Christianityworks Official Podcast

Berni Dymet

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Christianity
Weekly

There is such incredible power in God's Word! Power to change. Power to make an impact in this world. That's what Christianityworks is all about – in depth teaching straight out of God's Word. Join Berni Dymet as he opens God's Word to discover what God has to say into your life, today.

1d ago

A Complete Turnaround // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 1

We all want to be blessed. Sure we do – problem is, sometimes we have a bad sense of direction. We expect all the blessings to flow in one direction – inwards, to us. Hmm. That's not how it works. Asset or Liability The other day on twitter, I picked up this quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK (not sure if I've pronounced his surname correctly there) anyhow this quote really caught my eye. This is what he said: You are either a blessing or a burden; an asset or a liability; a problem solver or a problem. Your choice! I started going through all the people I know, people I've worked with, friends, colleagues and you know something, it was really easy to categorise them either on one side of that ledger or the other. Let's stick with the accounting metaphor. They're either an Asset or Liability? Hmm … I'm imagining that if you went through the same exercise, you'd find exactly the same thing. Of course, nobody is a complete liability, nor is anyone perfect. I mean, none of us are. We all contribute to some extent, and we all drain to some extent as well. That's because firstly, none of us is perfect and secondly, we're all good at different things. But even taking all those things into consideration, on balance, weighing all their pros and cons – some people overall are an asset, others are liability. Some are a blessing, others are a burden. Some are problem solvers, and some are, plain and simple, part of the problem! So then … then I began to imagine a world in which more of us become assets than liabilities. In which more of us become more of a blessing than a burden. Just imagine how different this world would be if that started to happen. You and I aren't necessarily in a position to change the world. We can't change every one of the 7-point-something billion people on the planet. Hey, we can't even change our wives or our husbands or our children. But there is one person we can change. Ourselves. You can change you. I can change me. I wonder if you consider yourself for a moment, on balance – are you a blessing or a burden? An asset or a liability? A problem solver … or a problem? We have to be kind of careful in answering that question. Because if the truth be known, we're a lot more generous in judging ourselves, than we are in judging other people. We're pretty good at rationalising our weaknesses, our failures and our blind spots. We trivialise them. We sweep the under the carpet. So if I asked those close to you – your family members, your work colleagues – whether you are on this side of the ledger or that, how would they answer? The Apostle Paul was sitting on death row in a Roman dungeon when he wrote a letter to his friends in a place called Philippi. This is one of the things he said to them. Philippians Chapter 2 verses 3 and 4: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. This is an encouragement, to be a blessing instead of a burden. If we're expecting everybody to do things for us, to look out for our interests, to meet our needs, and yet we don't do the same for them – because all we care about is our interests and not them … well, you know what you call that, that's being a hypocrite. This thing – call it what you will, selfishness, self–centeredness, whatever – there's some of that in each one of us. See how Paul starts out, he says to his friends, and to you and me – do nothing, nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Imagine a sea, a land locked sea like the Dead Sea for instance, where all the rivers flow in, but none of them flow out. That's exactly what happens with the Dead Sea. The only way the water gets out is through evaporation by the heat of the sun. And the reason it's called the Dead Sea is because there's so much salt in it because all the water flows in and never out, that nothing, not a single organism pretty much – can live in its water. It's a Dead Sea. Our selfishness is like the Dead Sea. We want everything to flow inward towards us, we want others to be a blessing to us, we want circumstances to favour us, we want, we want, we want … It's all about the direction of the flow of the blessing. Many a man's life, many a woman's life, writes a man S.D Gordon a few hundred years ago, is like the circumference of that Dead Sea. When everything flows inwards … it becomes dead. And by experience you and I know that that's true. Hey, I'm someone who spent the first half of his life trying to live that way and I wondered why nothing could ever satisfy me and why I was never truly happy and contented. The Apostle Paul addresses both sides of this equation in that short passage we just read. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but instead … look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. In other words, stop living your life trying to be blessed all the time, and start blessing others. Turn the direction of the flow from inwards, to outwards. Just think about the mentality we have about blessing. Everything flows into me and then I spend the blessing, a bit like the water evaporating out of the Dead Sea. And then what's left is this muck and this salt in which nothing can live. It's the same when we want blessing to flow inwards to us and we spend that blessing, we do whatever we think we should do with it and what's left is this empty dead feeling because that thing that we spent money on, that holiday, whatever it was, just didn't satisfy us. That's why S.D. Gordon said, "Many a man's life and many a women's life is like the circumference of that Dead Sea." Now, as evidence of the fact that what Paul is saying here of looking not to your own interest but to the interest of others actually works, he goes on with the prime example, the most obvious example of all. He goes on in the very next breath to site what Jesus did. I'm reading from the message translation here (Philippians 2:5–11): Think of yourselves the way Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honoured him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honour of God the Father. In other words, the answer is in being a blessing instead of a burden, an asset instead of being a liability, a problem solver, instead of being a problem. It's about a complete, fundamental, 180-degree change in direction from having blessing flowing inward, to, like Jesus, letting the blessing flow outward through us no matter what it may cost us. There's a lot in that, so we're going to spend some more time after the break chatting about that very thing. In the meantime, I'll leave you with that quote again, for you to ponder: You are either a blessing or a burden; an asset or a liability; a problem solver or a problem. Your choice! A Change of Direction It turns out that the direction that we're travelling in really matters. The first time I used a satellite navigation system in a car was one dark, wet and stormy night when I had to drive from London up into the midlands in the UK. It's about a 3-hour drive, give or take. I had absolutely no idea how to get there. But the friendly woman at the hire car place at Heathrow Airport punched my destination address into the Satnav unit in the car. She told me how to use it and off I went. Now the British are pretty clever in this regard. They have rather long postcodes, which define not only the town, but also the street and street number. So all she had to do was to punch the number into the satnav and hey, presto, I was on my way. Great stuff! But about an hour and a half into the trip I started to get really worried. What if she'd punched in just one wrong number? It's the first time I'd driven in England – it was dark, it was wet – I had really no sense of direction, I really didn't know where I was headed. I was relying completely on this satellite navigation. This clever, efficient little unit could well be taking me to a completely different part of the country if the women had punched in the wrong number. I remember when that thought hit me – I had a bit of a panic attack thinking, "what if I end up in completely the opposite side of the country?" So I pulled over, stopped, checked and yep, fortunately that woman at the car hire place had indeed punched the right numbers into the Satnav. When you think about it, we make the choices we make in life, we head in the direction that we head in life, based rather a lot on the way in which we're programmed to function. Our parents, our teachers, our experiences, our own selfishness, capitalism, desires … all those things somehow, little by little, imperceptibly end up putting us on a certain road heading in a certain direction. And when we come to an intersection in life, a roundabout, a fork in the road – we choose, based on … what? Turns out we're a bit like that clever little satnav unit in my car, we choose based on how we've been programmed over the course of our lives thus far. So … what if we've been programmed incorrectly and what if we're heading in the wrong direction? Have you ever thought about that? Well – there's a very obvious consequence if you are headi
Oct 25

Keep On Keeping On // Rekindling the Flame, Part 4

Doesn't matter what our gig is in life, when you choose to use that God–given gift specifically to honour God, to bless other people, one thing's for certain – the going's going to get tough. We're going to hit opposition. And if that goes on for any length of time, the one thing that we really want to do, is just to give up. Keep Shining Over these last few weeks, we have been chatting about rekindling the gift that God has put within each one of us. And you know the exciting thing about that? When we use our gifts – I mean, when we take the things that we have been given in our makeup and put them to work, it is so incredibly satisfying. I know myself, one of the things I really enjoy doing is playing the piano. In my younger years I practised hard all the scales and the arpeggios and sat the exams – practical and theory – but when I moved away from my parents' home I went years – probably twenty years – without playing the piano much at all. Eventually my mother gave me the grand piano we had out in the music room and when it arrived in my home I started playing it again. These days it sits in my study where I pray, where I write my books, where I prepare these radio messages and a few times each day I will go and play for ten minutes or so. It's just such a delight and a joy to be able to do that. Now, that's just one small example, almost trivial. But as we have been chatting about these last few weeks, I know I've been emphasising the fact that our God-given gift is meant to be a blessing to other people. I'm blessed through your gifting; the things that you can do that I can't, and hopefully, you are blessed through mine. That's how it's supposed to work and it does. But there is something so incredibly special about the enjoyment and the fulfilment that we get when we use our gift and we see it impact in other peoples' lives. All my life I was looking for fulfilment in the things that I could get but I didn't realise that fulfilment only really comes when we take what we already have and we give it away when we use it to bless other people. About eighteen months ago a young teenager from a broken home contacted me in response to one of these radio messages that she had heard. She was only thirteen at the time and going through a really terrible time at home. But she also had a hunger for God and so she asked me some questions and I was able to share a few things with her. Within weeks she gave her life to Jesus and she was filled with His Holy Spirit and in the middle of all the bad stuff that happened, she had a joy and an excitement in her that she had never experienced before in her life. While I was praying for her the other day so I sent her a quick email to find out how she was going. She came straight back to me to tell me she was powering on with God; that her whole life had been changed. Now I had just some small part to play in that but the joy and the sense of satisfaction that I gained from knowing that God had used me – me, of all people!! This fifty two year old man who has never met this young teenager, who isn't what you would call, made to be involved in youth ministry. It makes me smile. Does that make sense? It's so easy to forget that we have to use it and when we do, even though it can be really hard work, it is so fulfilling to use the God-given gift that we have. And to emphasise this, the Apostle Paul, who is writing to his young protégé, Timothy, back in the first century, encouraging him to rekindle the gift that God has put in him, has this to say. I'm reading – if you have a Bible – from Second Timothy chapter 4, beginning at verse 1: In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you to proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but they will have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully. As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. And right here, Paul is getting Timothy – and us – focused on the big picture: one day soon Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead. Time is short and because of that, I solemnly urge you to keep telling people about Jesus; irrespective of whether the time appears to be favourable or not. Be persistent; keep telling people; convince them; rebuke; encourage with the utmost patience – whatever it takes. Now, Timothy's gift; the one that he was being called to rekindle was the gift of teaching and preaching as an evangelist. Praise God, not everyone in God's family is a preacher and a teacher. But do you see how this applies equally to each one of us, irrespective of what our particular gifting happens to be? If you are an encourager, it applies equally to you. If you are a giver, it applies to you. If you are a compassionate, pastoral person, this applies to you. There's great joy and satisfaction in exercising our gifts. I mean, look at the satisfaction with which Paul looks back on his life. But what we want to do is to pull up and take a breather when the time appears to be unfavourable. What we want to do is we want to stop using our gift when the going gets tough. And Paul is saying, "No, the time is short. People are dying and they are going to a Christ-less eternity. Jesus is planning on coming back sometime soon to judge the living and the dead. God has put each one of us where He has put us with whatever gift He has given us in order to make a difference in this world for Him; in order to bring people to Jesus; in order to see them growing; for them to realise their giftings and to start using those." And we need to be doing that because, "... the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but they will have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and they will turn away from listening to the truth and they will wander away to myths." Ain't that the truth? It's something we see all the time – people chasing after this and that; people trying to pull alongside so called 'gurus' who tell them what they want to hear. Jesus never told people just what they wanted to hear. Yes, He was often very sensitive to where someone was at and where they were coming from but He didn't dress it up; He didn't put any spin on His message because the truth is the truth. There is a heaven, there is a hell and many, many are heading the wrong direction, however enticing that direction might appear to them right at this moment. Have you ever watched the news and heard some so called "Christian leader" tickling people's ears with the sort of stuff that people want to hear? Just the other evening, I saw a Christian denominational leader standing side by side with a Buddhist Monk, a Jewish leader and leaders of other religions, proclaiming that there was more that binds them together than pulls them apart. Well, maybe that's what the world wants to hear but that's not what Jesus said – that's not the truth. The thing that puts Christianity out there on its own is that it's based on the truth that Jesus is the only way – that no one … NO one will come to the Father except through Him. And this is the reason that we need to continue living out our giftings, each one of us, for the glory of God – to share the truth of Jesus into the lives of people. I know that there are those listening who have turned back; I know that there are those listening who have lost sight of their gifting – their one particular God-given gift – altogether. And today I believe that God is speaking especially to you through His Word. I believe that today God is calling you back to the plans and the purposes that He has for your life. And before you tell me it's all too hard; there is too much weighing in against you, let me tell you this: inevitably, when we have seen amazing breakthroughs in the lives of people, here at Christianityworks – young Ami recently pulled back from the brink of suicide – the time for proclaiming Christ has never been favourable at all. We just went and did it in the face of the opposition and do you know what we discovered? Duh! That God's grace was more than sufficient for us! For some reason, more often than not, that's a surprise to us. More often than not we are so focused on the adversity that we are facing, we lose sight of the fact that God is at work; that "all things are working together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." That's God's grace and it really is sufficient for us! I mean, it really is! Despite God's People You know, there are parts of the Bible that I am prone to skimming over. For instance, the genealogies, they are so long and boring and dry – particularly the one that goes on for pages and pages at the beginning of First Chronicles in the Old Testament. I mean, who has time to read that? But one man did – a guy by the name of Bruce Wilkinson – and he stumbled across the prayer of Jabez; one of the most powerful prayers in the Bible and he wrote what is now one of the most read Christian books on the planet, "The Prayer of Jabez." And that's how it often is with those bits that we would rather just kind of skim over. The in
Oct 18

Rekindling the Flame // Rekindling the Flame, Part 3

It's one thing to have a God–given gift or ability – we all do. It's another thing entirely to use that gift for His glory when we're facing stiff opposition in life. When everybody and everything seems to be against us. Right there in that place is where we want to give up. Rediscovering the Gift Over the past couple of weeks we've been chatting about "Rekindling the Flame"; the passion in our hearts for being about the business that God has left us here on earth for – His business, God's business. Many, many Christians love Jesus, they want to follow Him but they've lost their way. Not so much because they don't love the Lord but because the way they spend their life and their resources and their time isn't what God had intended. What we believe and what we do are meant to be linked. That's why faith without works is dead. What does that mean? It means that if we believe something with all our hearts and yet we fail to live it out with our lives eventually what we believe will start to die. And that's what's happening for many people who set out on this journey of loving God and following Jesus. Their faith has started to die because they've lost focus on what they're meant to be doing. Interesting how that strikes home. Interesting how we sometimes focus on our faith and forget about living it out. And then we wonder why our faith is dwindling, why we feel like a rudderless ship on an ocean being tossed this way and that way. Now can I say that's something that many people go through so this week we're continuing on our journey of "Rekindling the Flame" by opening up the second letter that the wise old Apostle Paul wrote back in the first century to his young protégé Timothy. It seems that young Tim was having the same problem. Timothy was pastoring a Church and as anyone who's ever tried to do that will tell you, that quite simply is not an easy job. And there are two verses in particular that really leapt out for me in what Paul was saying to Timothy. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6. He says: For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that's within you through the laying on of my hands. And then down to verse 14: Guard the good treasure entrusted to you with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. Coming back to this concept that each one of us has been given a special gift or ability by God, it's been handcrafted into our DNA by God Himself and He's done that with a purpose. In Timothy's case that gift was preaching and teaching so I guess I relate really well to what Paul is saying to young Timothy in this letter and clearly Timothy was finding things tough. He was facing quite a bit of opposition from all sorts of people. And when things are tough it's so easy for us to lose focus; it's so easy to forget that God has given us a special gift, that God means for us to exercise and to use that gift, that God's plans and purposes for this world and for the people around us and indeed for you and for me are intricately linked to the exercising of that special gift or ability that He's given each one of us. Is that really true, you might ask? Do I really have a gift and is it really important in the scheme of things? My answer to that is, "Absolutely you do!" and "Absolutely it is!" Today we're going to journey off to somewhere else to another letter of Paul's, indeed his letter to the Roman Church. And I want to share with you this passage that you might find familiar because while I was reading it the other day something leapt off the page for me and into my heart, something that I'd never seen before despite the fact that I've written a whole book that revolves around this particular passage. Have a listen. It begins in Romans chapter 12, verse 4. Paul writes: For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same functions so we who are many are one in the body of Christ and individually we're members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exalter in exaltation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate in cheerfulness. Let love be genuine, hate what's evil, hold fast to what's good, love one another with mutual affection, outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit and serve the Lord. Now what this is all about here is explaining how we, as men and women and children who love Jesus, should live together in a fellowship, in a community of faith. That's how God changes us, that's how God transforms us – in community. But how does that community function? Well quite simply Paul's saying, "Guys we're all different, one of you has been put there by God to speak His will into the community of faith, that's what prophecy is. Another has been put there to minister or to serve, another to teach, another to exalt or encourage, another to give, another to lead, another to show compassion." You look at that list of seven gifts and it's pretty comprehensive, it's the way things are meant to be. But that's not so much the angle that I want to come at this particular passage from today. As I said, I've written a whole book about this to help people locate their particular motivational gifting or as we might call it today their personality type. But will you please notice with me what Paul says that each of the people with each of these different gifts should be doing and we all have at least one of these gifts in our make up. The prophet should do what? Prophecy according to his or her faith. The minister or the server should do what? Minister and serve. The teacher should do what? Teach. The leader should lead diligently, the giver should give generously. The one with compassion should show compassion with cheerfulness. In other words live out your particular gift, do what God made you to do. Do you see that in the text? It's right here in front of us. God is commanding us to live out who He made us to be. Why are so many people unhappy? Well simple, they're trying to be someone else. They're trying to do things they were never made to do. And it's by living out this one particular gift that we've been given that we show genuine love and notice with me how Paul finishes this particular passage off, verse 11: Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit and serve the Lord. Be zealous; be ardent in using your particular gift to serve God. Why are so many of us finding it hard to live out our faith? Why have so many lost the passion? Why has the flame gone out in so many a Christ followers' heart? Because we've stopped living out the gift that God has given us to live out. It's something we all struggle with. Timothy was struggling with it which is why Paul writes to him to remind him, 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 6: Rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands. And friend today God is reminding you, it's time to get back in focus, it's time to get back on purpose because God's plan to bring this lost and hurting world back to Him includes you, it includes me and it includes our gifts, our abilities, Gods plan is to work through the person He's made you to be, to work through the person He's made me to be to share His mighty love with the people in our lives. That my friend is God's plan. In the Face of Opposition I don't know if you've picked this up in life but life ain't always easy! Have you noticed that? We kind of figure to ourselves it should be, at least it should be easier than what it is. And yes there are some great things that happen in life, there really are but there's always something there, some adversity that seemingly takes the shine off things. And I'll tell you what that does to us. It discourages us, it starts to tear away at the hopes and the dreams that we had for our lives. I have a dear friend Keith (and in fact Keith and I have written a book together) and his particular gifting is to be a teacher. Now he's not the sort of teacher that stands up in front of a classroom and lectures, that's not Keith. He's more your life coach. Not a self-appointed franchise-owning life coach like those you find on the internet, but a naturally gifted life coach. People come to him naturally for advice and encouragement and he helps them to understand their own giftings and their abilities to get their lives back on the right track. This is a God-given gift that Keith has and his hopes and his dreams for the rest of his life rests on this foundation of his gifting. It's part of who he is. He understands that, he knows the stuff he's not good at and loves, absolutely loves doing the things that he's good at. Back in the 1980's he had a surfing accident, broke his neck and he was almost killed firstly by the surfing accident and secondly when the rescue helicopter crashed and some days Keith today still suffers terrible migraine headaches, totally debilitating. I phoned him the other day and he sounded like death warmed up. He told me later that he really thought he was going to die that day that the pain was so bad. Here's the thing about Keith, the adversity doesn't distract him from living out that special gift of teaching and encouragement that God has given him. The adversity doesn't rob him of the dreams he has for blessing other people through his God given gift. Do you remember last week we chatted about this whole gifting thing through the Apostle Paul's second letter to his young protégé Timothy who is struggling amidst the adversity of pastoring a growing Church and who was at risk of losing sight of his God-given gift. Why? Well adversity has a way of tearing away at you so let's take a look at the adversity by listening to what Paul writes to Timothy. If you have a Bible grab it. I'm reading here from 2 Timothy chapter 3 beginning at verse 1: You must understand this (writes Paul) that in the last day distr
Oct 11

Staying on Purpose // Rekindling the Flame, Part 2

Most of us have a sense that there's some plan for our lives, some purpose … or at least there's supposed to be. But the easiest thing in the world for us to do is to be drawn off purpose; to find ourselves living a life that deep down, we know wasn't the one that we were meant to be living. A Soldier for Christ I don't know if you have been able to join me last week on the programme but we have been chatting about getting back on purpose. You can always tell a Christ-follower who is struggling because that would be the Christ-follower who has been drawn off purpose. They have become overly reactive to their circumstances, chasing after what the world says is the right thing, rather than persevering through the tough times and doing what God has called them to do. I spent ten years as an officer in the Australian Army and at all levels of leadership, from junior to senior ranks, one of the key principles of war is the selection and maintenance of the aim, in other words – staying on purpose. In other words, knowing which hill it is we are about to capture. And when the bullets start flying and the shells start exploding around you, staying focussed on taking that one hill, which is the reason that we are out here getting shot at in the first place. It turns out that being a Christ-follower – which is what a disciple is – is exactly about the same thing. And there are far too many who have been drawn off purpose and so have ceased following Jesus. Now, that may seem a little harsh and direct, so humour me and let me unpack that with you. We are taking another look this week at the Apostle Paul's second letter to his young protégé, Timothy, because it's a letter all about maintaining our sense of purpose and focus, remembering what we are here for – despite the bullets that are flying around and the shells that are going off around us, despite our circumstances – be they a mundane grind, be they a challenge or be they wonderful. Whatever our circumstances are, the easiest thing to do, especially when the going gets tough, is to lose our sense of the purpose for which God made us – what our gift is. And so Paul who himself is chained up in prison, counsels Timothy through that. The two verses that stick out for me are these. Second Timothy chapter 1, verse 6: For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God which is within you through the laying on of my hands. And verse 14: Guard the good treasure entrusted to you with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. As I said, it's the easiest thing in the world to forget the gift that God has placed within us – that one thing that you love doing; that one thing that you are better at than just about anyone else that you know – and to have the treasure stolen from us. God didn't give us that gift just to bless us. He entrusted this treasure into our care to be good stewards of it – to use it. But it can be hard to hang onto that gift, that purpose, that treasure when stuff is flying around through the air. So let's pick up what Paul has to say to Timothy about this very thing. Second Timothy chapter 2, beginning at verse 1: You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. Remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, a descendant of David – that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself. See, whenever suffering comes, our first instinct is to compare that against what the world says equals success and figure, "Well, I must be failing God somehow." When we are hurting, we forget that over and over and over again, God's Word promises that we will suffer, that we will face trials, that He will discipline us. So Paul, on the very premise of that suffering uses three powerful, simple analogies about staying focused on our gifting and our purpose through the suffering. The first is the soldier who doesn't get entangled in the day to day affairs of this world but who instead stays focused on what the enlisting officer wants him to do. The second is the athlete who can't win the prize unless he actually competes according to the rules. And the third is the farmer who does the word who is then entitled to his first share of the reward. In each case it's the same thing: it's about staying focussed on the end game – through the suffering and the battle and the hard work and the training and the ploughing and the planting, in order to be who we were meant to be; to do what we were meant to do and ultimately, to reap the reward of having stayed the distance. Do you see the heavenly perspective – the eternal dimension? Paul is helping Timothy to take a step back and to see the bigger picture because when we are suffering our eyes are cast down to focus on the immediate. And then Paul goes on to speak of the power of that endurance – the powerful outcome in bringing people to God and ultimately, being accepted into the Kingdom of God with eternal life through Jesus Christ. Time and time again I see people giving up because it's tough. I see people pulled off purpose because it's all gotten just too hard. And the picture that the Lord has given me is when I am following Jesus down that dusty road, sometimes it's a lonely road – when it gets hard and I see other people pulling off to the left or to the right, parking on the side of the road, even turning around and turning back, I should keep going, following Jesus, even if I am completely alone, save for His presence. The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure with him, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful – for he cannot deny himself. Let me encourage you to take God's Word into your heart today. If it's all too hard; if every fibre of your being is screaming at you, saying, "Stop, turn back, give up, don't keep following Jesus. It's too hard; it's hurts too much …" You know what I am talking about! Take heart here from Paul's counsel: Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier's aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Remember, when Paul wrote this to Timothy, he was sitting in a prison, he was chained up; he was in the worst of all circumstances, he was waiting to be executed and still he says, "Look, forget about your circumstances – don't focus on them – remember what God made you to do."' Rekindle the gift that is within in you through the laying on of my hands. Guard the treasure that has been given to you through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. With everything he is, Paul is saying to Timothy and I believe God is saying to you and me – don't stop, don't give up, keep going and do the things that you know God has called you to do. A Firm Foundation You and I, we manage to find all kinds of ways to … to wander away from that plan and then to miss out on the joy and the fulfilment that lies in God's plans and God's purposes for our lives. And one of the ways that that gift grows cold and the treasure wastes away is that we allow the little foxes into our lives – and it's those little foxes that spoil the vine. Most of us have this idea that there are these really big sins and then there are small sins. The big sins are like sexual immorality, adultery, murder, theft – they are up there on our hierarchy as being amongst the real "biggies". But a bit of anger, or some arguing, or maybe this idea or that idea we get into our heads that doesn't quite fit with God's Word – hey, we all have that. They are the little sins. And as long as we keep away from the big ones, hey, who cares about the little ones? We may not ever have quite put it in those terms, but that's how most of us think and operate. But let me say this: the Bible knows nothing of this human hierarchy of sin. To God, sin is sin – it's missing the mark, it's missing the point for our lives. Now we can miss by a little way, or we can miss by a long way – but missing is missing, right? And so as Paul counsels Timothy about rekindling his gift and staying focussed on the purposes that God has set before him, he actually takes some time to deal with sins, many of which appear to be the little ones. Let's have a listen. Second Timothy chapter 2, beginning at verse 14: "Remind them of this," he says to Timothy, "and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are
Oct 4

The Gift that Lies Within You // Rekindling the Flame, Part 1

God has a plan for our lives – he made us in a certain way, He gave us the gifts to do certain things, and He has already prepared those things for us to do. Problem is, amidst the day-to-day grind of life … it's so easy to lose sight of all that. And when we lose sight of it … we inevitably lose our way. A Different Perspective It's such a blessing for me to be able to join you again today at the beginning of a new series and I have called this series, "Rekindling the Flame." Because, I don't know about you, but sometimes I get tired. I mean, I love doing what I do – I absolutely love it; wouldn't be caught dead doing anything else rather than what I am doing right now. But even when we love doing what we are doing; even when we are serving God with all out heart, sometimes we get tired; sometimes we get rundown; sometimes so many things around us seem to be going wrong, that – well, we can lose our drive, or our determination or our direction or our sense of purpose in life. Have you ever found that? Just this morning I was sitting praying, feeling as though I was getting close to running on empty and asking the Lord to fill me afresh, which He did. But this reality of being drained by life, by service, by all the things that we go through, is the reality that pops up again and again for most of us. Have you noticed that? So that's why we are going to spend the next few weeks together in God's Word, letting Him speak to us; letting Him into the deepest and darkest places in our hearts, to rekindle the flame. And there is no better place to be doing that than the Apostle Paul's second letter to his young protégé, Timothy. So let's have a look at how Paul opens up his letter to young Tim. Tim has served with Paul all over the place – in Ephesus as a courier. They wrote a few letters in the New Testament together. So Paul was obviously Timothy's mentor and as any mentor has for his protégé, Paul had a special place in his heart for Tim. Why is this significant? Well, as you and I spend the next few weeks in this letter, my prayer is that in this fatherly warmth that we discover from Paul to Timothy, we too will experience the fatherly warmth from our Father God, who is speaking to us through Paul's powerful words. So, how does Paul kick off the letter? Second Timothy chapter 1, beginning at verse 1: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my beloved child: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God – whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did – when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I want to remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. What a fabulous start! Remember Paul has been through so much in his life so far. He has been beaten, reviled, he has lost his position and status, he has had murder plots against him, riots, been run out of town, had to flee for his life! Unbelievable stuff!! And he starts with a statement, a feisty statement if you will, that his central purpose in life, to be "... an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus." Why does he do what he does? To bring the life that comes only through faith in Jesus out into the lost and hurting world in which he lives. The easiest thing for us to do when we are travelling through difficult times is to lose our focus. But nowhere … not once in any of his letters do we see Paul do that. He is called by God to be an Apostle; one sent out to do the will and the work of God. As we are going to come to see, this whole tension between the trials and temptations and tribulations that we go through on the one hand, and the call of God in our lives on the other can throw us completely off course. That as it turns out, is what this letter to Timothy is all about. Because Paul wants something special for Timothy; his young protégé – there's a special place in Paul's heart for young Timothy. He wants a special blessing for this young man: To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. You see that? Paul wants Timothy to experience grace and mercy and peace from God and this letter is all about showing him how. Paul has been praying for him, even though he himself has been going through some really, really difficult times. Paul recalls the tough times they have been through in Christ's service together … the tears. And now he takes the opportunity to get Timothy focused on his purpose; focused on his mission. Rick Warren of Saddleback church in the U.S. is perhaps best known for his book and teaching series "The Purpose Driven Life". But this isn't something Rick somehow invented in the twenty first century. He discovered it right back here in the first century through Paul and others who wouldn't be shaken from the purpose that God had for their lives. And God has such a purpose, not just for Paul but for Timothy. So Paul reminds him of three things. First: the trouble that God has gone to, to hand a deep and powerful faith down to Timothy: I am reminded of your sincere faith; a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now I am sure, lives in you. When we are going through tough times, we do well to remember what God has already done in our lives. The faith He has placed in our hearts. And secondly, in light of this faith, Paul calls Timothy to do something amazing, verse 6: For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands. Friend, we each have a gift – something that God has given us, which we can do better than just about anyone else that we know. And how easy is it for that gift, that ability, that dream to become obscured by the cares of this world … the sheer grind of living life? You have such a gift; you have such a dream! And when you think about it, back in the first century, rekindling something wasn't that easy. When there were just smouldering embers there, it would require the careful gathering of dry kindling, placing it carefully over the few remaining embers; fanning the flame, seeing it catch to the kindling, placing larger pieces of wood on to it and then even larger, before it again became a raging fire. That's what Paul is talking about; that's what Paul is telling Timothy to do. This is what I believe God is calling us to do. Is it scary? Yes, sure it is. Is it difficult? Well, probably. We can only gather here, because of what Paul is saying, that Timothy was at risk of losing his way; at risk of losing the purpose that God had placed on his life. And Paul knows that what he is asking young Tim to do is a big ask. So the very next thing he says to Timothy. First Timothy chapter 1, verse 7: For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self discipline. Friend, over the coming weeks we are going to be chatting about rekindling the flame in your heart. Because I believe that many, many people have been drawn away from the purposes of God for their lives, by this imposter called "success". And I believe with all that I am, that God doesn't want us to waste our lives. He wants us to fulfil the destiny that He set out for us before any of our days as yet existed. Don't be Ashamed It never ceases to amaze me how different God's plan for success is, from the world's plan for success. I mean, you and I, we know the world's plan all too well. We have it shoved into our faces and dangled under our noses at least a hundred times each day. You are successful if you're beautiful, if you are wealthy, if you have power and position, if you have a big house or a new shiny car – that's when you are successful. Just recently I visited Perth, the capital city of Western Australia, for only the second time in my life. And a good friend of mine, Ben, drove me around to show me the sights. One of the places he took me to was billionaire's row – a few streets with some of the most expensive houses in the country. Now they were lovely houses but they were absolutely massive. They were built to make a statement. "Look at me; look at what I can afford." And this image, this model of success is what we have dangled under our noses so many times each day that, well, it's very easy to start believing it. And that's where we can get our wires crossed; that's where we can start equating the blessing and favour of God with what the world says makes you successful. So then, when things aren't going so well in our lives; when we are travelling through trials and temptations and sometimes even torment, we can so easily come to the conclusion that, obviously, we must have failed God – obviously He is not pleased with us. Obviously I'm on the wrong path or in the wrong place. Obviously, right? So instead of pursuing that one gift that God has placed within us; that one call on our lives to go and to be what God made us to be and what God made us to do, it's so easy to be ashamed of that failure. I remember when I decided to toss in my rather lucrative career as an International IT and Management Consultant, to go into this full time ministry, one of my colleagues joked with me that I was pursuing a career of genteel poverty. It's so easy to be ashamed when we are trying to live out our lives for God and things don't seem to be conforming to the world's ideas of success, to be pulled off c
Sep 27

Laying Hold of Your New Life // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 4

Jesus talked rather a lot about slavery on the one hand, and freedom on the other. If you're a slave, freedom is a big deal. Now He was talking to you and me – still is. Because this whole freedom thing isn't a theory lesson, He wants us to live it. Freedom! Free At Last Now, I want to share something with you today. Yours truly, I have to tell you, I am not stupid. I might be short and slightly dumpy; I may have more grey hair than that of the original colour; it may be that I can't draw a picture for nuts; there are lots of things I can't do; lots of things I'm not great at and lots of things I'm just not. But God has blessed me with a pretty nimble mind, so I'm not stupid. Now the point of me telling you that is not to boast. The point is: even though I am a bit of a bright spark, I spent the first thirty six years of my life in slavery. And here's the thing: I never realised it! That's the point. We can be as smart as smart can be; we can be as clever as clever can be on the one hand, but completely miss the whole point of life, on the other. Do you get it? I mean, I kind of realised that something wasn't quite right. I kind of realised that I didn't have the joy and contentment in life that I was so looking for in everything I tried. But I simply had no idea that the reason for that was because I was a slave … a slave to self; a slave to sin. Now, this idea of slavery may seem a little harsh or extreme. It may seem that I am somewhat overstating the case when I say that I was a slave to sin. After all, slavery is a brutal thing. Let's just stop and think for a moment what it means to be a slave. A slave is someone who has no rights. His or her master can abuse them; they have to do what their masters tell them to do; they have no freedoms; they can't come and go as they please. And if we look at slavery down through the ages, slaves are the most oppressed of all people. Somehow, innately, we know that men and women and children have been born to be free. It doesn't mean we can do anything we like. Obviously, we need laws but good laws, not oppressive laws. So, human spirit is meant to be free, albeit in the right and proper constraints of the society. So, when someone becomes a slave, it's just wrong. Interesting that the Bible, which was written over a period of a couple of thousand years – the last Books being completed in the First Century AD. The Bible doesn't take issue with slavery – neither does it endorse slavery. It just kind of accepts it as a fact of life. Now, I have some ideas as to why that might be but that's for another time. But God's Word does link sin with the concept of slavery, over and over and over again, in the New Testament especially. Let's have a listen to what Jesus said on this. John chapter 8, beginning a verse 28: So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him." As he was saying these things, many believed. Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?" Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Now this is a really interesting exchange and I can really, really put myself in the shoes of the people who took umbrage with Jesus about this whole slavery thing. Jesus is explaining that in order for people to be saved and have a relationship with God, they had to believe in Him. That's radical! All the other messiahs out there and there were lots of people claiming to be the promised Messiah around Jesus time. They all pointed at this or that or someone else. Jesus pointed at Himself. "Believe in me!" He was directly claiming to be God in the flesh – outrageously radical – which is one of the reasons the religious leaders had Him crucified. But it says here in verse 30 that: "… many believed". But then the bit that people took umbrage with: Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word you truly are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. Now, when someone talks to you and me about freedom these days, the first thing we think about, probably, is not slavery, because most of us aren't slaves. Although I have no doubt that of the millions of people listening to this message around the globe, right now, some in fact, are slaves. Most of us aren't and so if someone comes and talks to us about freedom, slavery is not front of mind. But it was back in the first century because there were lots of slaves. The words about being made free, intentionally pointed to freedom from slavery. People knew what He was talking about and that how it was taken. And this is where the Jews who believed in Him had a problem. They answered Him, "We are descendants of Abraham, we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free"? And that's where Jesus hits them between the eyes. Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household. The son has a place there forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Friend, sin is slavery. Let me say that again: sin is slavery. It is a yoke of oppression. It robs us of freedom and of life. When we are wrapped up in our own selves and in our own selfish desires; when we are trying to get the world to bow down to us, rather than us loving and serving those around us, friend, we lose our lives. And Jesus came to set the captives free – that's why righteousness is so important. Righteousness is the opposite of sin. As we saw last week on the programme, righteousness is not just an attribute of God; it's something that God gives to us as a free gift, when we believe in Jesus. We become the righteousness of God. Now we are going to live life either in sin or in righteousness. We are! It's one or the other and once we have a right standing with God (that's what "righteousness" means); once we have become righteous because we believe in Jesus, we are meant to live that out. It's like the criminal who has served his time in prison and he is released and he steps out of that gate and he either continues in his criminal ways – which many do, and they end up back behind bars which, frankly, has always struck me as sheer lunacy but it shows you how powerful sin is in people's lives – OR following his release, he mends his ways; and he lives out his new life of freedom and gets the benefits of all that. He is not in prison anymore; he can live out his new life. The new man, set free. Well, you and I have been set free if we believe in Jesus, through faith. Question is: how are we going to live that out? The Power of Change Now, blind Freddy can see that being forgiven and having a right standing with God is only part of the equation – it's only the beginning. It's like a prisoner being set free at the end of his sentence. He steps out of the prison gate. It's a huge step, but it's only the first one of the rest of his life of freedom. Freedom is something to be lived out and so it is for anyone who has taken the first step of believing in Jesus: believing what He did for us on that cross; believing that He rose from the dead to give us a new life; believing that He has placed His Holy Spirit inside us so that we can live that new life of freedom. Jesus said this, listen very carefully. John chapter 8, verses 34 to 36: Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." And the Apostle Paul, some decades on, restates it so that we won't miss it. Galatians chapter 5, verse 1: For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. In other words: the reason that we have been set free is in order to be free, to live out our new lives of freedom. For freedom Christ has set us free. God hasn't set us free through this great and mighty act of love – the sacrifice of His Son – in order for us to submit again to the yoke of slavery which sin places on us. He set us free so that we can be free from sin, free indeed! You and I both know – we chatted about this earlier – that a prisoner who has served his sentence, steps out of that prison gate a free man but he can return to his life of crime and many of them do and eventually he finds himself back behind bars. Or we can live out this new life as a free man, a free woman, without breaking the law; without turning against God for the rest of our days. I have never been incarcerated but I'd have thought it would be a horrible thing. I'd have thought that one night, let alone a year or two or twenty would be more than enough to convince anyone not to reoffend. But many, many do and the majority of people in prison today are in fact, re-offenders. Incredible. Mad, you might say. But think about it: it's exactly what many a believer in Christ does. We believe – we take the first step of freedom – we believe in Jesus, but then we go on living just like before, only to discover that this new found freedom in Christ, isn't what it was cracked up to be because we are submitting back to that cruel yoke of slavery which is sin. Now, in part, that is becau
Sep 20

There's the Good News and the Bad News // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 3

You know, for years before I met Jesus, I'd hear Christians rabbiting on about the Good news of Jesus. Give me a break. But it wasn't until I heard the bad news that I realised how fantastic the Good News really is! The Bad News Now depending on whether you enjoy your job or not, Monday is either good news or bad news. And the statistics tells us that around two thirds of people don't enjoy their jobs. That's a tragedy! So for them, for these two thirds – there is every chance that you are one of them – this work thing is a bunch of bad news. Now you and I, we would rather have good news than bad news. I would and I'm sure you would too. And so when it comes to thinking about God, well, that has to be good news, doesn't it? I mean, that's what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. That word "Gospel" literally means, not "truth" as many people think it does, although it is the truth. No, word "Gospel" means "Good News and glad tidings". That's why the angel who spoke to the shepherds on the night of Jesus birth said to them: Don't be afraid; for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David, a saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. Ahaa! There it was! Good News! Hallelujah! But sad to say, before we talk about the good news, which we are going to do later in the programme, first … first we have to talk about the bad news. How many times have we heard that line, "There's good news and there's bad news, which one do you want to hear first – right?" And inevitably, there are two sides to each coin. And if all I ever talked about on this programme was the good news side of God, then yours truly simply would not be doing his job. But as much as sometimes I would rather ignore it, there is a side to God which, quite frankly, is bad news for the likes of thee and me. At least, as first glance that's how it seems and yet, the reality is that without the bad news, the good news wouldn't seem that good at all. It's when we understand the bad news about God that the good news becomes, well, absolutely fantastic news. That's why today we are kicking off with the bad news. So what's Berni rabbiting on about – good news, bad news? Well, we are in the middle of a series called "Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness". It's about the righteousness of God and it's about the blessing that flows in our lives when you and I live out God's righteousness. And we kind of touched on this a little bit, fleetingly, last week. But we are going to pick up on it and really understand it because understanding the bad news about the righteousness of God is absolutely critical in a) making a decision whether we want to accept Jesus as our Saviour or not and, b) living out His righteousness and experiencing the blessing of that. So what's the bad news? Well, the bad news is that God is righteous. What's this righteousness all about? Well, God is completely, absolutely and utterly free from the scourge of humanity which is sin. There is nothing "wrong" in God. There is nothing impure or unholy or deficient or horrible about God. He is one thousand percent; one million percent righteous, from beginning to end; from eternity to eternity. And the only reason that this is bad news is that you and I aren't! You know that about you and I know that about me – we are nothing like that. We are often selfish and proud and angry and rude. The list goes on. And whilst perhaps, you have been walking with God for a while now and perhaps a lot has changed in your life, some of that muck is still around, right? It's like that classic little prayer that goes something like this: Dear Lord, So far today, I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, haven't lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over indulgent. I'm very thankful for that. But in just a few minutes, God, I'm going to be getting out of bed. And from then on, I'm probably going to need a lot more help. So, as the Apostle Paul writes: We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans chapter 3, verse 23. And the consequences of this sin – this is Romans chapter 6, verse 23: The wages of sin is death. Now, that seems a little harsh, until we get back to the bad news – God is righteous and we aren't. There is nothing in God that is wrong and so His standard, quite simply, is perfection. Now as I was coming to grips with that, early on in my walk with Jesus, the question that I had to resolve in my mind was: well, isn't this just a tad unreasonable? I mean, when I was a child, I made mistakes; I wronged my parents. In fact, I did that over and over and over again, but they didn't take me out the back and shoot me. They might have felt like it and sometimes I was punished but they didn't kick me out of the house or do anything drastic like that. They suffered through my immaturities as parents are meant to do for their children so that the kids can grow up and mature and become responsible adults. That's what parents do so, if God is God the Father, what's with this "the wages of sin is death" thing? I mean, isn't it unreasonable? The original Greek word used in the New Testament for this word "righteousness" had its roots in the concept and the notion of "justice". God is a just God; there are no favourites; there is no partiality. And pretty much none of us would want to argue with that. That's as it should be because injustice is wrong. Often times when a criminal is handed a light sentence by the courts for something that we consider should have attracted a much harsher penalty, well, you and I are incensed. Why, because we are mean? No! It's because one of the things that God has handed on to us is His sense of justice. It's part of our DNA. And so God is a just God. It would be something of a disaster if He wasn't – right? And that's the bad news: break the law, get caught. You have to pay the penalty. And in the case of God, because He is pure and He is just and holy and completely righteous, that standard is way, way beyond anything that any human being can attain. I haven't lived a perfect life and nor have you. The only One who has is Jesus, God's own Son. And so the bad news is that you and I fall short of the glory of God and there is an eternal penalty for our rebellion. There is a price to be paid. Hebrews chapter 10: For if we wilfully persist in sin, having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgement and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So there it is: that's the bad news and it's very, very bad news. Eternity is, after all, a very long time. "The wages of sin is death" – Romans chapter 6, verse 23 – but that's only half the verse and it's only half of the story. The second half of the verse goes like this: But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. And that is the good news that we are going to be talking about soon. Friend, we don't want to think too much about the fact that sin has a penalty but if we stop and think about it now, we know that our sin has penalties and consequences in our lives today. I know that if I am angry all the time, it is going to ruin my relationships and rob me of peace and joy – it will rob me of a great life. I know that! And as much as our sin has its out-workings and consequences, here in this life – short term, medium term – it also has consequences long term. It definitely has consequences on that day that you and I stand before God and have to give an account of our lives. In a parable that Jesus told, this is what happened to a man who approached God in an unworthy state – Matthew chapter 22, verse 13: The king said to his attendants, "Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And it's the terror of this bad news that makes the good news so fantastically good. For the wages of sin are death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Good News Let me ask you a question: how are you doing this fine day? The one thing I know, with frankly millions of people listening to this same message this week, in one hundred and sixty countries around the globe, is that there is going to be a myriad of answers and responses to that question – how are you doing this fine day? Some people are on top of the world, others are in the absolute depths of despair. And between those two extremes there is every shade of grey, right? And wherever we are, some good news would sure go down well: some good news to shine some light into a dark place; some good news to just brighten a mundane day; and even when we are in the middle of a fantastic patch in life, some good news to put it all into perspective. Well, right now we are going to take a look at the good news. As we spend this time together, we are not just going share in some good news, we are going to roll in it; we are going to revel in it; we are going to delight in it because the good news that I am talking about isn't some cliché; it's not some transient spin. This good news is meant to make a difference in our lives, a real difference, in fact a world of difference, an eternal difference. As I said earlier, when it comes to God, there's good news and there's bad news. We are in the middle of a series right now of messages that I have called "Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness", because when we live out the goodness and the holiness and the wonderfulness; the righteousness of God, there's a huge harvest of blessing in that. Not only the sort of blessing always that the world tells us we should have, you know – healthy, wealthy and wise, but a depth of reward, a joy, a peace as we live out the righteousness of God in our own lives. Bad news though, is that we all have sin
Sep 13

It's All About the Harvest // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 2

God's Word talks about the harvest of righteousness – and if you've ever lived in a farming community you'll know that harvest time is a time of huge celebration. So this harvest of righteousness – it's not just empty words, it's a big deal. The Fruit of Righteousness One of the things that we do in this world – particularly, let me say, in the West – is that we get hooked on junk food. Pretty much, most people need three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some don't get that of course, and others skip meals because they're too busy to eat. And in between meals we like to have little snacks and often the snacks we consume can be our undoing. Instead of healthy snack of a banana or an apple or an orange, we go for the chocolate bar or the doughnut or the packet of chips or something equally unhealthy. Of course, one of those every now and then, no problem but if those are the things that we snack on most of the time, they are going to make us sick and tired, literally. I've done that a few times in my life and each time I have eventually come to my senses and replaced those unhealthy snacks with healthy ones, well, at first it seemed like a real burden to give up the junk food snacks, but within a day or two, here's what happens: 1. What I found is that I rediscover how wonderful fruit tastes: a sweet mandarin, a juicy orange, a crisp apple, a ripe banana. They are fantastic. What a surprise! 2. Within just a few days, I am feeling much healthier: more energy, more alert, a spring in my step. The fruit, as it turns out, is good for us in so many different ways. Last week on the programme we were chatting about reaping the harvest of righteousness and we saw that God's righteousness is two things: it's both bad news and good news. Bad news because He is righteousness and we are not and eventually that brings His wrath crashing down on our heads and good news because He knows that, which is why He sent us Jesus Christ His Son to save us. Now we are going to talk about the bad news and the good news a bit more next week on the programme but right now we are going to look at the fruit, good, healthy, life-giving fruit. As I mentioned just earlier, making the transition from bad eating habits to good eating habits, at the time always seems … well, it feels like we are making a sacrifice, giving up the sweet chocolate bars and the fatty chips. It's never fun making that choice and starting on the journey towards healthy eating. But not only is the fruit really, really nice, it yields fruit in our life. We feel better; we have more energy, right? We know that and it's the same with sin and righteousness. When we are addicted to some sin – we all have one or two sins that we are predisposed to – it seems like such a sacrifice giving them up, it really does, even though they are not good for us; even though they are hurting us. And often times God helps us by sending us through a rough patch; by disappointing us, so that we can learn for ourselves the impact that our sin is having so that we can feel the pain and have the opportunity to let go of the sin and turn back to Him. Have a listen to what the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament has to say about this. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 5. If you have a Bible come there with me. He writes: And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children— 'My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and he chastises every child whom he accepts.' Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline, in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, when we had human parents to discipline us, we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." You know what he is saying? No pain, no gain, right? And in a sense, that's what is going on here. So often, we're travelling through tough times and we don't take the time to read the signs. We squeal in pain, "Oh God, why is this happening to me?" and we don't stop to hear His answer. Often times the reason it's happening because God is at work in our lives and leaving the sin behind is hard, our flesh is addicted to it. It's like a heroin addict leaving the drug behind. It's hard, it hurts. And God lets it happen to us because He loves us; because He knows that the peaceful fruit of righteousness is so worth the effort and the pain. Can we just talk about that fruit for a moment? Can we talk about the harvest; the gain that comes out of the pain? Because it's like the real fruit that I was talking about before – it is fantastic. When we are wallowing around in our sin, well, you know, that affects our lives. Someone who is living constantly in sin of anger is going to have a rotten life, right? Someone who is labouring under the yoke of unforgiveness is going to have a rotten life. Someone who hasn't learned to sacrifice and to love is having unhealthy, tragic relationships. The list of cause and effect goes on! And most times we don't even notice them. We don't stop to think about the sin – the cause – and the effect that it's having on our lives. I use this word "sin" deliberately, as much as it jars with many people because it's what God calls our rebellion. It means literally to "miss the mark; to miss the whole point; to miss out on our share". And that's what we are doing when we are rebelling against God. We are missing out on the goodness, just like when we are stuffing our faces full of unhealthy food, we are missing out on energy and well-being that should be going on in our lives. But when we allow God's discipline – through the difficult and often painful circumstances we are travelling through – be the tool that helps us let go of the sin; the tool that shows us the pain and helps us to the heart decision of letting go and turning back to Him, then here's what's going to happen: just like giving up junk food snacks, it's not going to be a pleasant start. It always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time but the peaceful fruit of righteousness, well, it's kind of like that sense of well-being and vibrancy and energy that we get when we ditch the junk food in favour of the good stuff – the fruit. I just want to encourage you that sometimes the tough patches are God's polishing cloth in our lives. And the sin He's putting His finger on right now is actually ruining our lives. It's robbing you and me of the peaceful fruit of righteousness that He wants us to live in day by day. So we can struggle and squirm and fight God. The problem is, the longer we do that, the longer He will keep us in that uncomfortable place. Or we can go to Him, ask Him to show us what He is doing and let go of that sin quickly. Yes, even though it never seems pleasant at the time, more likely painful and the sooner we get with His plan; the sooner we will be living in the peaceful fruit of righteousness. What do you think? The Harvest of Righteousness I remember when I was in my last year of High School – quite a few years ago now – I travelled to a country town to teach the clarinet at a music camp during the school holidays. And I had the opportunity to stay for a week on a farm. Now, this was a large property and they farmed many thousands of sheep – thousands of them. It was quite an experience for a young guy because I'm a city boy. I had spent all my time growing up in an industrial city so I had never really thought too much about, well, where things come from – milk, after all, came in bottles, eggs come in cartons, meat comes from the butchers and so on. You don't really think too much about it when you live in the city, so spending this week on the sheep farm was the most amazing experience. We had the opportunity to help dip the sheep, so you had to pick them up and throw them down the shoot so they ended up in a trough full of sheep dip – it was back breaking work. And for a lad who had never really thought too much about where lamb chops came from, other than from the butchers, it was a real eye opener. Farming is hard work. Ever since then I have had the greatest respect for farmers. And not only is it hard work but pretty much they only get their income once or twice a year. And that happens when they take what they have grown - whether that be a crop like wheat or sheep or cattle for slaughter or wool for clothing – when they take what they have grown to market. It happens at harvest time. But of course there are many things that can interrupt the harvest: drought, flood, fire, a plague of locusts, diseases in animals. And even when there is a bumper crop, often as a result of the abundance, the prices the farmer gets at market are going to plummet. So it's a tough life and that week on the sheep farm has given me a deep, abiding respect for farmers and their families. But there is something else, another lasting legacy that this week on the farm, as a young lad, has left with me and that's an appreciation of the tough reality of farming on one hand and the sense of jubilation of a successful harvest on the other. See we city slickers hear this word "harvest" and it really doesn't mean too much to us. It kind of washes by. But

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Creator

Berni Dymet
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2020 - 2026
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100
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Clean
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Christianityworks Official Podcast

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Christianityworks Official Podcast

A Complete Turnaround // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 1

Keep On Keeping On // Rekindling the Flame, Part 4

Rekindling the Flame // Rekindling the Flame, Part 3

Staying on Purpose // Rekindling the Flame, Part 2

The Gift that Lies Within You // Rekindling the Flame, Part 1

Laying Hold of Your New Life // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 4

There's the Good News and the Bad News // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 3

It's All About the Harvest // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 2

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Christianityworks Official Podcast

Episodes

A Complete Turnaround // Are You a Blessing or a Burden? Part 1

Keep On Keeping On // Rekindling the Flame, Part 4

Rekindling the Flame // Rekindling the Flame, Part 3

Staying on Purpose // Rekindling the Flame, Part 2

The Gift that Lies Within You // Rekindling the Flame, Part 1

Laying Hold of Your New Life // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 4

There's the Good News and the Bad News // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 3

It's All About the Harvest // Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness, Part 2

Ratings & Reviews

About

Information

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