind of dry, "head knowledgy" kind of "God" truth. And we want to experience God – it was a reaction to the dryness of the head knowledge. And so those Christians kind of emphasise God's wonderful spiritual gifts – prophesy and healing and worship and that's really exciting.

But there is a risk that you do that and you de-emphasise the truth. And that form of Christianity ends up becoming kind of whacky and unreliable and at its worst, emotional manipulation. But somewhere in the middle … somewhere in the middle there is an answer. Somewhere in the middle there is God's Word and His truth and all of His goodness but also the spiritual reality of experiencing who God actually is in the middle of life.

And you know, when you look at Jesus, Jesus lived in that middle ground. At times in His ministry it was full of emotion; it was from His heart – you know, when He was healing lepers, when He was weeping over Lazarus, when He was weeping over Jerusalem. And at other times in His ministry, He taught on the hard issues – the Sermon on the Mount, the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. Jesus was in the middle ground – He believed in the truth of God's Word and yet He lived it out in a reality that was, well, so real; so human, so Jesus.

In Matthews Gospel chapter 4, verse 23, it says this:

Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness among the people and so His fame spread through all of Syria.

See, Jesus was into, yes, teaching and preaching and knowing God's Word. But He was into touching people's lives and healing them and changing them and bringing them new life as well. And because of both of those things, His fame spread – people came from far and wide.

It's really funny – if we try and just stick to Biblical truth alone; that sort of very head-knowledge kind of truth, we can end up missing out on who God really is. We can end living out a faith which is "religious", which is rule based, which is critical, which is, I don't know, it's not freedom.

On the other hand, if we end up just in the "experience" camp, we can end up right off the rails because God's truth about who He is and what He wants us to do and how He wants us to live our lives out – God's truth is so important. And sometimes you will hear a preacher from one camp criticising a preacher from another camp and I'm thinking, "What's that about?" They stare at each other across this divide and the Jesus that I know; the Jesus that you discover in the Bible was a Jesus who passionately believed in the truth of God's Word and a Jesus who passionately lived out that truth in such a real way.

This Jesus laid all of His glory aside, even though He was the Son of God, and He walked on this earth as a man and yet He had such a wonderful and powerful and dynamic relationship with His Father in heaven through the Spirit. Jesus used to get up early in the morning and go out on His own and pray because He had this wonderful, real relationship with God in heaven.

Last week we looked at what Jesus said to His disciples on this subject. In John chapter 14, beginning at verse 15, He said:

If you love Me you will keep My commandments and I'll ask My Dad and He will give you another advocate – this is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't see Him and it doesn't know Him but you know Him because He abides in you. Those who love Me will keep My Word and My Dad will love them and we will come and make our home with them.

Isn't that beautiful? Being a Christian is loving Jesus and loving Jesus is knowing the truth and obeying Him. And then we experience Him because He says:

If you love Me you will keep My commandments and I will ask Dad and He will give you the Holy Spirit and we will come and live with you.

You will experience God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwelling in us through His Spirit – every minute of every hour of every day. Come on, that's fantastic! And He says:

You in Me and Me in you.

So for Jesus, knowing God is not just knowing the truth, it's about intimacy as well – a real experience of who God is. But there is a problem with that ... the problem that we have is the problem of sin.

If you love Me you will keep My commandments.

What do we do about that problem? How do we get over that problem, to have this powerful, wonderful relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit? We will have a look at that next.

Well, Jesus promised that following Him and being a Christian wasn't just about head knowledge of the truth but about an intimate relationship with Him. And in this series called, "The Holy Spirit and Me" we are looking at this Spirit of wisdom and truth, as Jesus called Him; the Holy Spirit and experiencing the joy and the peace in an intimate relationship with God – but our problem, as we looked earlier, is the problem of "If you love Me you will obey Me."

If you love Me you will obey Me.

And you and I, in our nature are not very good at obeying. And I confess not so many years ago I used to have a problem with this. You know, Christians used words like "sin" and "repent" and "Jesus said repent because the Kingdom of God has come near" – to tell you the truth, to me it was all out of date and anachronistic and old fashioned and rubbish. Come on, what's this repent and sin business? If it feels good, do it!

We live in an "anything goes kind of world". I mean a woman looks at having an abortion and she says, "Well, it's my body, it's my choice!" If it feels good, do it! That's the world we live in. We are programmed for self-indulgence today. In the same way as our grandparents coming out of a depression and a world war, were programmed for self-discipline and austerity.

On the one hand we want it all, on the other hand we ignore the human cost of this sort of a life – divorce and abortion and marriage breakdown and breakdown in relationships and loneliness and ... you know it's a law of life that for any relationship to bring satisfaction and joy, the people who participate in that relationship have to pay a price.

Marriage is like that! Before I met my wife Jacqui, I came and went as I pleased and then we went through a courtship and more of my time was involved in relationship with her and we went through an engagement and more of my time was involved and then we were married. And once we were married, I could no longer come and go as I pleased. I could no longer make all of my own decisions. I could no longer spend all of my money on everything that I wanted.

Now that sounds like oppression – oppressed? No way! This man is liberated – liberated to enjoy my life as Jacqui's husband, in a relationship that is so wonderful with her. But there is a cost – there is a daily cost in that I cannot come and go as I please anymore and that takes some adjustment but that's the price of a wonderful relationship.

And the same is true with God. A relationship with God follows the same principle but it is hard because all those other things that we want to do is the stuff that God calls "sin" – stealing, pulling other people down, being dishonest, the bad stuff but giving them up can be hard because it's not in our nature to give up the things that we don't want to give up because we are selfish.

And the Apostle Paul has exactly this same problem – if you have a Bible, grab it. We are going to Romans chapter 7, beginning at verse 14 through to verse 21. This is what he says:

We know that the law is spiritual but I'm of the flesh – I am sold into slavery under sin. I don't understand why I do things because I don't do what I want but I do the very thing that I hate. Now if I do what I don't want, I agree, the law is good but in fact, it is no longer I that do it but the sin that dwells in me.

For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that's within my flesh. I can will what is right, I just can't do it. For I do not do the good I want but the evil that I don't want is what I do. Now if I do what I don't want it is no longer I that do it but the sin that dwells in me. So I find this to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

In other words, Paul is torn. He is torn between what he wants and making the sacrifices in living his life for God. Now I praise God that Paul has this same problem because here is a man who wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. God had a big role for Paul to play. Halleluiah! – Paul has the same problem that I do and the same problem that you do.

Have you ever felt like Paul? You want to do the right thing but some days we just can't. What's the answer? What's the solution? I remember Nicky Gumble – you may have watched Nicky Gumble or heard him speak on the ALPHA series.

He tells a wonderful story of an old woman whose funeral he had to do and she was a woman who lived on the streets. She carried all her belongings around in plastic bags and she just lived on the streets and she was a street person. And when it came to her funeral he discovered that she was a multi, multi millionaire – she had some great inheritance but she couldn't come to the point of taking all those bags of rubbish and throwing them away and going and living in that inheritance – and we can be the same.

We have an inheritance – an inheritance in Christ – we are heirs, co-heirs with Him. You believe in Jesus? Then we are one of God's kids but sometimes we want to hang on to the rubbish, to the stuff. What's the answer? How do we deal with that? Well, God has an answer and His answer comes in two parts. We are going to look at those in just a moment.

Well, what is God's answer? God's plan as we saw, as Jesus said there, is that He comes and lives with us – lives in us through His Spirit; the Holy Spirit – to have this beautiful and wonderful, intimate relationship with God, day by day. Can I encourage you – if you believe in Jesus and you are not walking in that sort of relationship today – today God is calling you into a deeper, closer more intimate relationship with Him?

But Jesus said that that relationship was for those who loved Him and He would know who loves Him because those who love Him obey Him. Yet here we see the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7, disgusted with himself, struggling with his sin. This is what he writes – begins in chapter 7, verse 24:

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body to death? Thanks be to God, our Lord Jesus Christ! So then with my mind I am a slave to the law of God but my flesh is a slave to the law of sin. But there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, none – because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin He condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

In other words, how does God deal with this? God has dealt with my sin and God has dealt with your sin by letting Jesus die on the cross to pay for that. Every relationship has a price. And when we look at us and God it can feel like, in this struggle that Paul has, with his own sinful nature – it can feel like we are the ones who have to pay the price all the time – we're the ones who have to give stuff up which is hard to give up sometimes.

People who are addicted to anger, people who are addicted to gossip, people who are addicted to sexual immorality find those things hard to give up. And if feels like Jesus is saying 'Well, if I want to a relationship with Him I have to give those things up and I am the one making the sacrifice.' Well in a sense that's true, but Jesus has already made the sacrifice for us. Jesus has already opened the door. Jesus died on that cross for you, Jesus died on the cross for me.

You and I are forgiven if we place our faith in Him – full stop – end of story – no arguments - no more work to be done. Every sin that I have ever committed, every sin that I will commit has been paid for in full by Jesus Christ. That's the good news – that part is free. That's the starting point – that's the beginning of a clean, fresh, new relationship with the slate wiped clean.

But the problem is you and I still want to carry the garbage around. You and I still want to carry the sin around with us because that's what our nature is. That's our human nature – that's exactly what Paul is struggling with in that passage.

I know what is good – I can will to do what is good, I just can't do it. I end up doing the stuff I don't want to do and every time I want to do good, says Paul, I find in the law that evil is right at hand.

So there has got to be a second part. We are forgiven, we are set free, nothing more needs to be done for you and I to walk boldly before God into His throne room and say 'Father I love You, I want to be in Your presence.' Nothing more needs to be done. But God actually wants to set us free in our lives. God wants us to be free of sin – Jesus said:

I have come to set the captives free.

That's you, that's me He is talking about. Halleluiah! He wants to set us free.

But look at it – He talks about here being free from the law of sin and death. "The law of the Spirit of life" – Romans chapter 8, verse 2:

the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death because God has done away with sin through Jesus. Those of us who live according to the flesh set their minds on the flesh but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

What does that mean? God is talking here about His Spirit, about Spiritual things. Last week we looked at what Jesus said. He said:

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you; I will send the Holy Spirit to be in you and you in Me.

And now Paul is saying, "You know something, if you believe in Jesus and if you know that Jesus died for you and if you are relying on His payment in full on the cross to be forgiven by God, there is something more. Jesus has put His Spirit in you and in me. And now Paul says it is time to walk with the Holy Spirit. Not according to the flesh, not according to that old sinful nature but walk in the Spirit." Well how do you do that?

To set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

In other words, if we keep on thinking about those things; if we keep on turning them over in our minds and being angry with that person and not forgiving them or whatever it is that we are addicted to in the flesh, we keep spending our intellectual time, our emotional energy thinking about those things, that's exactly what we will end up doing.

On the other hand if we take the time that we have to think and we turn that away from those things and we put our focus on Jesus; we put our focus on the Holy Spirit; we put our focus on the Father; we put our focus on His goodness and His love and what He has done for us and what He wants to do for us, we can't help it. We will end up doing that that stuff; we will end up living life the way God intended us to live it. See people try and change themselves; their behaviour, but at the end of the day, we can't do that.

As clever as we are; as smart as we are; as much as God put us right on the top of the food chain on this planet, that is beyond our ability. But what is in our ability is to focus on Jesus. I remember Joyce Meyer hearing her once say 'Where the mind goes, the man follows.' If I focus my mind on the bad stuff, that's where I will end up going. If I focus my mind on the good stuff; on Jesus, on the Spirit, that's where I will end up going.

Think about the good things – think about God – pray, spend time with Him, get into the Bible, be transformed by the renewing of our minds. When we do that we are giving the Holy Spirit control of every part of us, day after day, time after time. We can try to do it on our own but we are doomed to failure because the works of the flesh will overtake us. But when we do this in faith; when we accept the Spirit's power in faith, in the same way that we have accepted our forgiveness through what Jesus did on the cross, in faith – when we accept God's goodness and God's Spirit in faith and we spend time focussing on Him, listening to Him, praying with Him then God is going to change us from the inside out. It's as sure as God made little green apples; it's as sure as night follows day, which follows night which follows day.

I believe that Jesus died for me not only so that I could be forgiven but so that I could also be set free day by day by day, from my sin and my failures and that's the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 11:

But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of God's righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you.

That's God's promise! Our job isn't to change ourselves, our job is to get close to Jesus. Our job is to set our minds and hearts on Him, our job is, in the heat of the battle, to give Him a split second if that's all you have, to involve Him, to give Him room to move, to draw on His power. Our job is to accept His life in faith.

And God will change us. That's His plan – that's His heart – that's His promise. That's why He sent the Holy Spirit to you and to me!

The plan of God is to pour His abundant love; everything He is and everything He has and all His peace and His joy; His plan is to pour that out upon your life. And that … that's why He's sent the Holy Spirit.

We are starting a new series this week on Christianityworks called "The Holy Spirit and Me". For most of my life I haven't been a Christian. My early memories of church as a child were hard pews and filtered light through yellow windows and the Latin Mass and then as I grew up, a German Mass. And for me as a child, it felt like the whole thing was just droning on. I don't mean to criticise but for me as a kid, the whole Christianity/religion thing – it just didn't work. It all seemed pretty much irrelevant.

In fact, I remember in church, sitting as a young child, I knew my father could wiggle his ears and I thought, "Maybe I can do it too" and the biggest thing I got out of that time – sitting still for me for an hour on end was just a terrible thing as a kid – was learning to wiggle my ears. And as I grew up, I'm your typical baby-boomer – you know, I was into career, into money, into having things and I discovered I was very good at what I did so, I got onto the treadmill of life and the whole religion and rules and church thing, by and large, for me, was just irrelevant – particularly as a baby-boomer.

So when I came to that time in my life, about eleven years ago, when God started to stir things around inside of me; began to develop a sense of my own spirituality, I thought, "I only want this if it is real, if it's relevant, if it's here and now, if it makes a difference." The notion of church and religion to me was vacuous and out of date and irrelevant. If there was a God I wanted to know Him and if not I thought, "I can do without all that other palaver" – you know.

I don't know if you have been at functions or events or cocktail parties when you are standing around and you have a discussion with someone and it's all superficial and you wander off and go and get another drink and you talk to someone else at all this superficial level. It's so different to having a great meal with some close friends where there is a depth and a reality to the relationship. And I guess to me, that was the distinction between the whole churchy/religiousy thing on the one hand, which I saw as superficial and the depth of relationship on the other which is what I wanted with this God – with this Jesus, if He was who He said He was. A friend is someone who sticks by you through thick and thin. A friend accepts you for who you are, good and bad.

So I thought, "If I am going to be a Christian I want a deep, passionate, real relationship with God." I remember having a cup of coffee not many months after I gave my life to Christ and this man was my pastor – a wonderful man – and he saw how excited, how passionate I was about this new relationship that I had discovered with Jesus.

And he said to me, "Berni, you know, it's not always going to be like that. There will be days when it's bad," and in a sense he's right, there are some tough days in life. But I went home and I was really angry with what he had said and I remember praying, I said, "God, if I am going to be a Christian I want to do it with my all and I want it to be a real, powerful relationship and I want to know this peace and this joy and this love and this excitement every day of my life."

Now, there are three types of people in this world – those who enjoy a relationship like that with God – and I would encourage you to stick with us today because it will be an encouragement to listen to what we are talking about with the Holy Spirit. There are those who believe in Jesus – the second type – but they don't have that sort of relationship. Somehow the Christianity thing is hollow; it's empty. The third…the third are people who don't yet believe in Jesus, who don't have that relationship and maybe you are asking, "Well, does He have anything to offer?"

So today let me encourage you – we are going to open up a box here and look at what Jesus says about the subject of having a relationship with Him and for you to evaluate that and decide for yourself whether that's the sort of passionate relationship you would like to have.

Way back in the Old Testament, to the prophet Jeremiah, when God's people, the people of Israel were going through some really tough times – God always seems to show up for Israel during the tough times. And He makes really powerful and far-reaching and exciting promises and this is one of those times. He says:

Look, after all this is through, I will put My Word inside you. I'll write it on your heart and I will be your God and you will by my people and you won't have to teach each other and say to each other, 'Know God' because you will know Me. From the least to the greatest" says the Lord, "I'll forgive you and I'll remember your sin no more and you will love me.

I love that passage because that's God heart; that's God passion; that is God saying to me and God saying to you, "I want to have a relationship with you, I want to be close to you, I want for you to know Me." You know, it's one thing to know God; it's another thing to know God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our spirit, to be consumed with the wonder and the awe of who God is.

There is another beautiful passage in the Book of Joel – another one of the Old Testament prophets:

And God says, "After all these things, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

This picture of God wanting to have a relationship; this picture of God pouring out His Spirit - you know, He's not doing it with an eye-dropper; He's not doing it with a little cup, God wants to pour out His Holy Spirit.

That's why this week we are starting a series called, "The Holy Spirit and Me". Who is this Holy Spirit? What's His job? What's He like? What does He do? What's my relationship? What's the whole point of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? So right now I'd ask you how thirsty are you? How much do you want to have a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit?

We are going to have a look today at what Jesus had to say about this person, the Holy Spirit and we are going to John chapter 14 – if you have got a Bible, grab it and open it up – the fourth Book in the New Testament – John chapter 14. Now Jesus has spent three and a half years with His disciples; they were fishermen and tax collectors and they had seen Him do the most amazing miracles; they had heard Him preach powerful sermons but the time was drawing near for Him to be crucified.

Now Jesus was a religious subversive. The religious establishment of the day was into rules and religion and pomp and ceremony and hypocrisy and oppression and they had done deals with the Roman occupying power and Jesus ... Jesus comes along and threatens that. He is like a breath of fresh air. He hangs around with common people, like you and me. He stands up for the oppressed ones and the marginalised ones. He does miracles and He shows up the establishment and so they plot to kill Him.

So His disciples have this sense of fear and loss. He is telling them about it and they are wondering, "Well what about my life? I mean, this Jesus who has been doing these amazing things, He says He is going to be crucified – what then?"

So this little rag-tag group of fishermen and tax collectors and the people that God has chosen to establish His church are about to experience the deep loss of Jesus on the cross. And Jesus comes along and promises them something and that's what we are going to read now in John's Gospel chapter 14, beginning at verse 15. Let's have a bit of a read. He says:

If you love me you will keep my commandments and I will ask My Father and He will give you another advocate; another comforter to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because they don't see Him or know Him but you know Him because He dwells and abides with you and He will be in you. I won't leave you orphaned; I'm coming to you.

In a little while the world won't see me any longer but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father and you are in me and I am in you. They who have My commandments and keep them, are those who love Me and those who love Me will be loved by My Father and I will love them and reveal Myself to them. Judas – not Iscariot, another Judas – said to Him "Lord, how is it that you reveal yourself to us and not to the world?" And Jesus answered him "Those who love me will keep My Word and My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them."

And then He goes on to say:

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I don't give it to you the way the world gives. Don't let your hearts be troubled and don't let them be afraid.

This is a promise from Jesus in this tough time, just like those Old Testament promises we looked at earlier. This is God showing up in a difficult, tough time, making beautiful, wonderful, powerful promises and here He promises the Holy Spirit. He says:

If you love Me you will keep My commandments and I will ask Dad and He will give you another one; another advocate.

"If you love Me ..." Is He looking for perfection? No! Jesus knows we are not perfect but He is saying if you live your life for Me – if you really love Me, the things that I have taught you, the things that you have heard, the things that I've said are really important – My wisdom, love your enemy, love your neighbour, don't judge other people – all that stuff, He says if you will do that, I'll ask Dad and He will send you another counsellor. Now if you have a Bible, this word is translated in different ways – Counsellor or Advocate or Comforter "like Me". In fact, the words that Jesus uses there mean "just like Me" – another one "just like Me".

So all of a sudden we know something about this Holy Spirit that He is promising. The Holy Spirit is just like Jesus. Ever wondered what the Holy Spirit is like because when we say, "God the Father", we go, "Well, I can imagine what a good dad is?" We haven't all had good dads but we can all imagine what a good father is like and so we look at God as "Father" and we go, "Yep, I get that bit."

"God the Son", well, we understand sonship and we understand Jesus because we can pick up at least four books in the Bible – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Gospels – and read exactly what He was like and how He behaved and how He reacted and what He said. But kind of getting your mind and your heart around the Holy Spirit is ... it's a whole bunch more difficult isn't it? And here Jesus tells us what the Holy Spirit is like – He is just like Jesus.

In the Old Testament, remember we read earlier, the promise in Joel:

I will pour out My Spirit on everyone.

And Jesus is saying, "It's about to happen folks!" God is God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – we don't understand that fully – three persons, one God and Jesus is saying, "It's about to happen, guys. I know I'm going to be crucified but sometime real soon I'm going to follow-up on My promise to pour out My Spirit and I'm going to pour My Spirit out on you and if you love Me, if you believe in Me, I will come and make My home in You. I'm in Dad and you will be in Me and Dad and I will come and make our homes in you."

Let's look at it again:

This Spirit of truth whom the world can't receive because they don't know Him and they don't see Him but you do – you know Him because He abides with you.

See, "abides" is such a strong word – it doesn't mean "shack up", it doesn't mean "visit", it doesn't mean "have a cup of coffee together", it means "to be with us forever" and that's what Jesus said:

I will give you another advocate to be with you forever. And we will come and make our home with you. If you love Me and keep My Word, My Dad will love you and He and I, through the Holy Spirit, will make our home with you."

Up until then, the presence of God had been understood to be inside the temple in Jerusalem, in the Holy of Holies and no one could come close to God and here in Jesus, God comes close to us. And Jesus says, "It gets better than this – we are about to get much closer because when I pour My Spirit out, I will be dwelling with you and living in you."

In fact, He goes on to say, in John chapter 16:

It's to your advantage that I go away because if I don't go away I won't be pouring My Spirit out on you and having My Spirit is so much better.

What an amazing plan Jesus has for us! What an awesome plan to pour out His Spirit and we will pick up and look at that plan just a little bit more next.

Well, God does have an amazing plan for us to have a relationship with Him that is intimate and real and here and now. I remember talking to a young man at a church I was at a few years ago – I was running an ALPHA course, which is a course to introduce people to Jesus and what Christianity is all about. And this man was a young Jewish lawyer by the name of David and we were talking about the Holy Spirit – we were talking about exactly this passage that we've just read. It says:

I will come and make My home in you. My Spirit will abide with you forever.

And I was explaining it is kind of like God moves in. God moves into our lives, into our hearts and into our spirits and into our souls and He is with us every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of eternity. And this young lawyer said 'Woe, that's a bit of an invasion of privacy isn't it?' I guess it is … I guess it is when a man a woman gets married, you know, all of a sudden there in each other's space and they are in each other's lives and they share the same bed and they share every room in the house. It is kind of an invasion of privacy but it's God's plan. Not for religion, not for rules:

If you love Me you will keep My commandments and I will come and make My home in you. I will love you, I will show Myself to you.

It says here in this passage we have just been reading. When Jesus said:

It is to your advantage that I go away so that I can send you the Holy Spirit.

What He was meaning was this: Jesus was God in the flesh and being a man He had a physical limitation – He could only be in one place at one time but the Holy Spirit doesn't have that problem. The Holy Spirit … God the Spirit can be in me and in you and in a trillion other people at exactly the same time. The Holy Spirit is God with me and God with you, 24/7. And when Judas asks the question in verse 22 of chapter 14, when he says:

Lord how is it that You reveal Yourself to us and not to the world?

That is a good question. Jesus answer is:

I will make My home with you. I will abide with you.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit will be on your journey with you. Not in a church, not in a building, not in a temple, not in an air-conditioned heaven, I'll be on the journey with you through thick, through thin, through up, through down, through plenty, through not enough, through fire, through storm, Jesus is in that place with us.

But this isn't for everyone; this isn't for the world; this isn't for people who say, "Well, you know something, I'm going to live my life my way and Jesus can be my little lap dog; my little puppy who does tricks and helps me when I need Him to." No, this is on God's terms – God is God.

If you love Me you will keep My commandments and I will ask Dad and He will give you another advocate just like Me to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept.

If we want to race off and live our lives contrary to God's will, Jesus is saying "I'm sorry, but this isn't for you. I want to give you My Spirit, I want to move in, I want to dwell with you, I want you to see Me, I want to reveal Myself to you through the Spirit of God, but you know something, it's on God's terms because God is God.

And sometimes we think, "Well, what will that mean? What will I have to do?" And we think, "Well, that's God's problem; God will teach us, God will show us when we invite Him in." And that's exactly what Jesus says. Pick it up in chapter 14, verse 25:

I have said these things to you while I am still with you but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you.

What a great plan! What an awesome plan! It's so scary sometimes to contemplate this Person, the Holy Spirit and think what's it going to mean? What do I have to give up? And all the time what the Spirit brings is joy and peace and an intimate relationship with God that we can't even begin to imagine until He does that work in us.

And when He does that, He changes us. We get addicted to His joy. I'm addicted to the peace that the Holy Spirit brings. That's why I spend time with God; that's why I do what I do. I just love Him and when we do that somehow He changes us. You know those things that you've been trying to change in yourself all your life – I have them too. When we draw close to Him, that flame burns and somehow, all that rubbish just burns away, day-by-day, week-by-week, year-by-year. So it's not a self-help programme, its God changing us.

For me when I accepted Jesus I did it holus-bolus. Like the disciples, it was a time of loss and fear and loneliness for me eleven years ago. When I accepted Him the pain didn't go away straight away – I still had ups and downs – but God blessed me so greatly with a beautiful wife and daily I live in His presence and day after day after day He is changing me and touching me and guiding me and moulding me and it's the Holy Spirit … God the Holy Spirit in me. And God the Holy Spirit in you who wants to do this; who wants to show us Jesus and tell us how wonderful He is.

This is what Jesus says in chapter 16, beginning at verse 14 about the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirit will glorify Me because He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine and for this reason I said to you that He will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The plan of God is to pour His abundant love, everything He is and everything He has and all His love and His peace and His joy – His plan is to pour that into your life and my life through the Holy Spirit.

Father, I pray that as we have been in Your Word today Your Spirit would stir us up – You would give us a hunger and a thirst and a desire to be filled with Your Holy Spirit and I pray Father God in Jesus name, that You would do exactly that.

At some point, we all end up at the end of our rope. Sometimes it's our own fault. Sometimes it's not. At those times – we feel that we need to do something – it's like the last roll of the dice …

It is just fantastic to be with you again today and today we are going through the last message in a four week series called, "Taking God at His Word". God makes a whole bunch of promises in His Word about who we are in Christ. Jesus, when you think about it, is the "feel good" factor, but every time I get up and I say, "We need to feel good about who we are in Christ," someone will come up to me afterwards and say, "No, no, no, we shouldn't talk that way. We're sinners; we shouldn't be full of ourselves. No, you shouldn't talk that way." And my answer is, "Come on! Jesus came to give us abundant life – life to the full. He said, "When I set you free, you'll be free indeed." And again, later, Paul, the Apostle, writes, "For freedom, we have been set free."

The whole point of Jesus dying on the cross to pay for our weaknesses and our failures – yeah our sin – and Him rising again, the whole point of that – the death and resurrection – is that we should have a new life – a fresh start when we put our faith in Him. That doesn't mean that there's a magic wand and nothing bad will ever happen to us and that we won't face adversity – no, it doesn't mean that. But it means that we can face everything that the world throws at us; that life throws at us and feel good about who we are in Jesus Christ. Since the day that Jesus came into my life, into my heart I have been able to feel good about myself. Not because of who I am; not because of what I've done but because who Jesus is and what He's done for me.

We need to ditch the self-image – and we all have a self-image of who we are - sometimes that is an arrogant, pompous self-image, as mine was and sometimes it is such a low self-image. You know, people who suffer with low self-esteem have a low self-image. We need to take that and say that's the old man; that person is dead. I have a new image of who I am. I am made in the image of God and I am going to have a faith image. It is time, people, to take God at His Word.

The first three programs in this series – firstly three weeks ago, we started off with a program called, 'Come as you are' and we saw how God says that we have Jesus, the High Priest, who knows exactly what it's like to walk in our shoes, because He has and because of that, because of Jesus, we can and should come boldly before the throne of grace. It's like God's having a barbecue; God's having a party and it's "come as you are". It's not – let's change ourselves before we come to God – no, come as you are and let Him change us. Big step - take God at His Word!

And then two weeks ago we looked at Ezekiel chapter 37, in a message called, "Can these bones live". We saw how God called Ezekiel to prophesy over Israel and to raise them up from being a valley full of dead bones, to being alive and full of God's life and full of God's breath and when we come to Him feeling dead; like a valley full of dry bones, that's exactly what He wants to do for us. It's time to take God at His Word! And last week we looked at overcoming adversity God's way. We saw how Israel had strayed yet again from God and in the Book of Malachi, God pointed out their sin and their failure and He gave them a way back, specifically for them, something that they could cope with and so they took God at His Word.

Today we are going to look at another form of adversity. That adversity was a consequence of Israel's own rebellion against God and that happens – we do that sometimes, but this week I'd like to look at the sort of adversity that happens that's not our fault – when you get retrenched or someone you love dies or a relationship breaks down or sickness strikes us or we just feel this heaviness – the list can be as long as your arm. What happens to us on the inside is that we feel small and alone and insignificant and Jesus is Jesus, yes He's Jesus, but He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He's high and He's mighty and He created the whole universe. Does He have the time or the inclination or the will to help me when I'm in the middle of that? Yeah, I know, we know it in our heads, but in our hearts, right at those times?

It can be so difficult to realise that God wants to help us. So we are going to look at someone that Jesus helped; it was the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. He helped her when she was a nobody and when He was everybody - He was Jesus Christ, Superstar. Let's have a read; if you have a Bible, grab it and let's go to Mark chapter 5, beginning at verse 21. This is how it goes.

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around Him and He was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue, named Jairus, came and when Jairus saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and begged Him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come, come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live." And so Jesus went with Jairus.

A large crowd followed them and pressed in on Jesus. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and she was no better, but rather she grew worse. She heard about Jesus and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she said to herself, "If I can just touch His clothes I'll be made well."

Immediately, her hemorrhaging stopped and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone out of Him, Jesus turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples said to Him, "You can see the whole crowd is pressing in on you, how can you say, "Who touched me?"

But Jesus looked all around to see who'd done it. The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before Jesus and told Him the whole truth, and He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed." While He was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house, from Jairus's place to say "Your daughter is dead, don't trouble the teacher any further," but overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Don't fear, only believe."

The crux of this story is that Jesus is walking along and the leader of a synagogue, Jairus, comes to Him because his daughter is dying and yet, what is going to Jairus's house which is a pressing need - the guy's daughter is dying – this woman stops Jesus on the way and He has time to spend with her. Look at the key players; there is a power play going on here in this story. The crowd, the disciples, Jairus, Jesus, the woman, Jairus's friends and of course, Jairus's daughter and we see that this huge crowd was following Jesus and Jesus had been doing miracle after miracle and so He was attracting a really huge crowd. I remember when I was a young boy and the Beatles came to town, and the crowds were all around. This, this is Jesus Christ Superstar, and yet He has time to stop for this woman.

We're looking today on the program at this story of the bleeding woman; this woman who'd be struggling and she'd been to doctors and she'd lost all her money – had been struggling for twelve years and Jesus comes to town; Jesus Christ Superstar, followed by this huge crowd. Jairus, the synagogue leader, gets to Him first and a power play happens. Let's just look at the woman and Jairus – just compare them. Here were two people that both came to Jesus with a need - Jairus, his daughter was dying. Well, that's a big need; there was an urgency around that. And this woman - this woman had been struggling for twelve years in sickness.

Let's just do a bit of a comparison. In this first century, patriarchal society; on the one hand Jairus was a man, she was a woman and women in those days were often treated just as a possession. See it was a patriarchal society. He was the leader of a synagogue – he was a religious leader – he was somebody in this town.

This woman, she had no position – he was respected, she was despised. He had an identity; we know his name – Jairus. Tell me, what was the woman's name? We don't read her name in the story; she had no identity, she was a nobody – we never get to find out what her name was. He was close to God; he was a leader in the synagogue, but she, she was an outcast. You say to me, "Berni, how do you know that she was an outcast; she was just a woman that was sick? No, no, no. She had been bleeding for twelve years and under to Mosaic Law, this woman was unclean and so she was an outcast.

Just flip your Bible, if you have one, back to Leviticus, right at the beginning, in the law; in the Torah. This is the Jewish, Hebrew Law that was laid down under God's hand. The law under which Israel lived and in chapter 15 of Leviticus, verse 25, it says this:

If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her impurity or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of her discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. Every bed, on which she lies during all the days of her discharge, shall be treated as the bed of her impurity and everything on which she sits, shall be unclean as in the uncleanness of her impurity. Who ever touches these things shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and bathe in water as be unclean until the evening. If she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count seven days and after that she shall be clean.

On the eighth day she shall take two turtle doves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance to the Tent of the Meeting and the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering and the priest shall make atonement on her behalf, before the Lord, on her behalf for her unclean discharge. Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, so that they do not die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.

Seems bizarre to us, right? This woman was sick; you know, she was discharging blood; it wasn't just her normal period. She was sick for a long time, but the law said she was unclean and if anyone came into contact with her or anything she'd touched, they were unclean. So she was a social outcast for those twelve years.

We know about Jairus; he had family and friends and home. We don't find out anything about the woman. We know that Jairus had a daughter who was twelve years old and yet this woman had suffered for that same period – twelve years.

We know that there was risk for Jairus; he was a synagogue leader – he threw himself down before Jesus. We will look at that a bit later. There was risk for the woman too because she was pressing through the crowd and everyone she touched became unclean.

If they knew that, they might not be so happy with her. And for both of them it was a last resort. For Jairus, his daughter was dying. For this woman, she tried everything, it was a last resort and they both came to Jesus in faith. So on the one hand you had this man of power and position and status and family - he had everything except his daughter was dying. On the other hand you had a woman with no name, who's unclean, who's an outcast and they both came to Jesus in faith. You had the greatest and the least – Jairus and the bleeding woman. That's the point of these two people.

Well, who's got the power? Jesus arrives back from being across the sea and He comes back and He lands and there's a big, big crowd and Jairus, who is known by all the people in the crowd, comes and throws himself down before Jesus. Jesus has been doing some radical things. He'd been healing; people were upset with Him and yet Jairus bows down before Him and puts the power in Jesus hands. And Jesus is coming with Jairus and now Jesus has the power; Jesus has the status. Jairus has bowed down before Jesus and elevated Him by so doing and Jesus chooses to use the power for this woman.

The amazing thing is that she came to Him, Jesus Christ Superstar, the crowd pressing in; Jesus is rushing off through this crowd. I imagine the disciples were like bouncers, you know, kind of clearing everyone away – "we're in a hurry, this Jairus guy's daughter is dying, let's get Jesus there before she dies." And Jesus has time to spend with her. We'll look at how astounding that is when she touched Him in faith and His power flowed into her and she was healed. We'll look at the really astounding thing about that, next.

Well we are working our way through this story of the woman who was sick for twelve years and she touched Jesus from a crowd and she was healed. Healing takes us all by surprise but what happened here for this woman is she came to Jesus in faith; she just took Him at His Word; and in the crowd where, when Jesus was rushing off with Jairus; this man of power and position, to go and heal his daughter who was dying. And the disciples were kind of being like bouncers just to get Him through the crowds.

This woman touches Jesus and He stops and He turns around and He says, "Who touched me?" and the disciples laugh at Him and say, "Come on, Jesus, like there's a crowd around you. What's the matter with you – who touched you?" but He wasn't perturbed, He wanted to know who touched Him. Look at verse 33 of Mark chapter 5, if you have a Bible. It says this:

The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth.

The whole truth; literally, all the truth.

I looked it up in a Greek dictionary. That word 'all' means each, every, any, all, the whole, everything, all things, anything, the whole cotton-picking lot! Hmm. Twelve years she's been bleeding, she's been suffering, she's been going to doctors, she's an outcast, she's segregated, she can't worship with anyone else in the synagogue – pretty rough trot this woman's had for twelve years and let's face it, there was no hot and cold running water so she probably stank too and people talked about her. She told Jesus the whole truth.

Now Jesus is rushing off to heal Jairus's daughter who's dying, the crowd stops – everything stops – like – stop!! And Jesus is focused on the woman and she bows down before Him in fear and trembling and she tells Him the whole truth. Now how long do you think it took her to tell the whole truth? It wasn't just a minute or two. The whole truth, she told Him the whole story; all the pain, everything that had happened over those twelve years. My hunch is it took at least five to ten minutes, maybe a bit more.

I've often taken this passage and had people play-act it out in churches and whenever I've asked a woman to play this role and tell the whole truth, it's taken at least five to ten minutes. What about Jairus's daughter – they're rushing off – she's dying? How do you think Jairus is feeling in the middle of this five to ten to fifteen minutes of pause on the way to heal his daughter who's dying? I'm Jairus, I'm a synagogue leader, my daughter is dying, Jesus, come on. This is just some woman, you know, some nameless woman, who's unclean, come back to her later. Jairus had begged Jesus repeatedly to come with him; there's urgency – but on the way Jesus has time to stop for a nobody.

Don't you love that? Jesus stopped and listened as though He had time a plenty. And He was so pleased with her – He said to her, "Daughter, your faith as made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease." Jesus stopped for the nobody, but while He was still speaking, the friends of Jairus came and said, "Jairus, sorry but your kid's dead. Don't bring Jesus over, it's just too late."

In other words, there was the greatest and the least; Jairus and the woman. And as we see later in the story - we won't read it all today, but Jesus went and He raised Jairus's daughter from the dead. But when He was dealing with the greatest and the least, position made no difference to Him. Status made no difference to Him, man or woman, synagogue leader or nobody, clean or unclean – He didn't care, in fact He put the least first. And at the end of the day, Jesus had enough for both of them – it wasn't one or the other.

You know, when we are struggling – this woman was going through hell for twelve years – our problems may not be like hers but our problems are our problems and they seem just as big and just as painful and we look around and we think, "This Jesus Christ Superstar, He's out there for someone else – He's going to heal the synagogue leader; He's going to do the stuff for the super Christian over there but me… you know, it's just little old me in my dark little hole, with all my pain and problems and Jesus is never going to do anything for me – this is God's Word; this is God's Word and it says this is what God looks like. Jesus said if you want to see the Father, look at me because you have seen the Father. Later on in the Book of Hebrews, in chapter 1, it says that Jesus is the exact imprint or the exact image of God.

Jesus Christ Superstar heard the father's plea for the daughter, He went with the father and yet He delayed and stopped and listened to and blessed the very least. What got them both a miracle? What was it for Jairus and for this woman that got them both a miracle? It wasn't position, it wasn't status - it was a desperate last roll of the dice, faith in Jesus Christ. That was what Jesus praised her for – He said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace." And later on Jesus says to Jairus, "Don't listen to them, don't be afraid, just believe in me. Just continue that faith that brought you to a point of bowing down before me in that crowd, when everyone could have laughed at you; take that faith and hang onto that thought and let me do a miracle for you in your life."

This is God's Word. God is telling us through this story more powerfully than He could in any other words, what He is like – "This is what I am like for you, I don't care whether you are the greatest or the least, I don't care whether you are a man or a woman, I don't care whether your adversity is any bigger or worse than anyone else's, I'm here for you, here and now; here for your pain, here for your sick daughter, here for your particular situation and it doesn't matter who you are, come to me, touch me in faith, cry out to me in faith and let me be the miracle working God in your life. What's going on in your life at the moment; what pain, what need, what fear, what miracle do you need?

Can I encourage you to look at this picture of Jesus; this picture of God and to cast the eyes of your soul upon this Jesus and in faith to say, "Lord, I need your help." It is time to take God at His Word.

Sometimes, we head off in our own direction - and then we discover, at some point, that we've strayed so far away from God's plans for our lives. We've all done it. You have, I have. And yet the amazing thing is that God always, always provides us with a way back home. Always.

Over these last few weeks on Christianityworks, we've been looking at what it means to take God at His Word. Sometimes it can seem that God's promises are just too good to be true. An abundant life full of blessing and we think, "Oh, yea – right!" But it also seems that some people who meet Jesus end up living out this abundant life of blessing, and well, others don't. Why is that? I believe that one of the key factors of living a victorious life through our relationship with Jesus Christ is taking God at His Word. Because when we see all the troubles of life; when we see the struggles of life, sometimes it's just too good to be true.

Today we are going to look at overcoming adversity, by taking God at His Word and it's a special kind of adversity – it's an adversity that we bring on ourselves, because sometimes we go through tough times as a direct consequence of our own actions and choices and behaviours. Bad choices, wrong motives, wrong thoughts, wrong behaviour have consequences. If I spend too much money on my credit card there are going to be financial consequences. If my wife Jacqui and I don't spend time together, there are going to be consequences in our relationship.

We have to live out those consequences and a number of times through the Bible we see this principal "as we sow, so shall we reap". It's a spiritual, emotional and physical principal that free choice has consequences and we have this good and loving Father who lets us bear the consequences of our sin. The sin of gluttony – if we eat too much, we put on weight, we get lethargic, we get disease. What we eat and how we eat has a direct impact on our lives. There's a cause and effect relationship – as we sow so shall we reap. And sometimes our own choices and decisions bring us to a place of adversity. Now, please, it's not always like that.

If you read the story of the blind man – the man who was blind from birth, in John's Gospel, chapter 9. Here was this man who was blind from birth and the disciples said to Jesus, "Well, who sinned - this man, his parents? What sin caused this man to be blind?" And Jesus said, "It's no one's fault; there's no sin. This guy is blind so that I could heal him."

And as I look back on my life, it's certainly true. Sometimes I have done things that have brought consequences on my life, and have brought times of adversity. Sometimes it wasn't my fault at all but today we are going to look at that specific form of adversity that comes when we are living out the consequences of our own sin. And when we are in that place; when we are in that place of adversity, how do we get out of it, how do we deal with that? What is God's way? What is God's wisdom for us?

We are going to go to the last book of the Old Testament – the Book of Malachi, chapter 3 and we will be looking at specifically verses 6 through 12, so if you have a Bible, go and grab it, open it up – it's the last book before Matthew's Gospel. It's a short book – only a few pages long, and we are going to see the relevance of how God provides us with the road back.

Now in this particular passage, (you may have heard this passage a lot of times in your church) we are going to read just right now, verses 8 through 12. And it says this:

Will anyone rob God, yet you are robbing me? But you say, "How are we robbing you?

And God answers:

"In your tithes and offerings. You're accursed with a curse for you are robbing me; the whole nation on you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house and thus put me to the test," says the Lord of Hosts. "See if I won't open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I'll rebuke the locusts for you so that it will not destroy the produce of you're soil and your vine in the field shall not be barren," says the Lord of Hosts. "Then all the nations will count you happy for you will be a land of delight." says the Lord of Hosts.

Now in a lot of churches you hear that particular verse quoted and it says something like this, "If you tithe your income; that is if you give a tenth of your income to church, then God will open the windows of heaven and bless you. Now there is truth in that because there is a spiritual principle that "as we sow, so shall we reap", and if we sow abundantly into God's Kingdom then God will bless us abundantly. The problem is that we can take this verse on its own out of context, and all of a sudden God becomes like a slot machine. You know, we put a coin in and we pull the handle and the money flows out the bottom, and that's not what God intended because this passage comes in a particular context; it comes in the context where Israel was supposed to be getting blessed.

You know, they started off with the promise of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and Jacob had twelve boys and the whole of that family ended up in Egypt and they grew into a large nation and God took them out of slavery through the Red Sea, through the exodus of forty years in the desert into the Promised Land – the land that He had promised to Abraham. They went through a time where Judges ruled the land and then kings and then Israel split into two nations and because they were unfaithful.

In 586 BC, the Babylonian empire overran Jerusalem, destroyed them, took them into captivity for seventy years and then God brought them back after the seventy years. Now the exiles were turned back and you'd think they'd have it all sorted out by then, but they continued on with their failure to obey God.

There's several wonderful pictures in the Books of Haggai and Zachariah, that once they come back from their Babylonian captivity that God will bless them - you know, God will pour out His blessing on this land, material prosperity. If you look at Zachariah chapter 8 verses 1 to 8, there's this sense of the captives streaming back into this land of abundance. Yet, the completion of the temple – they rebuilt that – it hasn't ushered in all this blessing. They had an expectation of blessing but instead of blessing, there's Persian domination; there are hostile foreigners, there are plagues, there are droughts, there are locusts – it's that like our Christian walk? God promises this enormous blessing and sometimes we turn around and say, "But, hang on a minute, this isn't a blessing at all – this is hell – all these bad things are happening to me. God, why are these bad things happening? What's going wrong? We are going to have a look at exactly what God tells Israel, next.

Well, there was Israel; they were back in the Promised Land again. They'd had prophesy after prophesy of blessing and all of a sudden they discover – they turn around and say, "Life is actually awful. Life is not going well at all." Have a look what Malachi writes in chapter 3 verses 13 to 15:

You have spoken harsh words against me, says the Lord, yet you say, "How have we spoken against you? You've said it is vain to serve God, what do we profit by keeping His command or by going about as mourners before the Lord of Hosts? Now we count the arrogant happy; evil doers only prosper but when they put God to the test, they escape.

In other words, things were not going as well for Israel as they expected from the prophesies that they had been given.

Now Malachi is the last of the Minor Prophets, the last book of the Hebrew Canon – the Old Testament and it's a monologue from God. It's God's perspective; God points them to the problem and He gives them the solution. And here's the problem – let's just move quickly through the Book of Malachi and have a look what God says. In chapter 1 verse 2, He says this:

"I've loved you," says the Lord, "but you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob's brother," says the Lord, "Yet I have loved Jacob but I have hated Esau. I have made his hill country desolation and his heritage a desert for jackals." God says 'I have preferred you;' when He says 'I have loved Jacob,' He is saying 'I have loved you.' God says, "I love you, yet you show contempt for God's love."

And then you look further down, in verse 6, and He says:

Look, a son honours his father, and servants their master. If I then am a Father, where is the honour due to me and if I am your master, where is the respect due to me? , says the Lord of Hosts, to you. O priest who despise my name. You say, "How have we despised you name?" By offering polluted food on your alter and you say, "How have we polluted it?" By thinking that the Lord's Table may be despised. When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, isn't that wrong? Oh, that someone among you would shut the temple doors so that you would not kindle the fire on my alter in vain.

They weren't putting God first – they weren't giving God their best. The whole sacrificial system was set up so that animals would be sacrificed – a blood sacrifice – to atone for sin. Now we don't go through that any more because Jesus is our blood sacrifice; Jesus died for us. We are forgiven through that sacrifice but that wasn't the case back then and God had commanded them to give their best – their first fruits, their best animals, their best food in sacrifice. And these people were giving God their second best or their third best and worse than that, the priests were bored. Look at verse 13:

"What a weariness this is," you say and sniff at me, says the Lord. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick and this you bring as an offering?

And further down, in chapter 2:

And now, oh priest, this command is for you, if you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to me, says the Lord of Hosts, then I will send a curse on you and I will curse your blessing and indeed, I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart.

They're hearts weren't in it. They were going through religious rituals without ever really thinking about it and the population followed them. In verses 8 and 9, it says this:

But you've turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble in your instruction; you've corrupted the promise of Levi, says the Lord of Hosts and so I make you despised and abased before all the people inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but you have shown partiality in your instruction.

So God's people have been through this enormous thing as a nation, where Jerusalem was destroyed and burnt down; for seventy years they were in captivity; they come back.

Wouldn't you think they would have learnt their lesson? Wouldn't you think they'd have it all sorted out? No! No, no. they do the same thing over and over again and then look what happens – verse 13 of chapter 2:

And this you do as well: you cover the Lord's alter with tears, with weeping and groaning because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favour at your hand and you ask, "Why doesn't He?" Because the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not God make her? Both flesh and Spirit are His and what does God desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel, and covering one's garments with violence, says the Lord of Hosts, so take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.

He is talking to a faithless nation – people were getting divorced, they were being unfaithful to their wives, they weren't honouring God, they weren't putting Him first and surprise, surprise – God didn't bless them!! Surprise, surprise, they were not living in the blessing that God had planned for them. The problem, according to God is sin and God says, "You wonder why you are not being blessed." And they're thinking, "Has God taken a holiday; can't He cope with us? Doesn't God want to bless me? Why are the locusts eating our food, what's going on? And God says, "It's not my faithfulness that's at stake here, it's yours. I chose you; I uphold you and I continue to bless you. I chose you, I uphold you and the only reason you are still alive is because I am the same."

Look at what He says in chapter 3 verse 6.

For I the Lord your God do not change, therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. The only reason I haven't destroyed you is because I made a promise to Abraham and to Isaac – I promised to bless their offspring and you are their offspring. If I hadn't made that promise, I would have destroyed you by now. The problem is your sin; your imperfect offerings, not the best fruits, not the first fruits, the second, the third and the forth fruits.

You're bored with me; you're unfaithful and we do that sometimes in our Christian walk too. We're a living sacrifice – we don't give God our best, we get bored with God, we stop reading God's Word, we stop praying, we stop enjoying His presence and we chase after other gods and we chase after worldly ideals and God says, "What's the matter with you? Are you surprised that you are not being blessed? The most important thing for God is the relationship that we have – He takes it so seriously – His Son died to give us that and we race off and we do other things and we wonder why God isn't blessing us. We are living through the consequences of our own sin, of our own rejection, of our own rebellion of God, and because the relationship is so important to God, He won't let the blessing flow while we're doing that. It's His way of giving us a wakeup call; it's His way of bringing us back home; it's His way of saying, "I love you", so when we're living through the consequences of our sin, can I encourage you to hear those words in the middle of that – "I love you so much, I'll let you live through those consequences."

Well, God made a road back for Israel and we are now going to look at what that road looks like.

We are looking at this whole dilemma of what happens when we live out the consequences of our rebellion of God and this is where we pick up the answer. God looks at Israel through this Book of Malachi and says, "You people have forsaken me, despite every thing you've been through in the Babylonian captivity. You haven't learned, you're not putting me first, you're not honouring me, you're just going through a religious mumbo-jumbo and routine, but really, your hearts not in it and I want your heart, and until your hearts in it, well, you are not going to be blessed by me." And the people rightly go, "well, what are we going to do about it?"

In fact they ask that question in the Book of Malachi. Let's look at it – beginning at chapter 3 verse 7.

Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them, says the Lord. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts, but you say, "How shall we return?"

This is the crux of this whole small Book of Malachi. They've left God and God says, "I want to be with you; I want to bless you; I want to spend time with you, come back to me and I will come back to you."

God always, "always" wants to have a relationship with us. There's never a time where God says, "Well, you know, I know this person believes in me but they've been so bad, I'm never going to spend any time with them again. I'm going to reject them." NO! Because He sent Jesus to die for me; He sent Jesus to die for you. There is never a time where God rejects us in this life.

And here the people say, "Well, ok, ok! We know that we've done the wrong thing. We know we've failed. We know we've gone in the wrong direction. Um, but now what? How do we come back to you? You say, "How shall we return to you?" and in answer to that question, this is what God says. This passage about tithing that we read earlier on. He said, "Will any one rob God? Yet you are robbing me." Isn't it interesting? "How shall we return to you?" And God points to one thing that they are doing wrong. "Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how are you robbing me? In your tithes and your offerings! You are cursed with a curse because you are robbing me - the whole nation of you."

You see part of the Mosaic Law; part of the law of Israel; part of the law of what we call the Old Testament today, was that every one of God's people had to give one tenth of their income to God's work. It was called a tithe; a tenth; it was part of the law. It was almost ... well it was, it was exactly like, we have to pay taxes today and if I avoid my taxes, the Tax Office will come after me and ultimately I can be fined or put into jail – it's against the law and Israel was breaking God's law by not giving God the tenth; the tithe, that was due to Him and God said, "You're robbing me."

Now they were doing a whole bunch of other things wrong too – we read it before; they weren't putting God first, their heart wasn't in it, they were just going through the actions, they were being unfaithful, husbands and wives, but God just picks one thing out of that in answer to the question, "How shall we return?" God says, "This is the one thing I want you to do. I'm not going to get you to fix everything and all your mistakes and all your sin and all your rebellion at once, I'm just going to pick one thing. Start tithing again, bring the full tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. Sow seed while things aren't going well, because things weren't going well – locusts were eating their food. They didn't have a lot to spare.

"Bring the full tithe into my storehouse, that there may be food in my house and thus put me to the test," says the Lord of Hosts, "See if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour out for you an overflowing blessing."

How can we come home? "Just do this one thing – just obey me because loving me is obedience – obedience that you can actually cope with." Don't you love that about God? We may have a problem in one area of our life but God knows who we are, what we can cope with, so He may choose something quite different, in another area, and says, "Be obedient in this area, that I know you can cope with and when you have been obedient there; when you're working there, that bit that I have put my finger on through my Spirit and my Word, when that's working, just watch and I'll bless you. And then as I am blessing you, there are lots of other things that we are going to deal with too, but I know you can't deal with those now, so just deal with this one issue."

I think that's awesome! And then God says, "I'll rebuke the locusts, I'll make sure they don't destroy your food, I'll make sure that the vine isn't barren, that the windows of heaven will be open and my blessing will pour out. That's God's love - that's God's encouragement because God rewards our faithfulness. No father will bless a child that is not being faithful. Dad wants to bless us, but He wants more than that – a relationship with us. That is just so awesome and look what it says down in verse 16 of chapter 3, just finishing up this discussion of God's blessing.

Then those who revered the Lord spoke with one another and the Lord took note and listened and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who revered the Lord and thought on His name. They shall be mine, says the Lord of Hosts; my special possession on the day when I act and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them.

Wow! God wants to bless us but that blessing – that hand of blessing comes off our lives when we rebel against God, because more important than the blessing is the relationship. More that any thing, God wants to have a relationship with us and so if your traveling through a time in your life when you know that you are living the consequences of your own failures and your own sin, I would encourage you to do this - go to God and say, "Lord how shall I return?" And I promise that God will speak to you through His Spirit in the most amazing way and say, "Be obedient to me in just this one area of your life and put me to the test. See if I won't open the windows of heaven and pour out all my blessings on you." It's time to take God at His Word.

Sometimes, to be honest, life can feel really dry. You look out across the landscape of your life and all you can see is dry bones. You know there's more out there, but right now you just can't see how it'll ever feel "alive" again.

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to go on with God in a really powerful and exciting way and other people who say, "well I'm a Christian"; I don't know, they tend to be, if I can use the term "puced", as you know, some people just don't seem to be living out the joy and the power and the victory that a Christian life should represent. I wonder why that is?

Well ... Jesus called us to go and make disciples; He called us to be disciples, not just believers. I think there is a distinction; a difference. A disciple, well, there's something resolute, there's something firm in their direction, they have a sense of where God is taking them and they're radical believers with their lives, in who Jesus is and what Jesus says. So they "hear" the Word of God but they also "do" the Word of God. Someone who's a believer and yet not a disciple, well, that person can believe; that person can live the story of Christ intermittently, but there is a sense of floating, there's a sense of they're not really deeply committed to be followers of Jesus Christ.

There's a wishy-washiness about just being a believer and not a disciple; being just a believer is like hearing but not doing and as I said, the Lord calls us to be His disciples. The Lord calls us to go on in strength and power and victory, to live an abundant and exciting and amazing life. I really get excited when I think about what God has called us to. Now I'm not saying that somehow, a disciple has it all together, but they're on the path, they are committed to the journey with the Lord, wherever He wants to take them. A believer has a sort of an intellectual ascent to the Word of God but they are so often controlled by feelings and circumstances and we know that feelings are fickle; we know that circumstances blow an ill-wind today and a good wind tomorrow. We can't predict circumstances – we can't rely entirely on our feelings.

Jesus is about making disciples and not believers. That is why we are going through a series of teaching at the moment that I've called, "Taking God at His Word," because it seems to me that someone who is committed to Christ, committed to walking the walk with Jesus, is someone who takes God at His Word. God has some amazing promises in His Word, the Bible.

Last week we looked at the promise that He will take us just as we are. He will take us with all our weaknesses and frailties and even despite that we can come boldly before His throne of grace. If you have a Bible, let's go quickly back there because it's an awesome Scripture; in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 15 and 16, where it says this.

We don't have a High Priest who's unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one, who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet was without sin. Let us therefore, approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In other words, because Jesus knows what it is like; because He has walked in our shoes on this earth as a man, because of that He can sympathise with our circumstances and because of that, we should come boldly before the throne of grace.

In other words God's having a party and it's come as you are. We don't have to get all dressed up; we don't have to get our lives sorted out to come before God. That's what happens when we have a relationship with Him, through Jesus Christ.

Today we are going to get on with the next message, which is called, "Can these bones live?" Have you ever looked across at your life and thought, "My life is so dry, it shouldn't be like this, but as I survey the landscape of my life, it's like a valley of dry bones? It's like – can it ever get any better, can I ever have a real sense of vibrant abundant life that I know my relationship with Jesus should bring me?" We all get to that point at sometime. We all get to that stage where we think – my life is just so dry. How's that going to change? Well, it's time to take God at His Word.

If you have a Bible, grab it and flip it open to Ezekiel chapter 37. Ezekiel is one of the books of the Old Testament and it comes just after Isaiah, Jeremiah and then the Book of Ezekiel. We are going to chapter 37 and we pick up the story of Israel here, when they have been in exile in Babylon for almost seventy years. This is about the third part of the Book of Ezekiel. The first couple of parts are oracles of judgement against Judah and all the other nations surrounding them but this passage that we're about to look at, at the beginning of Ezekiel chapter 37, is really early on in the third part and the third part of the book is the book of hope. It's about the restoration of Israel because as I said, at this point, Israel has been in exile in Babylon for almost seventy years.

God made them a promise; God promised them when He brought them up out of Egypt – remember they spent almost four centuries in slavery in Egypt, after Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Joseph was a Jew who became Prime Minister of Egypt and so all the tribes of Israel thrived in Egypt and became so populous they were enslaved by Pharaoh and there they lived until they cried out and God heard their cry and sent Moses to bring them out of Egypt. But they lived four hundred years in Egypt and then went through the exodus of forty years through the desert and finally past into the Promised Land – the land of milk and honey, but they didn't stick with what God called them to do – they didn't obey God and God's promise was, "I'll bless you in your land if you obey me but if you don't, you'll lose your land."

And sure enough, Babylon rose up against them and in 586/587BC, the Babylonian empire over-ran Jerusalem; burnt it, destroyed it, killed a lot of people and took the rest of them into slavery in exile in Babylon. And so these people were thinking, "Woe, what about God's promises? The temple's been destroyed – that's where God lives. Now we're exiled and Jerusalem is raised to the ground, what about God's promises?"

So there's a sense of hopelessness and despair after generations. Living again, in exile in another country, in Babylon and this is what God says into that situation. It's got powerful implications for us today, but let's just see what happens. Ezekiel was taken by God – have a listen. Chapter 37 beginning verses 1 and 2. Ezekiel says this:

The hand of the Lord came upon me and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley – it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry.

And here's this valley full of dry, dead bones. Ezekiel was a priest and he knew the importance of burial. I mean these bones weren't buried and the reason it happen is they had a treaty with God and they disobeyed God and so the armies of Israel were killed and bodies were left to wild animals and it was God's punishment. You can read about it – we won't go there now but in Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 25 and 26, it explicitly predicts that if Israel doesn't obey God this will happen – their armies will be destroyed. We find out later in this passage, in verse 11, that these are the bones of the House of Israel.

But what about your house? What about your dry bones? What about the relationships and the sin and the wallowing and the drifting that we sometimes experience in our Christian walk? Sometimes we don't even know why it is. The thing that God does here is He shows Ezekiel the dry bones, He walks him around. He says, "Get a grip on reality." Well maybe He's talking to us today – "Get a grip on reality! What are the dry bones in our lives; the things that are coming to ruin our walk and our relationship with God and the wonderful life that God has planned for us; the dead stuff? What are the dry bones? We are going to look at what God does with the dry bones next.

Ok, so we're living life and we feel that it's like this valley of dry bones that Ezekiel is talking about here. Well, what does God do with those dry bones? Let's pick it up in verse 3 of chapter 37. God says to Ezekiel:

"Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "Lord God, you know." Then He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, "Oh, dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, "I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live, I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord you God."

So this is the first recorded tennis match in the Bible. God serves up and says to Ezekiel, "Can these bones live," and Ezekiel returns the ball across the net and says, "Well, God, it's really up to you." I mean, they're dead, they're dry, it's devastated, it's hopeless, they're crunching around together," God and Ezekiel in this death valley and the truth is that it looks impossible to Ezekiel, but he daren't say that.

Well, let's come back to our valley of dry bones; the broken relationships, the persistent sin, the dryness, the drudgery and God asks you or God asks me, "Can these bones live?" How do we answer that? I think we return that to God and say, "Lord, Lord you know." Israel was in a hopeless situation, the world power of the day, Babylon, had them in slavery, they were spiritually and emotionally and morally and nationally bankrupt. They didn't know whether God would ever do anything to save them. They didn't even know if God had the power to do that. Well what does God do? He returns it back to Ezekiel. He says:

"Ezekiel, prophesy; speak over these bones."

What does He return; does He return love or grace or touchy feely or mushy? No, He returns with the Word of God, because the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. He says:

Ezekiel, prophesy; speak my Word over these bones. Say to them, "Thus says the Lord God, "I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live and I will lay sinews on you and I will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you will live and you will know that I am the Lord your God."

God's Word is powerful and mighty. God spoke creation into existence, He said:

Let there be light.

God calls things into existence that don't yet exist. You can read that in Romans chapter 4 verse 17. Well, what happens? Let's have a read – verse 7. So Ezekiel writes:

I prophesied as I was commanded to and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked and there were sinews on them and flesh had come up on them and skin had covered them, but there wasn't any breath in them yet.

Surprise! Surprise! God said, "Speak my Word over this impossible situation," so Ezekiel did and through God's Word, in this vision that Ezekiel had, the bones came together. They had sinew, they had flesh, they had life; no breath yet, but they had life.

God's Word is spoken and the dry bones become flesh and blood. Our problem, our circumstances, our feelings – when we get hungry in our situation, our valley of dry bones – where do we go? Do we go and feed on the world's wisdom? Do we go and feed on our friend's wisdom? Do we pick up the phone and have a whinge to a friend, or do we come to God's Word and listen to what He has to say about our lives and His plan for our lives and then do we take Him at His Word? Jesus spent forty days and nights in the desert; He was hungry, He was famished, He was thirsty and when the devil tries to tempt Him in His valley of dry bones, this is what He says. He says, "Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Come on! Where do we go?

We can have a junk food diet of TV shows and movies and women's magazine and gossip, but how much time do we spend on those things compared to time in the Word. We are what we eat. We go to a Sunday sermon, we listen to it once, we don't take any notes and we think, "Well why am I not growing?"

Come on; let's get into God's Word however we can. There's power in God's Word. Jesus said:

If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples.

You see, He links God's Word to discipleship.

If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

We quote the second half of that normally. We say – the truth will set us free. No, no. Jesus said:

If you are my disciples you'll be in my Word and my Word will be in you and you will continue in it and you will know the truth and by knowing the truth you will be set free.

A disciple is someone who delights in God's Word; who radically believes it, who does it. Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17, about the sword of the Spirit being the Word of God. It's an offensive weapon against Satan. It's in the Word of God that we stand firm and it is the Word of God that changes things in our lives. That's why we need to take God at His Word. We'll see how this story with Ezekiel and Israel finishes up next.

Well, how does this story end up? We've been looking at how God takes Ezekiel out to look at this valley of dry bones, that represents where Israel is spiritually and emotionally and nationally towards the end of their exile, which really was a consequence of their sin; it was a consequence of them breaking their covenant and their promise with God. Well, we saw that Ezekiel spoke God's Word over these dry bones and just as God had said, when His Word was spoken, all of a sudden flesh came on them, all of a sudden sinew came on them and all of the bones came together. That happened! But look at the end of verse 8 of Ezekiel, chapter 37. It says:

I looked and there was sinews and flesh and skin had covered them but there was no breath in them.

Now let's read on in verses 9 and 10.

Then God said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy Mortal and say to the breath, "Thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe upon the slain, that they may live," and I prophesied as He commanded and the breath came into them and they lived and stood on their feet – a vast multitude.

Wow! You see, God's Word had been spoken and that gave the power to bring all the bones together, but they yet didn't have breath. And the Hebrew word for breath is "ruwach", which means a rushing wind and it's the same word as is used for the Spirit. So when we are talking about the rushing wind, this is a symbol and a picture of the Spirit of God – it's not just the Word of God – we need the Spirit of God too, which brings life and they stood up and they stood as a vast multitude.

Paul encourages us in Hebrews chapter 5 verse 18, to go on being "filled with the Spirit". There are so many people who say, "Well I'm in God's Word, you know, I believe in God's Word," and yet they go to the Word without the Spirit. They go to God's Word and read it in their own strength, instead of saying, "God fill me with your Holy Spirit, fill me every day. I want to overflow with your Spirit."

And when we see God's Word; the power of God's Word and the life that the Spirit brings, all of a sudden we see here that these bones in the valley, they come to life, through the "ruwach", through the Spirit of God. Now we might come up with a wimpy response that says, "Well, you know, I've tried that but I'm so dry and the Spirit never touches me and ah …"

Have a look with me quickly in Luke chapter 11 verse 9 – this is a really well known passage where Jesus says:

I say to you, ask and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, because everyone who asks receives, everyone who searches finds, for everyone who knocks the door is opened. Is there any among you if your child asks for a fish that you'll give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for bread, you'll give them a scorpion instead? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more ...

Listen to this:

... how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Jesus said, "knock, persist, ask and you will receive.

And when our hearts are fit to break, to be filled by the Spirit of God and we ask and we plead and we say, "Lord I'm not going to settle until I am so full with your Spirit that I'm overflowing; that streams of living water are running out of me." When we are so desirous of that, God promises that He will fill us with His Spirit.

A.W. Tozer wrote this, he put it this way. He said:

Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push into His presence and live our whole lives there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.

God's Word has the power – God's Spirit brings the life. Why does God work this way? What's God doing? Why does He allow sin and Satan and why does He allow our lives to go through dry bones? Why do we have to go through this stuff?

Well, He answers that at the end of our passage that we are looking at, Ezekiel chapter 37 beginning at verse 11.

Then God said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel." So God interprets this vision for Ezekiel. These bones are the whole House of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is lost and we are cut off completely, therefore, prophesy and say to them, "Thus says the Lord your God, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, oh my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel and you will know that I am the Lord God when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves. My people, I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live. I will place you on your own soil and then you will know that I, the Lord your God, have spoken and will act, says the Lord God."

Why does He allow this? So that He can bless us; so that we can receive redemption and life and renewal. Not through our own strength, but when God breathes His Spirit into us; when we believe His Word – when we take God at His Word. That valley of dry bones was a picture of Israel and God said to Ezekiel:

Go and tell them. Speak my Word over them and this is what I will do.

Those dry bones – those dry bones are our circumstances, our sin, our lives lost, our opportunities missed.

Let God show us the reality when we accept the power of His Word, when we accept Him at His Word and we accept His Holy Spirit which is life.

God's having a party – it's come as you are, but let's believe His Word. God calls things that aren't as though they are. God brings life when He gives us His Word to speak over our life and when He pours His Spirit out over our lives. The question is will you take God at His Word?

Have you ever thought to yourself – "Well, things are a bit of a mess. I've made a hash of this or that and before I go to God with this, I'd better sort it out"? Well, we all do that sometimes. But it turns out that God's having a party – and it's come as you are.

God promises that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, that He will give us an abundant life, abundant blessing; an eternal life, a life that we can't even begin to imagine. Do you ever look at that sometimes and think, "It's just too good to be true?" Yet some people seem to live with an amazing confidence in the blessing of God and others don't, and the difference, I think, is that sometimes we don't take God at His Word. That's why this week we are starting a brand new, four part series, called exactly that, "Taking God at His Word."

We can see our circumstances, we can see the physical things around us but with our eyes we can't see the spiritual dimension; we can't see the 'God' dimension and quite often, we look at our physical circumstances and say, "Well, God couldn't possibly take my life and my circumstances and my failures and bless me in the middle of that." But God means to do exactly that; His Word is full of promises that He wants to bless us – He wants to bless you, He wants to bless me. So today we are going to begin by looking at some of those promises, in particular the promises He makes about the relationship between Him and us.

Relationships are a funny and complex thing. How well we know one another influences how much of ourselves we expose to one another. Someone that we don't know very well, someone that we have a shallow relationship with, we're not going to talk to them about the deepest, most meaningful things in our lives. And someone that we do know really well and don't like, who hurts us, well, we are going to be guarded with them. Hopefully a relationship between a husband and wife is really open and frank but even there, there can be barriers.

We all have different masks or faces for different occasions. I know I do - a professional face that I put on and a personal the face. The face that we put on in a passing relationship verses one that we wear in a permanent relationship. And even though I tend to be a very open and forthright and direct person, still, we all do it, don't we? We have different faces for different people, different faces for different situations. We guard who we are depending on the person we are having the relationship with.

Those different faces that we wear are, in effect, different levels of permission and openness for different situations or people and it's a deeply ingrained pattern of behaviour. So, what face do you and I wear when we come before God? Is it a face that says, "Well, God, I'm just not good enough for you, so I'd better protect myself from your glory and your goodness"? Is it a face that says "God's promises, they sound too good, well maybe they're for that person, or that person, but they're not for me"? Is it a face that says, "I'd better sort these things out in my life before I go to God"? What face do you and I wear when we come before God? It's an important question - how do I approach God? Because how can we enter into God's blessing if we don't even know how to enter into God's presence?

We are going to go to a passage in the Book of Hebrews. If you have a Bible, grab it and open it up at Hebrews, Chapter 4. It's a strange little book – it's less of a letter to a specific group and more of a general tract. "To the Hebrews" was probably added later on. We don't know who wrote it, although, judging from its style, it wasn't any of the other authors of the New Testament. And the basic thrust of the Book of Hebrews is to contrast the old covenant, the old promise, under the Jewish Mosaic law, with the new covenant, the new promise of God of grace and forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ. And it shows how much this new promise is so much better than the old promise. Our passage does that.

Let's have a look at it – we're going to read it. Hebrews, Chapter 4, verses 14 to 16. It says this:

Since then we have a great High Priest who passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession because we don't have a High Priest who's unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet was without sin. Let us therefore, approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

It centers on the fact that Jesus being our High Priest understands our situation because He has walked in our shoes. This passage comes in the context of God's rest. God plans to bless us by giving us rest, by giving us peace, by giving us joy, by setting us free from all the things in the world that would tear away at us – emotionally and spiritually. And He says, "Look, Jesus is your High Priest and it's your High priest that brings you rest."

Look at verse 10.

For those who enter God's rest, also cease from their labours as God did from His.

The point is, that one of God's promises is to give us rest and this picture of the High Priest goes right back to the Old Testament, Leviticus Chapter 16. If you have a Bible, flick back and have a look at Leviticus Chapter 16, the first five verses, which we won't read right now, talk about the way in which sins were forgiven on the day of atonement and the priest went into the Holy of Holies of the temple and gave blood sacrifices over the alter. But look specifically at verse 17.

No one shall be in the tent of the meeting from the time that the High Priest enters to make atonement in the sanctuary until he comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for the assembly of Israel.

No one else can be in the tabernacle when atonement was being made for Israel. Then over the page to verses 29 and 30.

You shall deny yourselves on that day, you shall do no work; neither the citizen nor the alien who resides among you. From this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you from your sins. It is a Sabbath day of complete rest to you.

So God's plan in making atonement for our sins, in opening the door to a relationship with Him, is complete rest for us. Jesus was the High Priest, Jesus was the mercy seat, Jesus was the lamb whose blood was sprinkled in the sanctuary. That's the old covenant. That was then, now we are going to have look at the new covenant – the covenant, the promise, the plan that God has for us which is so much better than that.

We are looking at God's promises. Sometimes we struggle to take God at His Word and God has a promise of relationship and rest and peace for us. We're specifically looking at what He says in Hebrews Chapter 4 verses 14 to 16 which talks about Jesus being our High Priest.

Under the new covenant, Jesus is the one, the great High Priest who not only went into the sanctuary to make atonement for our sins so that we can be forgiven, to pay for our sins. But He also passed into the heavens, and He also walked on this earth and He relates to us and understands that, He's able, look at verse 15, He's able to sympathise with our weaknesses. Not just our sin, but the realities of life here on earth. Jesus, you may get upset with me for saying this, but listen, Jesus went to the toilet, He became tired and frustrated, He felt crowded in, He knew the pressures of a busy schedule, He knew the deep pain of sacrifice – our High Priest, the one who was there when we weren't, so that our sins could be forgiven.

Our High Priest isn't some ecclesiastical elitist, He's a pauper, He's one of us, someone who walked in our shoes, He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. Not just because He's God, but because He walked as one of us. "Let us therefore," says Hebrews, "approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive the mercy and find the grace to help in time of need." Therefore, why? Because Jesus wasn't just the High Priest, Jesus was a pauper; Jesus was an ordinary person just like you and me, with all the pressures, all the temptations, all the hassles of life. Isn't that exciting, isn't that wonderful?

A few years ago I had occasion to visit the Head of State of Australia. In Australia he is called the Governor General, his name was Sir William Dean, at the time and this place, Government House, where he lives, is steeped in history. We drove up the driveway - the driveway that kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers have come and gone on, and the place was full of the trappings of power.

You know, I played to that – I had a crisply ironed shirt on and I drove up the driveway in a dark coloured car that I had and there was a big bird plop on the front and I thought, "I wished I'd washed my car, I hope I look acceptable, am I good enough?" – but when I met the man, Sir William Dean, the Governor General of this country, what I discovered was this kind, gentle man who was one of us. He was disarming in his humility and his kindness. He wasn't affected by his position or his status. He showed me around the art collection in Government House and his office and his wife's office and he set me at ease – we had a cup of tea, he was just a wonderful human being.

You expect someone in a position of power like that, to put themselves above us, in a sense. But he didn't do that at all, and in a sense, that's what Jesus is like. In a sense, He is God; He is the Son of God, yet He became one of us. He walked on this earth, He sacrificed His life for us and that's why we can approach the throne of grace with boldness. That's why we don't have to make sure our car is washed, we don't have to put on our Sunday best, we don't have to put on a "face" when we come before that throne of grace, because God is having a party and it's "come as you are". That is a wonderful message.

Your car is dirty, things aren't quite right, you feel inadequate? Take God at His Word. "Let us therefore, approach the throne of grace with boldness" Why? Not because we're fantastic, not because our car's clean and our shirts are ironed and we're perfect? No! Because we have in Jesus a High Priest, who in every way has experienced life the way we do. He understands; He can sympathise with our reality and because of that, it says, "Approach the throne of grace," with what? – With fear, with uncertainty, with timidity? No! Approach the throne of grace with boldness. Come on! You take God at His Word. Would you come with me before the throne of grace putting your faith, not in yourself but in what Jesus did for us on the cross and take God at His Word?

Now the throne of grace is God's place, just like Government House was the Governor General's place. The throne of grace is God's place, it's about God's sovereignty and power and awesomeness. Government House is to me what the temple was to the Hebrews – the all powerful, all knowing God, who transcends all things, but is a God of grace. What an incredible juxtaposition of images. A throne which talks about power, of grace; not a throne of power; not a throne of judgement; not a throne of superiority. God is all those things but He calls His throne, the throne of grace.

But what do we do? We focus on the throne, we want to put on our Sunday best, we want to sort ourselves out before we come to that place. Come on! How often do we have problems and think, "We have to sort them out before we go to God. We get to the driveway of that castle and we want to rush off – we want to wash the car, we want to iron our shirt." There's a beautiful picture in Luke 15 of the Prodigal Son, the son that deserted his father, spent all his money getting drunk and on prostitutes and he comes back feeling unworthy, saying, "Well, I'll ask dad if I can become a servant and dad runs out – dad was already waiting on the road, looking for him and he runs out."

Let's have a look, reading verse 20 of Luke 15, which is where the story of the Prodigal Son is.

So the son set off and went to his father but while the son was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion and ran out and put his arms around him.

That's what the throne of grace looks like. The throne of grace is a mobile throne of grace. The throne of grace, when we take the smallest step towards God, comes running toward us, because Jesus understands. We need to stop looking at the castle and focus on the King, who became a pauper for us. We need to forget the trappings and look at God. We didn't receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption so that we can cry, "Abba Father, Dad."

When ever we think of that throne, the throne of grace, let us think of that waiting Father, when we take the smallest step towards Him, just as we are, He races out to greet us. He throws His arm around us; He doesn't condemn us. We are His children, not His slaves. Stop looking at the castle, focus on the King. So how should we approach the throne of grace?

So how should we approach the throne of grace? What does your translation say? Mine says, "with boldness" and the Greek word that sits behind our English translation – it comes from Greek philosophy - it means "public". This is presupposition of democracy – it means the right to say anything, a frankness and a candor. That same word is used again in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 8 and verse 32, telling of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It says this:

Jesus said this quite openly and Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.

Now that word "openly" is the same word as is used for "boldness" here in this passage in Hebrews. In other words it means "just as we are" – no faces, no masks, no fear, no pretending, no trying to dress ourselves up and get our clothes ironed and our car washed. No! God wants us to be frank and open, to tell it the way it is.

There's a story in Mark's Gospel, Chapter 9 around verse 14 that tells about Jesus healing a young boy. Jesus has been just up on the Transfiguration Mount and He comes down and there's this young boy with demons and His disciples have been trying to cast out the demons and they can't and so the young boy's father pleads with Jesus and he says, "If you are able, have pity on us and help us," and Jesus says, "What do you mean if you are able? All things can be done for the one who believes." And immediately the father of the child cried out, "I believe, help my unbelief." There's this big crowd there and here's this man who said, "I believe to a point, I can't believe a hundred percent. I can just believe as much as I believe and as much as I believe, I believe in you." And the boy was healed, the demons were cast out. Now that father didn't get a miracle because he had perfect faith.

I don't have perfect faith. My faith is much stronger and much bigger than it was five years ago, but it's not perfect. God doesn't want perfect faith from us, God just wants us to take the faith that we have and place it in Him. Even faith is a gift from God. That father got a miracle because he was honest, he was direct and this son, who from birth was like this, was set free. Have you got a circumstance in your life that you think, "Well God can't possibly do anything with this because I have been like this for so long and besides I don't have the sort of faith that they're talking about?"

Well here's a story, you don't need perfect faith. You just take the little bit of faith that we have and place it in Jesus and Jesus can and will do the most amazing things in our life because the effect of going before that throne of grace is to obtain mercy and grace in the time that we need it.

That mercy is the outworking of how God sympathises with us because we don't have a High Priest who's unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who, in every respect has been tested as we are, yet was without sin. "Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive what? - The outworking of God's understanding, the outworking of His love and His sympathy, so that we may receive mercy and find grace, to help in time of need. That grace is free; that grace doesn't depend on our goodness and our perfection, it's there because we believe in Jesus. Come on! Will we take God at His Word? And to get help is the sense of help running towards us. It's that sense of the waiting father, right when we need it; right at the perfect time.

Have you ever noticed how perfect God's timing always is? Just when we need something, God is there to help. Now this passage is saying you can trust in that, you can believe in that. If your faith is in Jesus, you can come before this throne of grace with boldness and just believe that God will help you.

When you need stuff, when you need help, when there's something that you can't get through, come boldly before the throne of grace. Don't worry about the bird plop on the front of your car, don't worry about whether your clothes are ironed, don't worry about what we look like or how we've behaved or how big our faith is - that's not the point. The point is that we have a Saviour who can sympathise with us and calls us to come boldly before His throne of grace.

In Jesus we have it all – King, High Priest, sacrifice, place of forgiveness – He's one of us, and because of who Jesus is, we can approach the throne of grace with openness, with a boldness, leaving the mask at the front door and just talking to Him the way it is. Focusing on the King and not the castle – on His empathy and understanding because of who Jesus is. Remember He is Abba, He is our Father, the waiting Father who will run to our aid. That throne of grace is mobile, that throne of grace is coming towards us.

And some people think, "Oh I'm afraid to ask God for this, I'm afraid to ask God for that." Maybe we have had anger or sin or failure or low self-esteem – will we let God help us with a special, well-timed, perfect touch of grace? Come on, will we take God at His Word and come boldly before the throne of grace. Not because of who we are, but because of who Jesus is and because in Christ, God understands and sympathises and wants to pour out His mercy and His grace on you and me. Come on! Will we take God at His Word?