A Different Perspective Official Podcast

One of the things about God is that He's perfect. Pure, holy, righteousness. They're all words used to describe God.  And whilst ultimately there's a huge amount of Good News around that – the Good News doesn't make sense … until we come to grips with the bad news.  And let me tell you, there's some really bad news there.
It's Monday again, back to work for most of us. And depending on whether or not you enjoy your job, that's either good news or its bad news. The statistics tell us that two thirds of people don't enjoy their job. Isn't that a tragedy. So for two thirds of people, every chance that you're one of them that's bad news.
Now you and I 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 of us think it does, although it is the truth. No, the word 'gospel' means good news, glad tidings. That's why the angel who spoke to the shepherds that night of Jesus' birth said to them, Luke chapter 2 verses 10 & 11:
Don't be afraid, for see I'm 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.
There it is! Good news! Hallelujah! But sad to say, before we talk about the good news, which is what we are going to be talking about tomorrow on the program, first today, we need to talk about the bad news.
How many times have we heard that line, "Well, there's the good news and the bad news, which one do you want to hear first?" And inevitably there are two sides to each coin. And if all I ever did on this program was talk about the good news side of God then I simply wouldn't be doing my job, because as much as sometimes I'd rather ignore bad news, there is a side of God which quite frankly is bad news for the likes thee and me. At least at first glance that's how it seems. And yet the reality is that without the bad news, the good news wouldn't be all that good.
It's when we come to understand the bad news, that the good news becomes absolutely fantastic news. So that's why we're kicking off today with the bad news.
So, what's Berni rabbiting on about? Good news? Bad news? Well, last week we kicked off a series called Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness. It's about the righteousness of God, it's about the blessing that flows in our lives when you and I live out that righteousness. We kind of touch on this a little bit fleetingly last week, but we're going to pick up on it today and really understand it. Because understanding the bad news about the righteousness of God is 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 harvest, 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 and absolutely and utterly free from the scourge of humanity which is sin. There is nothing wrong with God. There is nothing impure or unholy or deficient or horrible about God. God is 1000% righteous from beginning to end; from eternity to eternity. And the only reason that's bad news is that you and I, we aren't.
You and I know that we aren't righteous, we know that about ourselves. We are nothing like that. We're often selfish and proud and angry and rude and … the list goes on and on, doesn't it? And whilst perhaps you've been walking with God for a while now and perhaps a lot's changed in your life, there's still some of that muck around, isn't there?
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 a few minutes, God, I'm going to get 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 2 verse 23. And the consequence of that sin is this Romans chapter 6 verse 23:
The wages of sin is death.
Now that may seem just a little bit harsh until we get back to the bad news. God is righteous and we are not. There's nothing in God that is wrong and so His standard, quite simply is perfection. As I was coming to grips with that early on in my walk with Jesus, the question I had to resolve in my mind was, well, isn't that just a tad unreasonable.
When I was a child, I made mistakes, I wronged my parents, in fact I did it over and over and over again. But they didn't take me out the back and shoot me. Sure, from time to time I was punished. Maybe they felt like shooting me, but they didn't kick me out of the house or 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, that's unreasonable isn't it? The original Greek word used in the New Testament for this word 'righteousness' has it's roots in the concept and the notion of justice. God is a just God. There are no favourites. There is no partiality.
See, often times when a criminal is handed a light sentence for by the courts for something we consider should have attracted a much harsher penalty, well, you and incensed. Why? Is it because we're mean? No. It's because one of the things that God has handed on to us because we're made in His image, He's handed on to us His sense of justice. It's part of who we are. It's part of our DNA and so God is a just God. I mean, you'd be something of a disaster if God wasn't just, wouldn't you?
This is where the bad news is. Break the law, get caught, you pay the penalty. It's bad news. The law in the country is good news, but for the person who has broken the law it's bad news. And the case of God because He is pure and just and holy and completely righteous, that standard is way, way, way beyond anything that any human being can attain.
Now, this is no mistake. God planned it that way. God knew that ultimately we'd rebel against Him. God knew that. It wasn't a surprise to Him when Adam and Eve munched on that apple. It wasn't a surprise to Him when you and I first sinned. 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 that glory of God and there is an eternal penalty for our rebellion. There's a price to pay. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 26,27,31. Have a listen:
For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
No namby pamby about, "It will be right, I'm not that bad. I'll be fine. If there is a God then one day I'll stand before Him." If we continue falling short of God then there is, "… a fearful prospect of judgement and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. It's 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 after all is a very long time. "For the wages of sin is death".
But that's only half the verse, and it's only half the story. Here's the full story:
For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
And that's the good news we're going to talk about tomorrow on the program.

Those of us who live in the city – well, it's easy for us not to understand the importance of a harvest. Harvest time is when farmers reap the benefits of all their hard work. Harvest time is a relief, a blessing, a provision and a celebration.  That's why when God talks about the harvest of righteousness, it's a big deal.
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. I had the opportunity to stay for a week on a farm. Now this was a large property and they farmed sheep – thousands of them.
Now it was quite an experience for a young lad like me. I was a city boy. I spent all my life growing up in an industrial city so I never really thought too much about where everything comes from. Milk came out of bottles, eggs came out of cartons and meat came from the butcher shop and so on. You don't really think so much about it. So spending this week on the sheep farm was just the most amazing experience.
We had the opportunity to help dip the sheep. You had to pick them up and throw them down this shoot so they ended up in a trough full of sheep dip. It was absolutely backbreaking work. And for a lad who had never thought too much about where lamb chops came from (other than the butcher shop) it was a real eye opener. Farming is hard work. Ever since then I've had a great respect for farmers.
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've grown, whether it be a crop like wheat, or sheep or cattle for slaughter or wool for clothing, it's when they take their produce 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 if there's a bumper crop as a result of the abundance the prices at market are depressed so the farmers get less for what they grew.
So it's a tough life. And that week on the sheep farm has given me a deep and abiding respect for farmers and their families. But there's 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 the one hand and the sense of jubilation of the successful harvest on the other.
See, we city slickers hear the word "harvest" and it really doesn't sink in. It doesn't mean too much, it just kind of washes by. But harvest time, it's the culmination of all the farmer's work; it's the time of reaping the reward. A successful harvest brings great joy and a sense of accomplishment and relief and safety and provision, not just for the family and the farmer's family but for the whole community. That's what a harvest. That's what a harvest mean to people who live and work on farms.
So when the Bible talks about "harvest" that's the sense of what's going on. And remember, back in the 1st century there was no welfare or government assistance or anything else. If the harvest failed people starved and it's still like that in many parts of the world today.
So suffice to say, what I'm trying to get across here is the fact that the harvest is a big deal, it's a huge deal. If you life in a rural area you already know that. But it's not something that's necessarily that obvious to us city dwellers. So when the Apostle Paul writes to his dear friends in Philippi about the harvest of righteousness he's saying something big. Have a listen. Philippians chapter 1 beginning at verse 9:
"And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God."
Interesting that he begins his point about a harvest of righteousness with a four letter word – LOVE. His prayer for his dear friends in Philippi was that their love would overflow more and more, because it's in this flood of God's love that works it's way out in our love for one another that we gain knowledge and develop the insight to know what is God's best. And living out His best isn't always the easiest thing to do as we've seen over the course of this week.
Living out God's best requires sacrifice. It hurts a lot at times. But when our heart is soaked in God's love, when our lives are about overflowing more and more of the sacrificial love of Jesus in that place with that humility, with that surrender and sacrifice, we gain the knowledge of God and the insights of God which transform us back into His image which help us live out the righteousness we already have, the right standing we have with Him because of our faith in Jesus who died to pay for our sin and rose again to give us a brand new life, an abundant life. And that friends, that that's the thing. The love of God at work in us that produces … what? … it produces the harvest – big word that – the harvest of righteousness which comes to us through Jesus and brings glory and praise and honour to God.
When Jesus was asked what's the most important commandment of all:
He answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself'. (Luke 10:27)
Love is the most important thing of all. As Paul wrote some years on:
Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:10)
We've been kind of conditioned to believe that love's about romance and feeling good. And sure those are a couple of the aspects of love. But that's not the sort of love that both these passages talk about. The original Greek word for love here is "agape" which means "unconditional love, faithful love that never ever fails"; the sort of love that costs us a lot but appears to deliver very little at the time.
It's the sort of love – and it doesn't matter how talented or gifted we are – if we don't have this sort of love then in God's eyes we're nothing but a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Gifts and abilities and talents without this sacrificial unconditional love are completely worthless. You can read this in 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
I know in my own life there have been times that, well … they've been trying and testing and people have been difficult and unhelpful and hurtful, those times and those places, they never felt good. And yet it's in those times and those places that the Word of God has done its greatest work in me.
I thank God that early on in my walk he established in me a pattern of regular Bible reading because it's in those difficult periods that His Word has done His greatest and mightiest works in my heart. And it's still like that today.
Friends, in the most difficult times of our lives we can experience a harvest of righteousness or as is written in the book of Hebrews, the peaceful fruit of righteousness because as we persist in doing good, in honouring God, in living out the relationship and right standing – the righteousness purchased for us by Jesus as He took our punishment for our sin on His cross – as we live that out we discover God Himself. Jesus said:
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)
And that my friend is exactly what happens. God draws us ever nearer to Himself through the righteousness that He has imparted to us through Jesus and the righteousness that He now brings to life in new lives in Christ. The righteousness we live out as little by little he restores us back into His image through the trials of life. That's the harvest – God Himself! And like every harvest, it's a big deal.

As much as we're all tempted to snack on junk food – fruit is both tasty and healthy. Fruit in fact, makes us feel good. It's the same with sin and righteousness – now there are two words with quite a bit of baggage.  Sin, sin is like the junk food and righteousness – well, it makes you feel good, like … fruit.
One of the things we do in this world, particularly, let me say, in the west, is we get hooked on junk food. Pretty much most people eat three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some don't get that of course. Many in this world don't get that. And others skip meals because they're too busy to eat. And in between meals we like to have a little snack, don't we. And often the snacks we consume can be our undoing.
Instead of healthy snacks like an apple or an orange, we go for the chocolate bar, for the donut, or the packet of chips or something equally unhealthy. Of course one of those every now and then, no problemo, but if those are the things we snack on most of the time, they're going to make us sick and tired. Literally.
I've found that a few times in my life and each time I've eventually come to my senses and replaced those unhealthy snacks with healthy ones. At first it seems like a real burden to give up the junk food snacks, but within a day or two, here's what happens. Firstly what I found is that I rediscover how wonderful fruit tastes: a sweet mandarin a crisp apple, a ripe banana, they taste fantastic! What a surprise. And secondly, in just a few days I'm 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.
Over the course of this week on the program, we've been chatting about reaping the harvest of righteousness. God's righteousness is two things: it's both bad news and good news.
1. Bad news, because He's righteous and we're not and eventually that brings His wrath crashing down on our heads and
2. Good news, because He knows that, which is why He sent us Jesus Christ His Son to save us.
Now we're going to talk about the bad news and the good news next week on the program, but today we're going to talk about 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 … feels like we're making a sacrifice, giving up the sweet chocolate bars and the fatty chips. It's never fun when we make that choice and it's starting on the journey to healthy eating. But not only is fruit really nice, it yields fruit in our lives. We feel better, we have more energy. We know that. And it's the same with sin and righteousness.
When we're addicted to some sin – we all have one or two sins that we're predisposed to – it seems like such a sacrifice giving them up, really it does, even though they're not good for us; even though they're hurting us. And often times God helps us by sending us through a rough patch, by disciplining us so that we can learn for ourselves the impact our sin's 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 Hebrews says in the New Testament about this very thing. Hebrews chapter 12 beginning at verse 5:
Have you 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 He loves and He chastises every child whom He accepts. Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating us as children, for what child is there that whom a parent does not discipline?
If you don't have that discipline in which all children share then you are illegitimate and not His children. Moreover, we had human parents that disciplined us and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of Spirits and for they disciplined us for a short time that seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in 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 up your drooping heads, strengthen your week knees, and make straight the paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Do you know what He's saying? No pain – no gain. And in a sense that's what going on here. So often we're travelling through tough times or 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. Oftentimes the reason it's happening is 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 drugs 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 talk about that fruit for a moment? Can we talk about this wonderful harvest, the gain that comes out of the pain? Because it's like the real fruit that I was talking about earlier on in the program. It's fantastic.
When we're wallowing around in our sin, well, that affects our lives. Someone who's living constantly in the sin of anger, well, they're going to have a rotten life, right? Someone who's labouring under the yoke of unforgiveness is having a rotten life. Someone who hasn't learnt to sacrifice and to love is having unhealthy, tragic relationships.
The list of cause and effects goes on and on. I'm sure there are some you can point to in your own life. 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 in our lives.
Now listen very carefully. I use this word "sin" very deliberately and as much it jars with many people, as much as many people think, "Oh come on, that's an old fashioned concept"; I use it deliberately because it's what God calls our rebellion. It means literally, "to miss the mark; to miss the whole point of life; to miss out on our share". And that's what we're doing when we're rebelling against God – missing out on His goodness. Just like when we're stuffing our faces with unhealthy food, we're missing out on energy and wellbeing and health that should be going on in our lives.
But when we allow God's discipline – through the difficult and often painful circumstances that we're travelling through – be the tool that helps us let go of the sin, the tool that shows us the pain and helps us the hard decision of letting go and turning back to Him, here's what's going to happen.
Just like giving up junk food snacks, it's not going to be a pleasant. It always seems painful rather than pleasant, that's what we read there in Hebrews. But the peaceful fruit of righteousness, well, it's kind of like that sense of wellbeing and vibrancy and energy that we get when we ditch the junk food in favour of the healthy stuff – the fruit, the vegetables.
I just want to encourage you, that sometimes the tough patches that we're going through are in fact God's polishing cloth in our lives and the sin that He's putting His finger on right now is actually ruining our lives. It's robbing us of the peaceful fruit of righteousness that He wants us to live out day after day. So we can squeal, we can squirm, we can fight God, we can complain, the problem is, the longer we do that, the longer He's going to keep us in that uncomfortable place.
Or we can go to Him and ask Him what He is doing. Let go of the sin quickly even though it seems difficult, even though it's not pleasant at the time, more likely painful. And the sooner we get with God's plan, the sooner we let go of the sin, the sooner we make the hard decision to say, "What's the matter with me, why am I living in this sin?" and we turn back to God, then the sooner we'll be living the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

What we like hearing about most, is the love and the grace and the mercy of God. Really! But this loving God is also a God of wrath, anger and judgement.  And if we don't understand that side of this amazing God of love – then we can't begin to understand God.
Yesterday on the program we chatted about cause and effect. You drink and drive and knock over a pedestrian, you're going to pay the price. Cause and effect. You eat too much of the wrong foods and don't exercise enough it's going to cut your life short. Cause and effect. You spend more than you earn, you go broke. Cause and effect.
So as much as we live in a world where we've convinced ourselves that pretty much anything goes, basically that's a lie, because we live in a world of cause and effect. And as we saw yesterday, the Apostle Paul put it this way in Galatians chapter 6 beginning at verse 7. He said:
Don't be deceived, God isn't mocked. You will reap what you sow. If you sow to your own flesh you will reap corruption from the flesh. But if you sow to the Spirit you will reap eternal life through the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what's right for we will reap at harvest time if we don't give up.
Now over the coming days we're going talk quite a bit about this harvest that Paul's been talking about. The harvest of righteousness. But today, there's something else we need to chat about first. It's the alternative to this wonderful harvest of righteousness. It's one hell of a subject but if I didn't talk about it then I wouldn't be doing my job.
The word "wrath" appears throughout the Bible some 266 times. And most of the times it's used it's talking about the wrath of God. Now, I pretty much know, we don't want to hear about God's anger and God's wrath towards those who have rebelled against Him. I know that. And I know that first instincts are, reach for the dial and turn this guy off, or change the station. I know that too.
But I want to encourage you not to do that because this short message about the wrath or God may be the most important thing you will ever, ever hear about. So stick with me. Even if it feels a bit uncomfortable just at the moment.
God is really, really clear about His impending wrath. And what that word "wrath" means is "anger that will manifest itself in the form of punishment". And He's also really clear about the things that kindle His wrath. Colossians chapter 3 beginning at verse 5 in the New Testament:
Put to death therefore whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed which is idolatry. On account of these things the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed when you were living that life. But now, you must get rid of all such things: anger, vengeance, malice, slander and abusive language from your mouth. Don't lie to one another. Seeing you have stripped off the old self with it's practices, clothe yourselves with the new self which is being renewed in the knowledge according to the image of it's creator.
Here's the amazing. I used to think that God was basically just one big long list of religious rules. Do this, do that. And to be sure I grew up in a religious tradition that was very much rule bound. But the more I read of what God has to say in His word, the more I go to the source and find our exactly what He has to say, the thing that I discover is that actually there are very few things that God says to us "don't do". Very few. Look at the list that Paul gives us here.
But now, you must get rid of all such things: anger, vengeance, malice, slander and abusive language from your mouth. Don't lie to one another.
There are a few others too, but not many. And they are all things that are blatantly wrong. They're all things that obviously have painful consequences in our lives, right? Why is it, that we kid ourselves when we say, well, you know, being a Christian's hard and all these things I'm not allowed and I'm not allowed to fun. That's not what it says! The only things that God says, "Don't do them" are the ones that are going to hurt us and hurt others.
And listen to this. If you persist in doing them then eventually even though God is slow to anger; even though He is merciful, even though He is a God a grace, eventually His wrath is going to fall. It's a simple message and it's the message I think He wants us to hear today. Galatians chapter 5 beginning at verse 19:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality, Impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealously, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I'm warning you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Look at what God's saying to us. They're blindingly, glimpsingly obvious. Hello? Do you get it? Keep on doing these things in stiff necked opposition to what I'm telling you and you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. That's what God's saying. It's that simple. And this alternative to the harvest of righteousness, this not inheriting the Kingdom of God, that's a frightening prospect. Because the alternative is living the rest of eternity – and by the way that's a very long time – it's living the rest of eternity in the wrath of God – in God's anger and God's punishment. Just picture that. Just imagine that for a moment.
Listen to the contrast, the sharp contrast between the eternity reserved for those who worship the devil – in this passage I'm about to read he's called the Beast – through their rebellion against God and those on the other who worship God through Jesus His Son. Have a listen to the contrast to what lies ahead for those ahead for those two different groups of people. It's kind of written in picture language. So let God's Word paint the picture for you. Revelation chapter 14 verse 9:
Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, "Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God's wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name." Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus.
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them."
John Lennon in his famous song Imagine sang these words:
Imagine there's no Heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people,
living for today …
In fact there are many living their lives imagining that. There are many living just for today. But one day they're going to be disappointed. Jesus made that absolutely clear. Matthew 10 verse 28:
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Friend, God has a wonderful plan, a fantastic plan for your life. It's a plan to live in His blessing from this point on and for all eternity. He sent His son Jesus to pay for all our sin so that we can put our trust in Him and we can forgiven and we can have this new life.
But, if we reject Jesus, there's the alternative and it's not pretty. It just isn't.

These days, just about anything goes – or at least, that's what we want to believe. No more rules, no more religion. That was all so 20th century.  These days, anything goes; if it feels good, do it.  The problem is, though, that it doesn't always work because the universal principle of cause and effect inevitably comes into play.
We're chatting this week on the program about "Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness". It's a God thing, a God harvest an abundant harvest in fact. And yet a harvest that so many people miss out on in life, even let me say, people who love God and believe in Him. Somehow they're still missing out on the harvest.
Paul the Apostle writing to his friends at the church in Philippi way back in the 1st century, puts it like this. Philippians chapter 1 beginning at verse 9:
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what is best so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and the praise of God.
What is this "righteousness"? Well, it's not a word we use so much in common day to day language anymore. "Self-righteousness" maybe is the only time we really hear this word "righteousness". So what is it? What does it matter? And why does it produce a harvest? They're all good questions, if indeed there is a harvest.
Well if God has a harvest waiting for me, I for one want my share of it, don't you? What it turns out that this whole righteousness thing is a matter of cause and effect. Let's take a look …
I guess we pretty much understand the word "right". Telling right from wrong, at least we think we do. If it's right it's right if it's wrong it's wrong. Well it's not so black and white these days, lots of shades of grey there between what people consider to be right and wrong. Particularly the wealthier nations and their people become, the more focused we become on ourselves rather than the people around us. That line between right and wrong is a bit like the shifting sands. Nevertheless we all have, I guess, have some sense of right and wrong.
But the word "righteousness", well that's more of a legal term. It has to do with the law in the sense of God's righteousness, it has to do with God's law, which is what we find in the Old Testament. The best way I've found to kind of understand it is in terms of our law today.
Let's say someone does something wrong, whether it's a minor traffic infringement or a murder, once they've done that and it's proven, they stand condemned by the law. By and large, so long as justice is done, we as a society don't have problem with that. We understand that we have to stop people from speeding in their cars right through to stopping them from murdering people.
So, we do something and as the saying goes, we find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. And then there's a debt to be paid, whether it's a $100.00 speeding fine or 25 years in prison for a murder, the law demands justice. And that justice acts both as a penalty and hopefully as a deterrent, but also it gives society a sense that justice has been done.
I mean, if a loved one of ours was killed by a drunk driver let's say, and that drunk driver is tried and convicted and given just a $50 fine, then we don't experience so much a sense of justice. On the other hand, if that drunk driver is locked up for some number of years, whilst it doesn't bring our loved one back, our sense of justice is satisfied.
And here's the thing, once the penalty or the debt has been paid by the transgressor, whatever you and I may think of them, they are free because they now have a right standing according to the law. A murderer after serving their term in prison walks out that gate a free man or a free woman, with precisely the same standing according to the law as you and I. They've served their time, they've paid their debt to society and they are now back on the right side of the law.
In a legal sense, they stand justified – and here's the word – and righteous. They are back with a right standing according to the law and that is what "righteousness" means. To be in right standing with the law.
So if we do something wrong it causes us pain let alone the pain it causes other people because we find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. Once we take our punishment and serve our dues we are righteous again in the eyes of the law. Cause and effect.
And it's like that both in our relationship with God and life generally. This is something the Apostle Paul talks about with his friends at the church at Galatia back in the 1st century AD. Have a listen. Galatians chapter 6 beginning at verse 7:
Don't be deceived' he writes, 'God isn't mocked for you will reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh you will reap corruption from the flesh. But if you sow to the Spirit you'll reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let's not grow weary in doing what's right, for we will reap at harvest time if we don't give up.
In other words, look, don't kid yourself, stop trying to get around God. Whatever you sow you're going to reap. Cause and effect. Sow rubbish you'll reap rubbish; sow goodness and you will reap goodness. So even though things are tough, even though that sometimes it feels as though the whole world's against us, even though it feels sometimes that nothing – absolutely nothing – is going our way.
Paul's saying here, in fact God's saying through Paul, sow goodness – don't get tired of doing that. Sow goodness, sow in God's direction, sow in God's way, so into his Spirit and just at the right time you'll reap a harvest. A harvest of righteousness. Sowing and reaping. Cause and effect.
Now there is more to this whole righteousness thing than what we do. There's some bad news about righteousness and there's some good news. In fact, great news, fantastic news! And we're going to be checking that out next week on the program.
But right now I guess, in a world where the maxim of our day is pretty much anything goes, I just feel today we need to debunk that lie. It's a patent lie. Do what feels good and anything goes, it'll be fine. No it won't! It won't be fine! Because there's this law of cause and effect. If you and I get drunk, we hope in our car, we go driving, we knock over a pedestrian – there are going to be consequences. Cause and effect.
As you sow so shall you reap. Sow goodness and you'll reap the harvest, the abundant blessing of righteousness, a right standing with God. A God who loves us beyond what words we can say. A God who wants to bless, literally bless our socks off.
And the thing that I want to encourage you with today is this: that doing good doesn't always feel good. Let me say that again because it's important. Doing good doesn't always feel good.
Loving difficult people. Turning the other cheek. Putting others before ourselves. Buttoning our lip when we want to argue. Being humble. Being a servant. In fact often it hurts, it's tough and we want to give up. It's all too hard. This being righteous, this living out God's goodness, is really hard work sometimes and it really hurts sometimes. And Jesus knows that because it cost Him being nailed to the cross.
But we reap what we sow – that's the universal principle. As you sow so shall you reap.
So, writes Paul, let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest if we don't give up.
Don't give up. The harvest is an abundant blessing of righteousness. A blessing from God that is absolutely beyond anything that we can imagine right now, this harvest of righteousness. Don't give up.