A Different Perspective Official Podcast

All too often, you and I are waiting for a major breakthrough, a major miracle, a major blessing, when all along, mostly, God's preferred way of helping us to grow, to change, to overcome, is quietly, gently, gradually, step by step. Why is that?
You know when things aren't going the way I want them to go what I would really, really like for God to do is to open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessing after blessing and miracle after miracle all at once, all at the same time right now to set things right. That's my way, hey how simple is that?
So why doesn't God get it? What's the matter with Him? You know when you put it that way we in a sense see how ridiculous that is and yet when we're between that rock and that hard place isn't that exactly what we want Him to do? Isn't our first thought, our first desire for an instant miracle, an instant fix?
Somebody is giving you a hard time so you imagine a lightning bolt striking them down. Your finances are in a hole, debts mounting so you think about winning Lotto, that twenty million would go down just so well at the moment. I wonder whether God wants me to buy a lottery ticket. All those things point to our desire for an instant miracle and every now and then God does just that, He does it for His own reasons in His own time at His own pleasure and for His own glory, I mean hallelujah.
But those instant miracles tend to be an exception. Yes there are times and places where God acts miraculously. Often they're places of great need and there's great faith involved. Often they're circumstances where God wants people to see His glory and His power so they'll believe in Him, that happens.
But empirically from experience we realise that God's most common way of working in our lives is through a series of small steps that transforms us over a lifetime rather than say five humongous miracles each seven or eight years apart right? There's a reason for that, it's because He's much, much more interested in developing our character and the depth of our relationship with Him than He is in providing us with quick fixes when we think we need them.
Don't believe me, have a listen to this through the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 to 5 he says this:
And not only that but we also boast in our suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope doesn't disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.
Now that's what I call a chain reaction, suffering produces endurance and that forges a character of substance and as that character grows in-depth and breadth it focuses more on Jesus than the suffering. That produces real certain hope and that hope is the chamber into which God pours His Holy Spirit and His love and man there's a whole week or two of messages just in those two verses in Romans.
But you see where God's going with this right? He wants to transform us in a way that sets us free from all this rubbish, the sin, the stuff we've been carrying around and in a way that matures us so that we can really enjoy life. The life that He's given us even when circumstances are against us.
The contrast in this passage is so stark between suffering on the one hand and God pouring His love and His Spirit into our hearts in the midst of as a direct consequence of the work that He does in us through that suffering.
The reason a blacksmith will put metal into a fire before shaping it is because the fire makes the metal malleable in his hands. It's exactly the same with you and me. In our natural state we're often stiff and strong and unyielding but put us in the furnace of suffering and we become malleable, something God can work with for our own good and for His glory.
See that's how maturity happens. Let me ask you, is there any such thing as instant maturity? Probably not. Sometimes something really significant happens and we do a lot of growing up in a very short period of time but to mature a good wine you put it down in the cellar, not for hours, not for days, not for even months but for years.
In this world of reality television we're being conditioned to think about having instant makeovers. That's what cosmetic surgery is all about, that's what going to a beautician is about, that's why people have home renovations and garden makeovers and style makeovers, instant makeovers. NOW, I want it now.
We're all looking for transformation, for something that will make a difference but the deepest, most powerful change is the really profound long-lasting changes in who we are happen little by little when we yield ourselves to the work of the masters hand. When we become malleable and pliable so that He can shape us and mould us into the most remarkable person He always knew that we could be.
Have a listen to this, again God speaking through the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 12 to 18:
Since then we have such hope, we act with great boldness. Not like Moses who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside but their minds were hardened, indeed to this very day when they hear the reading of the old Covenant that same veil is still there since only in Christ is it set aside.
Indeed to this very day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds but when we turn to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and all of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to the next, from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
See again here Paul picked up this terminology of people's minds being hardened. How often when things are going just fine and dandy are our minds closed to the amazing transformation that God wants to bring to our lives? We all want transformation, our fixation on reality television tells us that that's true but we reject it when things are going well.
A real paradox, it's like there's a veil over our minds but when we turn to Jesus that veil is removed and we see things all of a sudden for what they really are and we discover that God's perspective on things is so totally different to the way we've always thought.
We truly are transformed by the renewing of our minds, changing the way we see things and thinking about things in Christ. That's where the real transformation comes from, that's where this newness of life that Jesus promises us lies. All of a sudden we discover the freedom we were always looking for right there under our noses in Christ.
Now here's the crunch, the really important bit, as we open our hearts and minds to Christ and travel through the furnace of trials and tribulations along the journey we experience transformation. From what? From glory to glory.
All of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
Do you see, from one degree of glory to the next, step by step we're transformed by the Holy Spirit as we journey through the trials of life and this is deep lasting transformation. Our tendency is to fight it, we've been conditioned to expect instant easy makeovers but most times the miracle makeover that God has planned for you happens step by step from glory to glory as you're transformed back into His image so that more and more when people look at you what they see is Jesus. What a stunning picture.
So here's what I'd like to leave with you today. The next time you're thinking to yourself, 'why is this taking so long? How come I keep making so many mistakes? Why doesn't God just do something now?' Remember He is doing something, step by step from glory to glory.
It's time for you to enjoy that journey, to yield to His Spirit and to let His miracle makeover to happen along the way and as you look back over the changes in the months and the years to come you'll be astounded at how much you've changed, grown, matured, from glory to glory.

If only I could start over. If only I could be free of the hurts, of the consequences of the past. Have you ever thought that to yourself. Sure you have. We all have. Well, the great news is this: a fresh new start is entirely possible. That's the whole point of Jesus coming to this earth.
Mid life crisis are a well documented phenomenon. We laugh about them, you know the guy who's slightly podgy and hair on top is thinning and he has to go out sometime in his late 40's or early 50's and buy a racy convertible. Or the woman who looks in the mirror one day and doesn't like her life and her marriage and her job and her looks so she decides to kick up her heels and have some cosmetic surgery and sadly increasingly part of the whole mid-life crisis scenario is divorce.
I totally believe that 99% of life is a grind. It doesn't matter how glamorous other people perceive your life to be most of it's a mundane grind. Of course that doesn't mean that we necessarily have to be dissatisfied with it it's just that most of life is mundane.
I was listening to Hugh Jackman the famous Hollywood actor also an Aussie of course, being interviewed recently and he was talking about the sheer grinding hard work involved in shooting some of these action movies. Now we think Hollywood actor, wow, glamour, stardom, fame and sure there's that but for him a lot of the time it's just sheer hard work.
That's what it's like for all of us. We do it over and over again without thinking too much about it and at some point what we want is a new start, a fresh start. Will someone please put me on a magic carpet and whisk me away of there somewhere, to some new reality without the cares, without the pressures, without all the tensions, without the sheer boredom of my present reality. Or we've made some serious blunders along the way which is what happened to me and we wish that we could somehow be absolved of their consequences rather than living out this hell on earth thing that we're travelling through.
Whatever the reason we've all been there. I want a fresh start. Sometimes that manifests itself in a career change, a sea change, a long break, moving house, changing cities, changing countries. I've had three careers in my life, ten years in the military, seventeen years running my own IT consulting firm and now almost ten years doing what I'm doing here in the broadcasting area.
Those transformations have been important for me but you know whilst they've been interesting and challenging and satisfying they don't actually meet the deep need way down inside somewhere to get this sense of 'yes this is the life I want to be living'. That sense of contentment and satisfaction.
Our career, our relationships, where we live, what we look like, they're all great and they're all important but at the end of the day they aren't the things that make us truly happy and contented inside. They can add, they can detract but they're not the main thing.
It's like last week, we were talking about signs and wonders and miracles that Jesus performed. Healing that paralytic man, the man born blind, I mean totally awesome stuff. And I imagine that if you were paralysed or blind and Jesus comes along and He heals you of that, well come on that's huge and yet can I tell you some of the most together, satisfied, dynamic people I know live life in a wheelchair or without their sight. These are inspiring people.
See it seems to me the miracle's God's done on their inside are much more powerful than a miracle He could do but hasn't yet on their outside. I have tinnitus, constant ringing in my ears. It's socially quite debilitating because the moment there's background noise I find it very hard to hear people and so you end up tuning out, it's just too hard. I also have glaucoma, under control now but eventually it could send me blind in my old age.
Would I like God to heal those two things? Of course I would. He hasn't yet, He may one day or He may not but the greatest miracle of all that He has ever performed for me is the fresh start that He gave me when I first believed and this is what it is, have a listen, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 16 to 19:
From now on therefore we regard no one from a human point of view even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old is passed away and see, everything has become new.'
'All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
It's this idea, well it's not just an idea, it's the pervading reality of my life that in Christ I am a new creation and all the old things have passed away, everything is new. Anyone who believes in Jesus is probably familiar with this passage, it seems easy to read it and go, 'well yeah, that's fine. New creation? Oh okay' and just move on but hang on a minute, a new creation.
All the reality TV shows on the planet promise that, they're all about transformation, our looks, our home, our lives, our careers, they're all about pedalling false makeovers and here's the real makeover, the question is do you really care? Does that stir up a yearning in you that says, 'I want that, that's what I've been looking for all my life?'
Can I tell you honestly? For most people it doesn't, here's why I know. A while back we aired a series of messages called Healthy Living To A Ripe Old Age and the free booklet that we produced for that series was My Top Three Secrets For Losing 25 Kilograms. The response to that was completely unprecedented; we'd never seen anything like it in almost ten years of producing this series of A Different Perspective. We printed over fifteen times the usual number of booklets and had ten times as many downloads of the e-booklet compared to average.
In fact I'll bet you a pound to a penny that the free booklet for this series that I'll be telling you about a little bit later won't go anywhere near the response that we had to that weight loss booklet, I hope it does but going by past experiences it probably won't.
Now is it a good thing for us to get our weight under control? Sure it is, I did, twenty-five kilograms, fifty-five pounds. I'm a lot healthier, I'll probably live a lot longer, I look a lot better, I feel a lot better, zippity doo da.
And yet God comes along and tells us that in Christ we have a fresh start, we're completely new, the one thing that people are hungering for, that people go looking for in reality TV, in body makeovers, in beauty makeovers, in home renovations, in career changes, they're looking for transformation, for a new start, a new life free from all the hang ups, all the regrets, all the hurts and the failures of the past. The one thing that people really want and the only place you can get that is in Jesus.
But do we respond? Do we run and leap and praise God because He's given us a new life? Hallelujah! Nah, come on, what would your life look like if you lift it on the basis of what Paul is saying here that it's actually true?
If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away and look, everything has become new.
Every time the past rears its ugly head in your emotions, in your feelings, in your thoughts, in your actions, you turn around and say, 'thank you Jesus that I am a new creation in you. Thank you that the old things have passed away and everything has become new' and you simply refuse to accept delivery from the hang-ups of the past.
It's like looking at the world early in the morning, just as the sun is coming up after it's rained all night with this sense of freshness and newness and filling your lungs with the sweetness of this new creation. What would your life look like if you lived it as though this new creation thing was true? Well?

Everybody these days is looking for … transformation. A new life, a new start, a new way. That, when you think about is the desire that many of today's reality TV shows pander to. But is transformation really possible, and if so – how and where do you get it?
We've all watched them on television haven't we, the makeover shows. I remember when reality TV first became a phenomenon back in the 1990's and way back then it felt kind of bizarre. But these days it's the norm and we have reality makeover shows for just about anything and everything on television.
There are body and beauty makeover shows where they take a plain Jane through a little plastic surgery, even dental surgery, a nip and a tuck here and there, some serious work on her hair and her make up and a style makeover on how she dresses and all of a sudden voila, there you have it, Miss Universe.
There are some home makeover shows, renovation shows, surprise garden makeover shows, apartment makeover shows, even the current talent shows are all about makeovers. From the initial slightly dull boring guy that fronts up for the audition to the handsome buck all glammed up who sings his heart out in the grand final.
This idea of makeovers has become the new vehicle for reality television to thrive and to become an incredible phenomenon that it's become. But the problem with reality television is that it's not real, in fact there's nothing much real about reality television at all, it's carefully stage-managed and contrived let me tell you.
Look I've been on TV shoots. I remember doing a two and a half-minute spot that took eight hours to shoot. All that stuff that looks oh so spontaneous on television is carefully scripted, carefully choreographed, carefully constructed and we take this shot and that shot and we cut it and we try that again, all that stuff.
To put it bluntly reality television is completely an illusion, it's a mirage, it's not real and through this medium producers are pedalling the concept of life transformation, its aspirational television. It's dangling the concept of total transformation under our noses and why do they do it? Because just as the age-old advertising adage that sex sells is true, advertisers have realised that they can piggy back their products off the back of this illusory seductive aspirational notion of total transformation.
That's why people watch these programs because they scratch this deep itch, this deep desire for a transformed life. To be picked up on a magic carpet and whisked away to some new perfect idyllic reality. Just as cigarettes were the delivery platform for nicotine, to create an addict that will buy those deadly products, so the transformational message of reality TV is the delivery platform for whatever advertising message some company is prepared to pay for to get across to you during the program.
So to sum up my little social commentary rant here reality television has made us addicts to the idea of transformation and yet no amount of reality television is actually going to deliver transformation to you and me. As much as they promise a miracle makeover, as much as women in particular are flocking to cosmetic surgeons, as much as people go on fitness kicks and crash diets, as much as we got out and buy new clothes or try this and try that, none of it, none of it delivers the transformation that we're really looking for.
Today we're kicking off a series of messages that I've called God's Miracle Makeover For You. Over this last couple of weeks we talked about the signs and wonders that Jesus performed and the deep powerful message each of those miracles have for you and for me and in fact last week we finished off the series on miracles, signs and wonders with what I called the greatest miracle of them all - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not just as some historical fact although it is that but as a present reality for you and for me. Here again is how Paul the Apostle sums it up in Romans chapter 6 and verse 4:
We were buried therefore by baptism into his death in order that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
The greatest miracle of them all is the newness of life that Jesus brings. Real life, newness, real transformation and that's what we're talking about this week on the program because this newness of life, it's what's available to each person who believes in Jesus. Problem is a whole bunch of people who do believe in Jesus aren't living the new life, they're stuck in the old life. They're wrapped as it were in the grave-clothes of the past just as Lazarus was when he walked out of that tomb after Jesus raised him from the dead.
That's why you and I need a miracle makeover. You can't have this newness of life when you're wrapped up in your old grave-clothes right? That's why we need God's miracle makeover, not in some shallow external sense but in a deep, emotional spiritual sense.
Look looking your best is great, do you want to look your best? Sure you do, I do, mind you for me it's not an obsession as it is for some but I like to look good. And yet at the same time you and I both know that looking good only goes so far to making you feel good. It has some impact but it doesn't deal with the deeper issues that so often holds us back from this newness of life that Jesus promises.
There's a process of transformation that we can go through to ditch the hang-ups and the sins of the past so that we can actually experience this fresh new life that Jesus promises to bring. Theologians call this process sanctification, I don't much like that word, it feels to hoity toity for me. I prefer rehabilitation or restoration, being transformed little by little back into the image of our Creator and for most of us, certainly for me, that requires a series of not so minor miracles because there are things deep ingrained in our nature that we can't deal with on our own, things that only God can deal with.
Chances are you have a bit of a handle on the things that are robbing you of this newness of life that Jesus came to bring you. With me it used to be anger and pride, that was my Achilles heel. Now you learn to live with it but you always realise it's robbing you of life. You have your own brand of let's call it sin, that's what it is, sin that's robbing you of your life and Jesus, my friend, Jesus came to set you free. Jesus came to give you an abundant life, Jesus came so that you could experience a newness of life that completely defies logic and understanding.
So let me ask you, do you want that newness of life? Do you want His miracle makeover to be happening in your life? Again the Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 12, verse 2:
Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for you.
We're so well adjusted to our culture, to the reality TV aspirations of transformations that we kind of run like a bunch of lemmings off that cliff only to realise it doesn't deliver what it promises. It's time to stop conforming, it's time to stop letting the world and its flawed thinking squeeze you into its mould.
Listen, the only mould that you are ever going to fit into comfortably is the one God made for you. We're never going to fit into the worlds mould right? Paul's saying, in fact God's saying to us here through Paul, come on stop trying to do that, it won't work, instead go for total transformation, have a deep change of mind here, stop chasing after all the worlds failed systems and thinking and lay hold of God's good and acceptable and perfect will for you and that's where you're going to find transformation.
There needs to be some new thinking here, there needs to be a change in focus from the world's plan for your life which we know is going to fail, to God's plan for your life. If transformation is what you're after, if a fresh start is what you're after this is where you find it and that's why we're going to be kicking off this brand new series this week called God's Miracle Makeover For You.

Let me ask you a question that might be a bit confronting. What's the point of believing in Jesus – after all, it's not an easy road to choose? Is it just to get eternal life when we die?  Or can we actually have a brand new life – a vibrant life, a blessed life … here and now?  Is that the point … or not?
Well, the end of another week. It's amazing. In this last couple of weeks we've been talking about reaping a harvest. The harvest of righteousness. As I've said on a few occasions now in this series, I used to think that righteousness was a bunch of rules that I had to live by. Do this and God will smile on your life. Do that and … whack! He'll punish me.
That was my view of this word which, let face it, isn't used so much these days. This word "righteousness". But that's not what God had in mind when He had the Apostle Paul write these words in his letter to the church at Philippi. 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.
It's not about rules, it's about love, you see. And that's what I had to get out of my system. And to tell you the truth, my hunch is, even after a decade and a half of walking with Jesus, even after almost a decade on air teaching God's Word as I'm doing now, my hunch is I'm still getting this misconception of a rule-based God out of my system.
We all have to live by rules. The law for starters. Imagine if I hopped out of bed this morning and hopped in my car and decided, "Well, you know Berni I want to do something different today. They say a change is as good as a holiday. I think I'll drive to work on the wrong side of the road today. Why not? After all it's a free country. That's what I'm going to do today."
So obviously we have to live by some rules. But by and large we don't mind that so much. We get it 99 times out of 100 that in order to live in the society there have to be some boundaries that organise the place and make sure everyone's kind of looked after and kept safe.
But on the fringes of those rules, let's be honest, there are some rough edges. This is the place where arguments happen. On the fringes, on the borders, in the disputed territories. I mean, disputes between neighbours, what are they about? The fence line, the noise. They're about things either on the boundary or things that cross over the boundary that one party thinks are fine and the other one doesn't.
It's the same at home or at work. Disputes happen when someone breaks some rules that we have in our heads whether they're valid or not. The more we think about it, the more rules are a big deal in this world. The ones that are written down called "laws", the ones that are unspoken but accepted, and then the ones that you and I carry round as our own personal set of rules.
So isn't it easy to imagine that God is a rule-bound God. After all that's what the Old Testament is all about. The whole of the Old Testament is the story of God loving and engaging His chosen people, Israel, and their universal inability to keep His law – His rules given through Moses. The whole of the Old Testament screams out this whole rule-base things just doesn't work. And there's a reason for that. Have a listen to what the Apostle Paul writes. Romans chapter 7:
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person's lifetime? Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.
In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
See, there it is. All the law does, all the rules really do is point out where we're going wrong. But there's no power in the law to change our heart. We work at it, we work at it, and we're still not pure and whole and perfect the way God is. So the law holds us captive.
But Jesus died and rose again and those of us who believe in Him die and rise again. We die to sin, we die to the law and we're raised up into a new life. Born again. A life in the Spirit – the Holy Spirit. No longer under the burden of the law but a new life, a transformed life, living in love and forgiveness. Living as one with God because He puts His Holy Spirit inside of us. A new law in the Spirit. The law of life rather than the law of death.
Now how is that possible? Because all my sins, past present and future have been paid for by Jesus on that Cross. Yours too. So when you and I fail God, as we do almost every day, no longer are we condemned under this old law. We go to God. We admit our mistakes. We turn away from them. We ask His forgiveness through Jesus and what He has done on the Cross. And then we get on with life, the new life, the life that Jesus purchased for us. The life the Holy Spirit gives us when He comes to dwell in us.
We died to that whole rule-based thing. And now there's a whole new life ahead of us. That's the whole point. Not to mope around like nothing's changed. Not to whinge and complain about things, not to live as though we're still condemned men and women, but to live a new and vibrant life. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17:
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Hello! Wake up! This is fantastic news. And the thing that changes now is our hearts. Once we're condemned no more, once we're free, once we're enjoying Jesus and presence of His Spirit we want to do His will, we want to live out our righteousness.
God's way has become a whole bunch easier, because instead of pulling against them, we're so delighted with this new life, we're so delighted with our relationship with God through Jesus and the Spirit, we just want to it out. We want to give God the glory. We want to honour and obey Him. And that's why we want to it His way.
This is exactly what the Apostle Paul writes in His New Testament letter to the Philippians. Philippians chapter 2 verse 12:
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.  
We obey God, which we should do, not because we're rule-bound, not because we're dragged there kicking and screaming, but because He is at work in us enabling us both to will and to do what is His good pleasure.
That's huge! This is the gospel of grace and of love and of mercy all made possible by Jesus dying for you and me so that our sins could be forgiven, and rising again from the dead so that we can have a brand new life filled with the Holy Spirit – filled with the presence of God Himself. This Spirit of God whom God sends to live in each one of us. Each person who puts their faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on that Cross.
Isn't that Good News? And if it isn't, well frankly I don't know what is.

One of the things that many people end up concluding in life, is that they just don't have the power to change. They can see some things wrong in themselves, they know what they are, they've tried to change … but somehow, they just don't have the power. I have some good news for you today – God is that power, and He has already given that power to change to anyone who's put their trust in Jesus His Son.
We've been chatting these last few weeks about the incredible blessing that comes from the righteousness of God. The harvest of righteousness that God has planned for you and me. Here it is in a nutshell. God is righteous, pure, holy, perfect. And you and I, without putting too fine a point on it, we're simply not. And that's the bad news. No surprise to God, mind you. He always knew the moment He gave us a free will it would turn out that way.
And so the bad news both in terms of the insidious impact of our sin in robbing us of life here and now, and in robbing us of an eternity with God. So bad is this news, that God sends Jesus His Son to die on the Cross to pay the price of our sin, so that whoever believes in this Jesus can be back in a right standing with God.
When we believe in Jesus we actually become as righteous as God Himself. We become the righteousness of God. We're forgiven. Hallelujah! That is good news. Not something that we have to work our way into, but a free gift from God.
For by grace you have been saved by faith, and it's not of your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not the result of works so that none may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
But blind Freddy can see that being forgiven, having a right standing with God, is only part of the equation, it's only the beginning. It's like a prisoner set free at the end of his sentence. He steps out of the prison gate, and 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's taken that first step of believing in Jesus: believing that He died for us on that Cross; believing that He rose again 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 carefully. John chapter 8 beginning at verse 34:
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 there 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 you've been set free is in order to be free, to live out your freedom. God hasn't set you free through this great and mighty act of love, the sacrifice of His Son, in order for you to submit again to the yoke of slavery which sin places on you. He set you free so that you can in fact be free from sin and its consequences.
You and I both know, we chatted about this yesterday, that a prisoner who's served His sentence steps out of that prison a free man. But he can return to his life of crime, and many of them do, and eventually he finds himself behind bars again. OR he can live out His new life of freedom as a free man without breaking the law for the rest of his days, and experience the freedom.
I've never been incarcerated but I thought what a horrible thing that would be. Even just one night, let alone a year or two or ten or twenty, would be enough to convince anyone not to re-offend. But in fact many, many do and the majority of people of prison today are in fact re-offenders. It's incredible, mad you might say.
But think about this. It's exactly what many a believer in Christ does. We believe. We take the first step of freedom but then we go back living the life that caused us to be under condemnation before, only to find that this new found freedom in Christ turns out not to be all that it was cracked up to be because we're submitting back to the cruel yoke of slavery – sin.
Now, in part that's because sin is so deeply ingrained in our flesh. The Apostle Paul said this. Romans chapter 7 beginning at verse 15:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
And that's a problem we all face. Man, this sin thing is so strong in me. I'm so weak. How am I ever going to live out this righteousness of God? How am I ever going to reap the harvest, the blessing, the fruit of righteousness? I just can't do
it.
And therein lies the whole point. You and I can't do it. We can't do it on our own. We simply can't. I can't and you can't. We need the blessing of God. We need the power of God to change. Question is: where do you get that? Will He give me the power? Will He give you the power?
What would you say if I told you, we already have the power? Have a listen to this promise from God's Word. 2 Peter chapter 1 beginning at verse 2:
May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.
Now, do you need something to be godly? I do. You do too. Well, God's already given us that. Past tense. It's a done deal. God has already given us everything needed for life. In other words He's given us our lives back. Real life, abundant life because we're now righteous through faith in Jesus. We have a right standing with God.
And not just for life but for godliness. He's given us everything we need to escape from the corruption of this world and become – wait for this – participants of the divine nature. To be one with God and to know God so deeply that the image of God to be so bright, so vibrant, so powerful in us. Get it? We already have everything that we need.
Just like Jesus prayed for us in John chapter 17 that we would become one with Him the way that He and His Dad are One. We don't have to work at that. The closer we get to Jesus the more we change. The more we love Him and experience Him the more our behaviour changes.
And that's why we stand firm. That's why our lives change. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 5:
For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love.
For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Friend, God has given you and me so much in Jesus. Wake up! Stop grumbling. Stop living under this deception that we can't beat sin in our lives. It's already been beaten on the Cross. We already have a new life through the empty tomb. We already have the power of the Spirit, the very same one who Jesus from the dead. Ready Ephesians chapter 1.
We have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Believe that. That's God's promise. The power to change.