A Different Perspective Official Podcast

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.

Sin – now there's a word that goes down like a lead balloon. It's a bit … well for many people, it feels like some old fashioned religious concept from the past. But the facts are that even though it's become something of a four letter word, sin is the greatest malady in this world today.
It's Monday again and the weeks march by inexorably, don't they? Amazing. Now something that strikes me as I look around the world in which we live, is that we live in a world where just about anything goes. Even in my short lifetime – just on a half a century which in the overall scheme of history is like a drop in the ocean – things have changed radically. Let me give you an example.
When I was young, falling pregnant outside of marriage was a matter of great shame. Today, it's a lifestyle choice that many women make. Many, many couples choose to live together without making the commitment of marriage. And just in case you think I'm plucking that out of the air, the statistics tell us that in Australia at least, cohabitation before marriage has increased – wait for this – from18% of couples in 1975 to almost 60% today. It's gone from being the exception to almost being the norm.
Just the way things are these days. And divorce rates, again using Australian statistics, the number of divorces has jumped radically in my life time, from around 7,000 in 1959 to around 50,000 this year, with some 43% of marriages ending in divorce.
Things have changed. Definitely changed.
Question is: what's going on?
You know sometimes you hear people thumping the table telling us how bad things are these days. "Not like the good old days when I was young!" The implication is that this younger generation is … well, you know, they have no discipline and standards and … if only things were like they were back in the good old days.
Problem is, the good old days weren't really such good old days. Husbands still beat their wives back in "good old days". Children were still abused back in the good old days. Bad still happened in the good old days too. Let's be honest. So the last thing under the sun I want to be doing is suggesting that we somehow turn back the clock to the things will be fine again just like they were in the good old days. Because a) we can't turn the clock back and b) if we could, things weren't necessarily so grand back in those "good old days".
And there's a reason for that. Because from the moment Adam and Eve took their first bite of that apple from that one tree, the one tree that beautiful, abundant, peaceful, God said, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree", from that moment, there's been a whole theme going on in this world and it's called "sin". Let's listen to the story. Genesis Chapter 3:
Now the serpent, he was craftier than the other wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?' But the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you will die"'. But the serpent said to the woman, 'You won't die because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.'
So when the woman saw the tree was good for food and it was a delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it's fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and make loin cloths for themselves.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.'
And God said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom you gave me, she gave me the fruit from the tree and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is it that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent tricked me and I ate.' 
Now you see, things have changed in the world. We live in a world where anything goes, right? Well just about anything. Many a moral standard of yesteryear seems old fashioned and irrelevant and too many downright offensive. We're a whole bunch more relaxed about things these days compared to those rigid old rules from last century. So this notion of sin – of rebelling against God, of eating from the wrong tree – it's seems kind of outdated. A throwback from the church of the 1950's. It feels … well, irrelevant in the age that we live, doesn't it.
And there are some things from the past, the way woman were treated as chattels almost. They were terrible. It still happens in places around the world today. Or treating differently because of their skin colour or nationality. So many faults and flaws in the rigid rules from the past to be sure. And that, that's why this short three letter world 'sin' is something of a four letter word these days. A dirty word. A nasty word. A word that implies moral judgement against the standards of some rigid and flawed rules from our childhood.
But I'm not so much talking about those, about man-made rules. The thing that ushered pain and suffering into this world was our rebellion against God, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden. Read along in Chapter three of that book of Genesis and we find that there were some serious consequences for their actions. Painful consequences.
So, while "sin" is a word that seems to carry a whole bunch of religious baggage around with it, actually it speaks of our rebellion against God, and that word "sin" as it's used in the Bible means literally "to miss the mark", "to miss the whole point", "to miss out on your share". And that's the consequence of our rebellion against God. It's not this thing that there a whole bunch of rigid rules we have to follow to get our tick and dots to get into heaven. That's not it.
The point is that God is a God who loves us. He loves you, He loves me beyond anything we can imagine love to be. Writes the Apostle Paul to his friends in Ephesus. Ephesians Chapter 3 verses 18 & 19. He says:
I pray that you might have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
You know, He loves us so much, more than words can ever say. So when we turn our backs on Him, when we decide to live our lives our way, when we adopt this "anything goes" attitude, there are consequences. Simple things. Eat too much of the wrong stuff, it will ruin your health. Work too hard and don't get enough rest, it will ruin your life. Play too hard, drink too hard, it will ruin your health and your relationships.
Cause and effect. Come on. This is not rocket science. It's as plain as the nose on your face and mine. There are consequences. As much as we try and kid ourselves, as much as we try to tell ourselves we can have anything, be anything, do anything, it will all be okay – we know that's a lie and we know that there are always consequences.
We've been duped into thinking that sin is some old fashioned, irrelevant, religious word from the past, when all along it's the greatest malady in our lives. When all along that rebellion is robbing us of the fruit of a good and healthy relationship with God. A God who loves us so much, that He sent His only Son Jesus so whoever believes in Him wouldn't perish but instead would have eternal life.

Where I come from meekness is just another word for weakness.  So why did Jesus say – blessed are the meek?  And is meekness a quality that you and I should search out, or shun?
Can I tell you one of the most exciting things that I've discovered in life? It's this, that when I just get on and do the good things that God's called me to do day after day, not perfectly mind you, not always brilliantly but just doing them quietly, I get this deep sense of satisfaction from just doing those things.
Now that doesn't sound like a particularly earth shattering insight until you understand that for most of my life, at least the first 36 or so years I was flat out chasing and achieving success and recognition and reward and I can truly say that not once during that time did I taste the sweet delight that I know today.
It's like night and day, once the world was kind of a murky monochrome, today I get to live life in a full vibrant technicolour. I can't begin to put words around the difference and in a sense it's taken me years to kind of reflect on that and figure out what was going on.
To tell you the truth I didn't like everything Jesus had to say right from the beginning. Like this one:
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Well meekness, from where I come from, is just another word for weakness buddy, I mean it's a "dog eat dog" business world and you have to claw your way to the top and tread on other people and make it and reap it and spend it. It's all about fame and fortune buddy, it's all about making it and I had those things. At least in the sphere in which I worked.
I travelled the world speaking at large IT conferences and I had a big car and a big salary and I could eat at any restaurant I wanted to and basically I could buy just about anything I wanted to and yet the sweet delight of fulfilment in life eluded me. I was getting it all, it just wasn't satisfying me and then I became a Christian and started reading some of what Jesus had to say and this saying:
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Well it was definitely not on my hit parade. Why? I didn't want to become some mealy mouthed meek little mouse, some sort of weakling. You know wearing boring clothes, smiling lamely, letting people use me as a door mat; you go to Church on Sunday morning with an ever greying congregation. Meekness was some kind of whimpishness and failure and capitulation and then one day I read the definition of the Greek word in the New Testament that we've translated to read "meek". Let me read it to you word for word because it's not very long:
Meekness is mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit. Meekness towards God is that disposition of the spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the Old Testament the meek are those who wholly relied on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice. So meekness towards evil people means knowing that God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He's using them to purify us and that He'll deliver us in His good time.
Hmm … meekness. Meekness may not be about being a wimp but about accepting everything that happens to me as being from God and so not fighting it. Now that, that really fits with what we've been talking about this last week, flying under the radar, ditching this addiction to worldly success and recognition and having my way and reaping the reward and just quietly getting on with life and honouring God and doing the stuff He's called each one of us to do.
And when people come after us with a meat cleaver and you know, they inevitably do, just relying on God to keep us safe rather than retaliating in our own strength. Phew whee, man that is going to be hard, the more I thought about it the more I came to realise that meekness actually requires an enormous strength and self control, a meek person is someone who keeps their strength in check.
I constantly have people come against me in ministry and in life and it's amazing how many people don't understand what God's called me to do and I'm sure you have had the same from time to time.
My old way of handling was to saw them in half; I mean my tongue can make a grown man cry at 30 paces. I tell you, it's a scary thing. I can be a very scary person and I used to tear people apart limb by limb with words and with logic. Meekness … meekness is the exact opposite of that; meekness says 'I don't have to win' and that's so counter intuitive isn't it? Yet Jesus says:
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed, happy, joyous because instead of winning the odd battle today they end up winning in the long run, they inherit the earth. You see an inheritance is not something you get now; it's something you get later. Jesus is saying, "Blessed are those who lose now for they will win later." Jesus put it another way too, we looked at it yesterday on the program, He said:
Truly I tell you unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. If you love your life you'll lose it but if you hate this life in this world you'll keep it for eternity.
See again, Jesus is talking about reaping a harvest of inheritance, we're not now, later and that takes such enormous faith. It takes such enormous courage to rest in God and let other people do things and behave badly and for us not to attack them back, for us not to get our way, for us not to say, "You know something, I have rights, I've got to win here." No, Jesus wants us to leave them alone and to reap the harvest later.
And so you know when I started to live my life that way, as I said I didn't do it perfectly, I still don't do it perfectly, we all have our days but just living like that with all my heart, deciding I don't have to win anymore. Just doing the best I could knowing that day by day God would bring me battles where I'd have to lay down my right to win and it would hurt and it would be hard.
Honestly each one was difficult at the beginning but little by little I've withdrawn from being Berni the bully. My name Bernard literally means, "to be as strong as a bear". And I am, one of the strongest people you'll ever meet, mentally tough, geared to success and God has called me to lay down the winning and just day by day follow Him.
And sometimes, you know, people do things and say things and they hurt so much and that's the time when I just go to God and just say, "Lord, I just believe in your word that you've called me to lay this down. It's not about my success, my lime light, my being seen by people to win. It's about dying to self, giving up the success and the recognition for me."
You know what I've found even though it's hard, this sweet delight of trusting in His protection, in what He brings day by day and His provision. Just quietly getting on with life without fanfare or drama is such a sweet thing. Well that's my story, what's yours?