Christianityworks Official Podcast Berni Dymet

As politically incorrect, unpopular and old–fashioned things go, the subject of repentance would have to be right up there near the top of the list. Repentance – what the blazes does it mean anyhow? Who even talks that way anymore these days? Give me a break!!
 
FULL ON REPENTANCE When I come across a subject like “repentance” – and I’ll explain what I think that word means in a moment – I tend to think about how I viewed religious jargon before I became a Christian. I remember some nutter standing on a milk crate in the local mall waving a Bible in one hand, shouting Repent, Repent and thinking to myself … yeah, right, now there’s a message the world wants to hear. Idiot!!
I was driving a pretty expensive car back in those days, living in a luxury house, pursuing a business career and life was, on the surface at least, pretty darned good. So, who needs repentance?! Ever felt yourself thinking along those lines?
The problem is, that left to our own devices, we have a tendency of making a hash out of our lives. Now, the average born again atheist would take issue with that. The average born again atheist out there is thinking to themselves – here they go again these religious nutters, telling us that we’re no good. Telling us that we can’t make it on our own.
And to be completely honest with you – that’s how I used to think. I thought of myself as smart and successful and I was driven to work hard and to achieve.
So the message of “repent” … which I guess most people associate with turning away from sin (boy there’s another incredibly unpopular concept these days) … that message was not something I was ready to hear. How about you?
We’re smack bang in the middle of a series of messages at the moment called “Overboard with Jesus”. It’s kind of based around that pretty well known story of Peter getting out of the boat on the Sea of Tiberius in the middle of a storm:
Matthew 14:22–33: Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Pretty remarkable story – and I love Peter’s heart. So intent was He on following Jesus that He was prepared to follow Him out of the boat, onto the water, in the middle of a deadly, raging storm. And with all my heart I believe that that’s the sort of follower that Jesus is looking for today. Not a lukewarm, mamby–pamby, pew–warming, middle of the road, my life doesn’t count for much type of Christian. But someone who’s prepared to get out of the boat, in the storm, even though they may sink – to follow Jesus wherever He may lead.
Someone who’s prepared to be all in, full on for Jesus. And today and for the rest of this week / and this week and next on the program, I want to chat about a few practical, real ways that we can do that – be all in, be full on for Christ. The first way is in this area of repentance.

I remember someone once saying to me “oh, you’re not one of those ‘born again’ Christians are you?” The tone in her voice said it all. I was driving a car at the time, so I couldn’t turn to look her in the eye. I just smiled and replied “Well, actually, that’s the only sort of Christian there is!”
 
WHEN THE STORM BLOWS IN As societies around the world become more and more secular, they’re inventing more and more stereotypes to marginalise Christians. You see, and I can tell you this first hand, if you don’t believe in Jesus, the message of Christianity makes you feel incredibly uncomfortable. Why? Because whether you realise it or not – and at the time I didn’t realise it – deep down, there’s something in your makeup that knows that these Christians are right.
Man you Christians used to offend me. And annoy me. And make me squirm. So I did what any self respecting atheist would do, I lashed out at you. I persecuted you. It’s why today, I so relate to the Apostle Paul, who as a Pharisee, did exactly the same.
With the same sneer in their voice, people these days use terms like “evangelical Christians”, “conservative Christians”, “hardliners”, “fundamentalists” to paint a picture of what Jesus said, what I with all my heart believe, as being wholly undesirable and unreasonable and irrelevant and downright dangerous.
Never mind that any half decent legal system, any half decent system of justice around the world, is modelled on the Word of God. There are some countries where it’s not, and those countries are inevitably brutal and unjust. Not the sorts of places you and I would want to live in. Nevertheless, as people in democracies exercise their freedom of speech, many do so, to marginalise the very faith and belief system that gave them this freedom in the first place.
So what happens, is that many Christians withdraw back into their shells. They stop living out their faith because they feel marginalised. Persecution can do that, especially if you love the comfortable lifestyle. Why don’t I just blend in with the rest – perhaps then no one will notice me.
Then the storm hits – it blows, the boat you’re in is pitching and you think to yourself – how will I ever survive this?! Do you see how many good reasons there are to just sit there, and pretend that you’re not really a Jesus follower?! Whether it’s the subtle marginalisation of an increasingly secular society that stops you from living out and speaking out your faith, or whether it’s the excuse of some great and mighty storm that seems to be sweeping through your life, there is an endless array of excuses not to live your life full on for Jesus.
I guess by now, with me talking about a storm, you might have a sense of which passage of scripture I’m heading towards … so let’s take a look already:
Matt 14:22–33: Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. A

Have you ever had a lukewarm cup of tea? There’s simply nothing worse, so imagine … I mean, just imagine … what a lukewarm Christian feels like to the God who sent His Son to suffer and die for you and me. Just imagine.
 
DON’T BE A LUKEWARM CHRISTIAN One of the things that hits me between the eyes over and over again is how honest and direct God is. That may sound a little odd. I mean, you’d kind of expect God to be honest and you’d expect Him to be direct, I guess, but one of the habits I established over a couple of decades ago now is to spend some time in God’s Word (the Bible) pretty much each and every morning. Sometimes when I’m travelling or I’m under severe time-pressures it doesn’t quite work out, and on those days the things that I remember from His Word … well, those things sustain me. But to live a life of joy, a life that’s full and fulfilling, let me tell you there is simply no substitute for listening to God speak; seriously, and that’s what reading the Bible is all about: Listening to God speaking to us.
Just this morning, around 3:15 am it was, before I sat down at my desk to prepare this message, I was in God’s Word. Psalm 32 is where I was up to, and the sheer power of what God had to say just blew me away. We’re going to chat about that particular Psalm later on in this series of messages, but right now, I want to head off to the other end of the Bible – the book of Revelation, where Jesus is talking to a church, and He’s talking to them about being lukewarm. Have a listen. Revelation 3:14-22:
“And to the angel of the church of Laodicea, write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation: I know your works; you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were either hot or cold, so because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
For you say, “I am rich; I have prospered and I need nothing.” You don’t realise that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white robes to clothe you and keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love; be earnest, therefore, and repent.
Listen, I am standing at the door knocking. If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with Me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with Me on My throne, just as I Myself conquered and sat down with My Father on His throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
To be perfectly honest with you, I’ve been to many churches like the one in Laodicea. I’ve met many people who call themselves Christians, who would have fitted comfortably into a pew in that church. That lukewarm cup of tea I mentioned earlier … You know what that’s like. You take one sip and you just want to spit it out. Right? Hot, sure; that’s nice. Cold – well, you know, ice tea is a very refreshing drink. But lukewarm? Puke! Right? What a vivid picture, and to the lukewarm Christian, that’s exactly what Jesus is saying here.
Like I said, God is really honest and direct on the things that count. Sometimes you hear preachers trying to … I don’t know … soften the blow; put a better spin on the message; try to make sure that people don’t feel too uncomfortable with what Jesus is saying. I mean, what spin merchant these days would let Jesus get out there and say, “If you want to be My disciple, take up your cross every day and follow Me because if you want to save your life, you’re going to lose it, but if you’re prepared to lose it all for Me, you’ll find it?”
It’s not a particularly popular message, but then Jesus … well, Jesus is a straight shooter. He knows that on the really important things in life, and this whole hot-cold-lu

One of the hardest things in life is to bring a difficult issue to a head in a relationship that really matters to us. So how do you speak the truth in love?
 
Giving the Hard Advice I’d like to share a story with you as we open the program today. A few years ago I was working as a consultant in the Information Technology Industry and I was called into an organisation to do a review of how they were doing their whole IT function. And I had to go to the Chief Executive Officer of this fairly high profile organisation and give him some bad news.
To say, “look, you’re performance in this area is really poor. Your organisation is at very significant risk, and by the way, I think you actually need to remove this particular senior manager from the job that they’re doing in Information Technology.” It involves substantial reforms, affecting the livelihood of a good many people to improve the whole IT function in this particular organisation, and it was a review that I conducted that was born out of conflicting views in the organisation, so my job was to give them the hard advice.
It was difficult; it was painful for the organisation to accept and I guess, over the twenty or so years that I’ve been involved in that sort of work, eighty percent of what I did was to give hard advice. Sometimes organisations didn’t listen, I remember one organisation that didn’t listen to the advice that I gave and it ended up costing them over eighteen million to fix it.
Sometimes they’re not just ready to receive the advice and sometimes, not very often though, they’re eager to accept the hard advice because things are so bad they need to change. I’m convinced that in a professional role like that, giving the hard advice is absolutely the right thing to do because sometimes issues have to be confronted in order for them to be resolved. Let me say that again, sometimes issues have to be confronted in order for them to be resolved.
I guess I’m a peace loving sort of individual and really I’d rather sweep things under the carpet - I’d rather not have to confront issues but sometimes we do and it’s the same in personal relationships, in our personal lives. We people have the most amazing ability to hurt one another, don’t we? You just look at the news at night on television or look in our personal lives. People hurt people. How do we deal with that? How do we function in situations that are deeply hurtful? Do we just maintain the peace? Do we confront the person? When do we confront them? How do we deal with the issue with them? Why do we confront them?
This program is the last in the series of four messages called, 'Dealing with Difficult People'. Three weeks ago we began with a parable that Jesus told about the speck in your eye and the plank in my eye. And we looked at the fact that so often we’re a bit hypocritical in our motives. We go to other people and say, "you’ve got this wrong with you.” When there’s something much bigger wrong with us that we need to deal with first and ultimately, because I am with me 24/7 and you are with you 24/7, I’m the most difficult person I’ll ever meet and you are the most difficult person that you’ll ever meet. That was the first program.
The second one we looked at what do we do when we are 'Under Fire from the Enemy'. When we’re suffering for doing what’s right. We looked at First Peter chapter 3 verses 8 to 18 and we saw that it is better to suffer for doing good (if suffering is God’s will) than for doing evil. That’s a tough message. That’s not easy for us to come to grips with, but it’s important for us to understand that sometimes it is God’s will that we should suffer for doing what’s right and when we come to grips with that - when Jesus is in that place with us and we know it, gee, it’s so much easier to deal with.
And then last week we saw that ‘We can Pick our Friends but we can’t Pick our Relatives’. And we looked at First

No doubt you’ve heard the saying – you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives.  So – what do you do, when the people you’re closest to turn out to be amongst the most difficult to deal with?
 
We’re All Different The first thing we notice when we look around at other people is that we are all different, aren‘t we? In a room of just ten people, even if two people are identical twins, we look around and we are all different. Even identical twins grow up emotionally quite different and they have different finger prints. So those differences are wonderful. That means you can do things that I can’t do and I can do things that you can’t do.
But sometimes those differences can really grate on us. You know, Jacqui, my wife, and I are really quite different. We can be lying in bed at night and I’ve got the ceiling fan on and she’s got her electric blanket on. And when we get close to people, those differences, well, you know, they can grate a little bit if we allow them to.
My strengths have a flip side to the coin, they have weaknesses underneath, and your strengths - the things that you are particularly good at, well, there’s a flip side to those. The under side of those can sometimes rub other people the wrong way. We all are a bundle (as I like to say) of strengths and weaknesses. Our own blubbering mass, if you like, of really good things we can do and the things where we aren’t so strong, where maybe we fall short. And in the daily grind, in the pressures and the conflict, those different personality types are hard to deal with.
The psychologists say there are kind of four personality types - the sanguine, the bubbly, fun loving type - the choleric, the organised, decision maker - the melancholic, the temperamental, creative - and the phlegmatic, the peace loving, kind of ‘hippy’ - and you and I, we’re all kind of a blend of one or two of those, I guess.
That’s ok, because people that are at a distance, that’s not so hard to deal with, but let’s look across our families at the moment - our immediate families and our extended families and what we know is, those differences in a family situation - in our homes, in the places we go to rest and relax and recuperate and be recharged - in those places, those differences can be painful and annoying. You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your relatives.|
Even husband and wife, as they get to know each other - I mean, of course, we can pick our husbands and wives but once we get to know each others weaknesses, once the relationship develops and the marriage goes on for a few years, it’s easy to get to the point and say, “oh, why did I pick her, or why did I pick him?” Is anyone compatible really? We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all know we’ve got mistakes, we all know we’ve got rough under-bellies that, you know, don’t quite measure up.
We are in the middle of a series called, ‘Dealing with Difficult People’ and today we are going to look at dealing with the difficult people in our families - the people who are closest to us.
The Bible says we should love people, the question is: How? How do we love people? It’s not enough to know that we should love difficult people in our families but it’s important to know how to love those difficult people, because how we love them will make a huge difference to our lives and in fact, the lives of all of those people who are close to us. And I guess I talk not only about our family, but people whom we work closely with. The ones that are really close to us are the ones - well, we can hurt them the most and they can hurt us the most. The more important that person is to us, the more they can hurt us because we open ourselves up; we expose ourselves.
So I like to start reading in First Peter, which is right towards the end of the New Testament - First Peter chapter 2 beginning at verse 18, right through to chapter 3.
You, who are

We all have some difficult people in our lives. You do. I do. So how do you deal with them – especially when you’re under fire from the enemy?
 
It’s Easy to Fight Wars I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but dealing with people, sometimes difficult people, is a big part of life, at home, at work, socially. And conflict can take its toll. Sometimes we feel as though we’re under pressure - as though we’re under fire, maybe through circumstances, maybe through what other people are doing - and right in the middle of that difficult space, we still have to deal with those difficult people, under fire. And in one of those perverse twists of life, in a sense there’s meaning in conflict; in a sense there’s meaning and dignity when we sacrifice in the midst of a conflict.
Most nations, my own, Australia and in fact, New Zealand, celebrate the sacrifice of their soldiers during war. In Australia it’s called ANZAC Day - the Australia New Zealand Army Corp and increasingly, that celebration is growing.
About twenty or thirty years ago people said, “oh it’s all war mongering and it’s all about this and that and it’s going to die and we can’t possibly continue celebrating war. And it’s funny, but we celebrate a day, in ANZAC Day, which is a day of great defeat. It remembers - maybe celebrates is the wrong word - it remembers that eighteen and a half thousand Australian soldiers were wounded or missing and seven and a half thousand were killed. Five thousand New Zealanders wounded and missing, two and a half thousand killed in this Gallipoli campaign in World War One which was such an enormous disaster.
And social commentators are saying, “look, the reason that these celebrations, right around the world, the reason that these sorts of days are being remembered, right around the world, where we are looking at our soldiers who were lost in battle, is that - well it’s not about war any more, it used to be about the glorification of war - but today it’s about sacrifice and hope. It’s all about the triumph of the spirit not about the victory in the battle.
These sorts of days, where we remember fallen soldiers, say with a voice that grows louder each year that we expect to find something good to happen, that we are still capable of becoming the kind of society that would justify the sacrifice of those who thought we were worth fighting for. In other words, people today are looking back on the sacrifice of the soldiers of their countries and saying, “You know, there’s meaning in that sacrifice, you know there’s humility, there’s giving, there’s something spiritual when these men under fire, were prepared to sacrifice their lives for me.”
There’s a large shopping centre near where I live, quite a new one - very ritzy, glitzy, you know - enormous, expensive clothes. And you see people milling around in that shopping centre, day after day, week after week, and that whole shopping centre - mall, shopping thing - is like an icon of our time. Yet as ritzy and glitzy as it is, it doesn’t have meaning and people are looking for meaning and it seems that in celebrations, like ANZAC Day, they’re finding that spiritual flame - that cenotaph, that bugle, that cool morning air, that shrine, that spiritual experience - people are finding meaning in sacrifice.
Now you might ask, “why don’t they find that in Jesus? Why don’t they find that in church?" And you look at the public media image of the church, with this denomination fighting that denomination and the systematic cover-up of child abuse and Christians who don’t look any different, actually, from the rest of the world. The salt, at least in its public image, has lost its flavour. The light has stopped shinning when people look at what Christianity is through the media. And let’s face it, we construct much of our reality about life through what we see in the media - it may not be fair, but that’s the perception. So I can’t ima