A Different Perspective Official Podcast

It's great for people to tell you that when you're afraid God says, "Do Not Be Afraid." That's great. But, well, when I am afraid, what do I do with that feeling? How do I make it go away? How do I get back on an even keel?
Fear is a subject that frankly, we don't much like talking about. But that's exactly what we're talking about on the program this week. Because fear, fear is something that we all go through. You know when there's that 800 pound gorilla in the room. It's hard, it's incredibly hard to believe that God is bigger than the gorilla. Of course He is but it just doesn't feel like that when that gorilla is so up close. And the hardest thing, I think, in overcoming fear in life is actually getting to that point where we have a high level of confidence in God. Where we put our confidence and our trust in this God who says, "Do not be afraid." Instead of in the gorilla, who's so here and now.
Where we put our confidence in who God is. What He's done. His might and His power and His sovereignty. They all sound great in theory. God created the universe. He's all-powerful, great. That's the theory but what about in practice? What about when the rubber hits the road? Then what?
See, I used to think that it was up to me and I guess, in part, it is but not completely. Just as well. You and I, we're human. I can't conjure up confidence. I can't take this theory about who God is and let the theory wipe away the fear. Because fear is real. I need something more than just theory. I need more than promises on a piece of paper.
Yesterday on the program, we looked at what God had to say to His chosen people, Israel, when they were afraid. They'd lost their Promised Land, they were slaves in Babylon, in exile. Yeah, God's chosen people. It sort of seemed that God had deserted them. When it feels like the Babylonians, who after all were the dominant world power, well it felt like they were more powerful than the God of Israel.
So God, as we saw yesterday, points out creation to them. The heavens, the trillions of stars. The stars that the Babylonians, by the way, worshipped. He said, "I made them. I made the heavens and the earth. Don't you think I can save you from the Babylonians?"
You see, for the Israelites, the Babylonians were the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It was seemingly impossible. And if it were left up to the Israelites to work up the courage to believe that God would save them from the Babylonians, it was never going to happen. They didn't have that much faith. They were slaves, they were in exile for 70 years. No, God had to do something. God had to help them. God had to change their hearts and touch them deep inside. And fortunately, that's exactly what God had planned to do.
He didn't want to leave it up to them and here and now, He doesn't want to leave it up to us either. He wants us to actually experience His peace. Not our strength. Not some confidence or peace that we wave up with a magic wand. But a peace and a strength that come, only, from God.
Let's pick up the rest of the story. We began in chapter 40 of Isaiah yesterday and we'll begin at verse 28:
Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn't faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
Great, there it is again - the theory but now, watch what comes next. In Isaiah chapter 40, verse 29:
God gives power to the faint. He strengthens the powers. Even youths will faint and be weary and the young will fall exhausted. But those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. They'll mount up with wings like eagles. They'll run and not be weary. They'll walk and not be faint.
Do you see the point? The power and the strength, where do they come from? Do I conjure them up? Do I somehow magically work hard enough to be confident? No. God gives power to the faint. God strengthens the powerless. See, even young people will faint and be weary. Even the strong will fall exhausted. But, and here's the but, here's the glorious, wondrous, powerful "but":
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint.
You know what it means to wait? When we wait, you know when we're in a tough place. When we're afraid and scared and uncomfortable. You know what we want to do? We want to grumble. We, I got to tell you, we want to grumble.
'God, what are you doing? Why are you letting me go through this? Can't you deal with this? Look at that person over there, they're doing all the wrong things and you're blessing him.' We can find so many things to grumble about can't we? That's not the sort of waiting that God is talking about here, you know:
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
You know what that word "wait" means? It doesn't mean to wait with a bad attitude. It doesn't mean to wait with grumbling in our hearts and on our lips. It means to wait expectantly. To wait on God with the expectation that He is who He says He is. That He will do what He says He's going to do. To wait there right in the middle of our fear with the 800 pound gorilla in the room and say, "You know something, I can't do anything about my slavery in Babylon. I can't over throw the Babylonians. I can't do anything and God seems like a million miles away. But I'm just going to wait here expecting God to do something. Expecting God to show up. I know other people will tell me I'm a fool for doing that. I know it's not rational. I know it's not logical. But God's word says that":
Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint
Right with our emotions on that roller coaster ride. With our enemies around us. With our hearts cast down. To wait with an expectation somewhere deep inside that God's going to act. That God's going to show up.
And you know, I've been in those places so many times and it invariably doesn't feel good. It's easy to listen to some guy with a smooth voice on the radio and think, "Well it's okay for him. You know, he's in a nice safe radio studio. And it's nice and clean and clinical. And, what does he know?"
No, I've been in those tough places. I've wept over this scripture and waited and it never feels wonderful and spiritual. It always feels hard. But God means to do what He says He's going to do. Who knows? Will God give us victory over our enemies or not? I don't know.
More Christians have been martyred in the 20th century than in the 2000 years before that combined. We all die sometime. Is He going to deal with this cancer or let it take its course? I don't know.But there's one thing I know. God is saying,
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
God gives us His peace and His strength when we wait expectantly on Him. It doesn't matter how big or ugly or bad the enemy is. It doesn't matter how fearful we are. Why? Because He gives us His peace. That's the promise.
My friend, do not be afraid. Let your confidence rest on God Himself. And then, let Him do the rest.

You know I've heard all the theory – you don't have to be afraid – because God is in that place with you. Hmm. That's the theory. But how do I know – how do I know that I can rely on Him to be there and to be on my side and to act? Well?
Fear is something that, quite frankly, we don't much want to talk about. And yet it's something that's so very real for so many people in this world. We don't want to admit, to the rest of the world, that we're afraid. And so we kind of put on this brave face as though everything's fine. But on the inside, fear can be eating away like a cancer. So often it's the case that the things we used to place our confidence in, they're not working anymore.
People place their faith in all sorts of things. Their stock portfolio, until the stock market takes a dive. People place their faith in relationships until those relationships fail. And so we lose confidence and when we lose confidence, the deep rot of fear sets into our hearts.
Well truly I tell you, God wants to deal with that so decisively in our lives. Now that doesn't mean that we're not going to go through things and situations and challenges that aren't scary. Of course we are. That's life. But God's plan is that, when we do, that we'll be ready. That our confidence will be in Him.
Imagine a life where these times of fear are replaced with a quiet confidence in God Himself. That's His plan. That's why He keeps saying to us:
Do not be afraid.
Us being afraid falls so far short of His plan to fill us with His peace. That's why I really encourage you to stick with me over these next few minutes as we discover how to live out God's ideal of not being afraid.
I was talking with a friend recently. Great guy, one of "nature's gentlemen" as the saying goes. He's kind and considerate and competent. He's just a delight. I've worked with him about 15 years but over the last few years our paths have headed off into different directions. Now I had cause to call him about something. Expecting to hear his cheerful, bouncy voice on the other end of the phone. But what I discovered was a shell of the man I once knew.
His world had fallen apart. His family was gone, his career seemed over. It was an incredibly difficult and painful time for him. He said, "I'm sitting on a beach at the moment, wondering what, if anything, the rest of my life holds."
Now none of us want to have the stuffing ripped out of us. But you know something, it happens to all of us at some point. It doesn't matter who we are, where we live, what we believe. And you know, I've heard some preachers preach as though, "Well if you believe in God, bad things won't happen to you." That's a load of rubbish. Bad things happen to God's people too. In fact, sometimes especially they happen to God's people, they just do.
Take Israel, God's chosen people. They found themselves in this scary, fearful place. They'd been in slavery, exiled in Babylon for the best part of 3 generations. It's a long time. Only a handful of their elders can ever remember living in God's Promised Land – Jerusalem.
So what does God have to say to these people who are cowering in fear under the yoke of slavery? Have a listen. It comes from the Old Testament, the Book of Isaiah, chapter 41, beginning at verse 8:
But you Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham my friend. You whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, 'You are my servant. I have chosen you and not cast you off. Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you up with my victorious right hand.'
See the first thing that God does is He reminds them of His promises to Abraham. When Abraham stood in that Promised Land, centuries before, this is what God promised him. Genesis chapter 15, beginning at verse 18:
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, 'To your descendants I give this land. From the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates – the land of the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Hittites.'
And all the other little vegemites. God gave that land to Abraham and his descendants. It was God's promise. God had chosen them and had promised them the land. So God had gathered them from the ends of the earth and he said:
I will not cast you off, I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
The whole thing that God relies on here, in talking with His people and their fear and their despair. Is not in who they are or how strong they are or how clever they are. No, He's saying to them, "look at who I am. Look at my promise. I know it's tough. I know you're confused. I know it's scary but I am your God. I am with you. You are my servant. I have chosen you. I took you from the ends of the earth. Don't be afraid."
But how does that help them? See isn't He the God who failed them 70 years earlier? Okay, so He sends them some prophet and he says, "don't be afraid' but He's got more. He's got so much more. See He said, 'it's not just my promises, have a look at who I am."
And just in that chapter before, we were looking at Isaiah chapter 41, just in the chapter before, He tells them who He is. He says:
To whom will you compare me? To an idol? A bit of mulberry wood made by an artisan? Don't you realise?  Haven't you heard? Hasn't it been told to you from the beginning? Haven't you understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and it's inhabitants are like grasshoppers.
Who stretches out the heavens like curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in. Who brings princes to nothing and makes rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them and they wither and the tempest carries them off like stubble.'
'To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?' says God the Holy One. 'Lift up your eyes. Look and see who created these stars. Who brings them out by their hosts and numbers them and calls them by name because He is great in strength? Mighty and power, not one is missing.'
'Why do you say O Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord and my right is discarded from my God? Haven't you known? Haven't you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn't grow faint or weary.'
This is powerful stuff: Don't you get it? He's saying, 'I'm the God who created the whole 'shoot and match'. See those trillions of stars up there? I created them, I make them come out each night. I am so much bigger than your circumstances. It makes absolute sense for you to put your confidence in me.
I have been in those fearful places in my life. And you know what happens? All you can see it the dirty great big 800 pound gorilla in the room. All you can see are the people or the circumstances that cause us to fear and that's human.
We don't know what the future holds. We imagine all the bad things are going to happen at the same time. And then, I don't want to get preachy but I've discovered in my life, that when God steps into my situation, no matter how scary it is. When He steps in and whispers in my heart:
Do not be afraid.
He means it.
Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
My hunch is that today, today He means to whisper those words into your heart and mind.
Do not be afraid.

You know something – the world can be a scary place. We all travel through times when fear eats away inside and it's right in the middle of those times, that we need to know what to do.
I don't know about you but as I look around, it seems to me that the world can be a scary place. Take spiders and snakes for instance. Depending on where you live in the world, they're dangerous or they're not.
Here in Australia we are seriously over-represented in the top ten list of the worlds most venomous creatures. So growing up as a child I had a good reason to be afraid of them. And still today, the idea of a spider crawling into my bed. Well it's one of the scariest thoughts that I can come up with.
Let me tell you a funny story. One of the most venomous snakes on the planet is called the Death Adder. Good name huh? When I was training to be an officer in the army, we had not only Australian students but New Zealand students. And if you know anything about New Zealand, you will know they don't have venomous snakes at all.
And we were training and we were doing a grenade practice. So we were down in the bunker. And one of the New Zealanders went up, out of the bunker, to throw his grenade. And while he did, we found a dead Death Adder. So we put it down right where he had to sit down. So when he sat down, when he came back, he saw it and I tell you, it was so funny. His legs were going before his backside was up off the seat, running out of the bunker. Terrible stuff isn't it? But there you go.
We can laugh but the world can be a scary place. Especially with friends like me.
That was a long time ago, I have to say. I was young and stupid then.
So this week we're starting a new series on the program that's called, "Do Not Be Afraid". There's a reason for that. There are lots of people in this world who spend much of their lives living in fear.
Sometimes it's because they're living in a war zone. I mean there are plenty of people today, listening, who know that only too well. There are people in the Democratic Republic of Congo for instance. And there are parts there where there's war raging right now. There are some people, sitting in their homes, listening to this program today, wondering whether or not they're going to see tomorrow or next week or next year.
Other times, life threatening things happen. You have a health scare. The morning I sat down to prepare this message was the morning of the funeral of a good friend of mine. He was just a few years older than me and he died suddenly of a heart attack.
It's easy to be afraid of things. And when we're afraid it rocks our confidence. And yet other people, they just kind of live life with a real sense of dread. Always something there for us to dread. Always something lurking out there that we can be afraid of.
For me, honestly, if I allowed it, I could be afraid of quite a few things. There are a few things in my life right now that could cause me fear. I mean this ministry that I'm involved in at Christianityworks. It's a global media ministry. We're just a small team of people and we don't know where the funding's going to come from to do all we have to do over this next year. We just don't.
So you either live in fear or you live in faith. If God doesn't provide that funding, we'll fall flat on our faces. That's the stark reality. And that's the thing, it doesn't matter who we are or where we live, we can live in fear. And that fear can rob us of life itself. And yet, time and time and time again, you read God's word and these are the words from God, that He speaks to His people. He says:
Do not be afraid.
And He utters them, invariably, right at the time when the people He's talking with have every reason to be afraid. The people and the circumstances that are confronting them, conspiring against them.
We experience fear too and yet God wades in and says: "Do not be afraid."
Now if God doesn't want me to be afraid, when I have every reason to be afraid. You know something, I want to have a piece of His brand of confidence, don't you think? I mean, think about it. What's the point of God saying, "Do not be afraid" when we have no reason to fear. It's right in the middle of fear that we need His brand of confidence. I definitely want that, how about you?
Well, how can we have that confidence? That's a good question. That's what today's program is about. That's what this whole week is about. It's about discovering, right in the middle of where we live. Right in the middle of all the stuff that goes on in our lives, how not to be afraid.
So I invite you to come on a journey with me this week. And we're going to start that journey with an account of a time when God's chosen people, Israel, were very afraid. They had every reason to be afraid.
They'd been living in the Promised Land for several hundred years and then, all of a sudden. Because they were struggling with God. They were worshipping idols and other God's. Eventually God lost His patience. And in 586 BC, the Babylonians, the world power at the time, the dominant power, invaded Jerusalem. They destroyed the place. They destroyed the temple, the place where God's presence dwelt. And they took God's people back into slavery, to Babylon.
Now talk about a crisis of confidence. Think about it. God makes all these promises. To Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. And then, when Israel are in slavery in Egypt, He sends them Moses and He does amazing miracles. The whole Red Sea thing, the exodus through the desert for 40 years. Everything, and got them finally to the land that God had promised to Abraham centuries before.
And once they got into the Promised Land, under the leadership of Joshua. They fought battle after battle against nation after nation that was bigger and stronger than Israel. And yet, God was with His chosen people and they took the land that God had promised to them.
And now, now all of a sudden, Babylon wins. God's own temple's destroyed. Where's God? What happened? Is the king of Babylon stronger than our God? Are the Babylonian God's stronger than our God?
The Israelites had a loss of confidence. And when we lose confidence, we get afraid. It's a big deal. I mean, you look at share holder confidence, consumer confidence. That feeling when you go to sleep at night, having that falling sensation. You know, you wake up in a panic and you're grabbing onto the bed.
Confidence is being able to, to trust the earth beneath our feet. And people trust the stock market, they trust the plane they're flying in, they trust their governments, they trust whatever. And then it's like things get pulled out from under your feet and you lose confidence and panic and fear set in. Because we're no longer safe, we're no longer able to trust what we've always trusted.
That's where Israel was. They had a complete loss of confidence in their God. He was punishing them but they didn't see it that way. It's like they were flying along, in a plane, at 32,000 feet above the ground and all of a sudden, all of the engines got switched off. Panic and fear and fair enough too.
So what does God say to them in the middle of their fear and panic? In Isaiah chapter 41, verse 10:
Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
I often wonder, how can He say that? How can God bowl up to us in the middle of our fear and circumstances where it's logical and reasonable and human for us to be afraid and say:
Do not be afraid.
How can He do that? Well, that's what we're going to be looking at over the rest of this week on the program. We're going to take a look at fear, well ... from a different perspective.

The seven deadly sins – lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and pride – are tearing this world apart.  Each one of us deals with at least one in our makeup.  But God has graciously given us the power to break free from their clutches.
Berni: I'm joined again today by my good friend, Keith Henry. Keith, you've been great over these last couple of weeks. Time has flown; we're in our last day.
Keith: Yep, it's been very good Berni, enjoyed it very much.
Berni: You know, what's struck me as I've listened to you speaking about our different personality types and our weaknesses, is how complex we are as people. You know, we see people and we interact with them during the day but we never really stop to think how incredibly complex we each are. You know, there are so many layers and as we've looked at each personality type.
I'm going to ask you to go through those personality types again and look at the strengths and weaknesses of those personality types, just to kind of tie it all together today. But, you look at all that and you stand back and you think, 'man, these people couldn't possibly have evolved from some primeval slime. You know, if God didn't create us, it just, you know it takes more faith, from me, to believe in evolving from the primeval slime than it does to believe in the Creator who created these incredibly complex people.
Berni: We talked about seven different deadly sins. I'd just like to go through each of them again today, and you said, look, each personality type has a virtue, something that they're really good at.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: And, sort of like a flip side of a coin, which is the down side of that personality type and from what I gather from what you were saying was, that the way that, say a leader deals with his or her lust is by exercising their virtue which is Godly. Is that what you were saying?
Keith: That's right. Gods given us a way out for each personality and each sin, out of the seven deadly sins and in terms of a leader, because they have a lust for life, they have an adventurous spirit and it can undo them because they get into all the sins which is quite easy to open to because they are so active and so out there, that they have to react to those things in a Godly way but what do we mean by that? The one, the Godly way that suits the leader is justice and truth. You think of God, He's a loving God so they have to have that love but they really want justice.
Berni: Is that a natural inclination for the leader?
Keith: It is.
Berni: And so, if the leader replaces the down side with the up side, that's how he or she wins.
Keith: Exactly. So, they have to look at justice and truth in terms of "what is Gods justice" not revenge in the world.
Berni: Okay, so the leader, the down side for that personality type is lust but if we can summarise the virtue corresponding, is Godliness.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: Okay, that's great. Okay, tell me about the encourager. The encourager's sin is gluttony which was kind of weird.
Keith: Yes, they want more of everything and they want to do everything. They just don't settle down, they're forever on the move, life's exciting for them but they have to focus more. They actually have to get one thing that they're passionate about and focus on it. So they become more in moderation, not so many things that they're doing at one time.
Berni: Okay, so for the encourager, the sin is gluttony but the strength, the virtue is moderation.
Keith: Yes, that's right.
Berni: Okay. What about the server, the server is someone who serves. Love being around servers, all you servers can come over to my place.
Keith: Well, the server, in this case, we're talking about a server who's got greed and the greed we're referring there is hoarding things. So it's not gluttony as we said, of wanting more and more, it's hoarding things because they don't think they have enough. The hoarding is based upon fear so that what they have to do, the way out is really, they're a knowledge person, so get more word, get more knowledge and then go out and use it. They actually have to put it into action, go out in faith in other words.
Berni: Okay, so if they're hoarding their money because they're afraid they won't have enough for tomorrow, the way to deal with that is to, for instance, exercise faith by giving some of that away.
Keith: Exactly or entering a new project if they wanted to.
Berni: Okay.
Keith: Actually going and doing it instead of just gaining more knowledge and being too scared.
Berni: The teacher, what's the teacher's deadly sin?
Keith: The deadly sin is sloth there or what we call laziness.
Berni: I love that "sloth".
Keith: Yes but as I said, even the busy can be lazy, right. It's really putting off what should be done today and putting off until tomorrow and the tomorrow and the tomorrow. It's not having priority, it's to do things and sticking to them. So the virtue of that is perseverance.
Berni: Okay, so sticking with things and seeing them through to completion.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: Right.
Keith: And having a priority to do the first things first, not to put them to the last.
Berni: Alright, the prophet. The prophet's someone who speaks out right and wrong. In fact, the prophet's in the Bible were the people who spoke out Gods right and wrong. What's the deadly sin that the prophet has a problem with?
Keith: The deadly sin is anger but it's not an anger that a leader might use in shouting at somebody. It's an internal anger, that they resent things not being perfect, they resent people not doing the right thing. So what they have to do, they have to have integrity of Gods integrity there. They actually look at His standard, God has a standard, these are "standard" people. They like a standard set, a very high standard, so they have to look at Gods standard, not their standard and work to Gods standard.
Berni: So the prophet's the person who finds it hard to soar like an eagle when they're surrounded by turkeys.
Keith: Exactly, so they have to really, Gods standard is to be patient and understanding with everyone.
Berni: Yep, yep, it is. Alright, the carer.
Keith: The carer has envy as the deadly sin that they have most of. They love what other people have. The carer's a loving person and they go up and down, their emotions and they want to experience the ride but the way out of it for them and the only way out is to show love to others. They're sensitive, not to their own feelings, become sensitive to other people's feelings and show love to them.
Berni: And the neat thing about that is that that's the carer's natural inclination anyway, isn't it?
Keith: It is.
Berni: Is to show love. So really they're replacing their sin with their virtue.
Keith: Exactly.
Berni: If they live out their virtue, the sin actually has no room.
Keith: That's right, yes, that's right.
Berni: That's God's way, isn't it?
Keith: Focus on others, not themselves.
Berni: Yeah. Alright, the giver.
Keith: The giver, it's pride here which sounds very very funny but say I'm supporting your ministry and I'm the biggest supporter, I then start want to expect things from you, I want you to do it my way. I don't want you to do this; I want you to do that. So they, they think, pride can think, "I'm the power behind the throne, I'm the one that has done everything". The way over that is brotherly kindness; they actually have to give, with kindness, without any expectation of return. Just give through a loving heart.
Berni: In each case, there's a natural virtue that these personality types have and the natural virtue, if they exercise that, God starts driving out the sin.
Keith: He does, we can't do it, there is no way. You can become like a monk, a Buddhist monk and you can become the highest level you want and the peaceful person but you cannot break through the divine nature.
Berni: No, that's the thing that God does through His Spirit. Hey listen Keith, it's been fascinating spending these couple of weeks with you and time has just gone out the window but it's been really fascinating and I've learned so much about myself and about other people.
Keith: That's good Berni; I've enjoyed being here, thank you very much.
Berni: Good on ya, hopefully we'll be able to have Keith Henry back another time and it's been a real blessing. God bless you.
Keith: Thank you.

You've probably heard of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Sounds old fashioned, but actually those same seven are tearing people's lives apart. Which one are you most prone to, and how can you break free from its clutches?
Over this last week and a half on the program, we've been spending some time looking at what are called the "seven deadly sins". Not because we want to do a guilt trip, not because we want to bandy round some seemingly old fashioned word like "sin" but because sin ruins our lives and the seven deadly sins that we've been talking about over these last couple of weeks certainly do that.
Lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy and pride; seven of the deadliest. That's the problem with sin, it robs us of life itself. Spend your time being angry all the time, what joy are you going to have? Do the gluttony thing and the weight will ruin your health and quality of life. Lust ruins marriages. On it goes; sin ruins lives, it's plain and it's simple.
I just want to spend some time today with Keith Henry again, our special guest, being honest about the consequences. Tomorrow, we're going to look at the wondrous, beautiful solution but today, let's get real about the consequences. What do you think Keith, do you think that we try and sweep them under the carpet, these sins sometimes?
Keith: I think we can but also think that we don't know what to do about them and secondly we don't feel we have any power to do something about them.
Berni: You see, what strikes me is, let's assume for a moment, God made us, right. Let's assume for a moment God knew what He was doing, didn't make a mistake.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: Right, what all the experts, including yourself, tell us is that each personality type is prone to a particular one of these downfalls. It's almost like each personality type has a good side but there's an underside.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: So the sin of lust is one that the leader is prone to. Gluttony, what personality type, remind me, is prone to gluttony?
Keith: Encourager.
Berni: The encourager. Greed.
Keith: Is the server, it's a fear.
Berni: Yeah. Laziness.
Keith: Is the teacher.
Berni: Anger.
Keith: Is the prophet.
Berni: Envy.
Keith: Is the carer.
Berni: And pride.
Keith: Is the giver.
Berni: See, each one of those is prone to one of those sins. What was God thinking, I wonder sometimes, giving us each one of those sins? See, God doesn't have any sin in Him and yet He creates personality types and we all end up with a particular Achilles heel, if you like.
Keith: We do but I don't think God made us to actually have these things, it's actually in the form of our culture and our nature that is not divine, we have these sins which manifest in our personality, more so in 1 personality than in another and God provides the way out.
Berni: Yeah, we're going to talk about that. I was interested though, one of the passages that's always drawn me to it is in 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 and I want to share this with you. This is the apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 7:
Therefore to keep me from being too elated, (writes Paul) a thorn was given me in my flesh, a messenger of satan to torment me and keep me from being too elated. 
Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me but He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness." So I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak then I am strong.
The fist few hundred times I read this passage I thought this thorn in the flesh must be, maybe he's got a limp or maybe there's something wrong with his hip or maybe he's sick or whatever but the more I read it, this thorn in the flesh and the word he uses there, for flesh, is the same word that Paul uses elsewhere for the sinful nature.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: Right. "As a messenger of satan to torment me". The more I read that, the more I'm thinking Paul's actually talking about some sin that he's dealing with and we read elsewhere where Paul writes he struggles to do the right thing, same struggles as you and I have and everybody else has and 3 times Paul goes and says, "God, take it away", and God says, "Well no actually, you know what the answer is, the answer is not me taking this away, the answer is that my grace is sufficient for you and my power becomes perfect in your weakness." Isn't that awesome?
Keith: It is, isn't it?
Berni: And I look at my sins and my weaknesses and the flaws in my character and I think, "You know, God wants to use me anyway even though I have these weaknesses." How do you respond to this passage?
Keith: I agree with you, I think "flesh", the word there is referring to his nature and if we think, from reading about Paul, that he really has a prophet personality, he's very black and white, there's one right way, one wrong way. So his real sin there that God could be talking about is anger, where he resents things not being perfect.
Berni: And you see him getting angry, in the Scriptures, when he's writing to some of these Churches, don't you?
Keith: Yes ... he pulls them up, doesn't he?
Berni: I was going to ask you what personality type you thought Paul was, the prophet. He is a pretty "in your face" kind of guy.
Keith: He is and I know myself, when I've suffered a weakness, a physical weakness or something like that, you do become strong. You become humble, I often say to my wife, "I'm a better person when I'm suffering."
Berni: Yeah.
Keith: 'Cause it's not about me anymore.
Berni: Yeah. Although you don't want to be there all your life.
Keith: No, you don't do you?
Berni: No, you don't say, "God, I want to suffer." (Both laugh)
Keith: No, you want to be free from it but you want to also have the personality that participates in the nature of God, not in our own selfishness or in Paul's case, that resentment, that anger.
Berni: Yeah, I come back to what God said to Paul and I think God's saying it to each one of us. You know, we each have different personality types and we each have an Achilles heel don't we? We each have something, whether it's anger or envy or lust or gluttony or, whatever it is, each one of us, kind of, relates to one of those. We go, "you know something, I really don't want to admit this to anyone but that's me."
Keith: That's right.
Berni: And God's saying to us here, "I know, I made you, you are no surprise to me", and Paul goes and says, "God, you know the best thing would be if you took this away" and God says, "well no, actually the best thing would be Paul, is if you experience my grace instead and if you start to become like Me because the power that I have for you, that power becomes perfect when you're weak." And Paul says, "zippidy-doo-da", and it's almost, we need to accept who we are, good and bad.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: I don't want to revel, I don't want to live in my sin, I don't want to, I want God to deal with that but Gods saying, "I'll deal with it, in my way, in my time. In the mean time, my grace is sufficient for you." What an awesome God.
Keith: He is, He's the one that provides the way out for everything.
Berni: Yeah, and that grace, that grace is hanging there on the cross, that grace is Jesus Christ nailed, His flesh nailed to a cross suffering a painful death to pay for my sin, to pay for your sin, to pay for everybody's sin. That grace is sufficient for Paul, it's sufficient for Keith Henry, it's sufficient for Berni Dymet, it's sufficient for all of us and Gods power is what ultimately changes us.
Keith: I think the whole point of the Bible is that we are to become more like Christ every day. That's our nature; our personality has to change to be more like God. We can't do it but God can do it.
Berni: We cannot and that's what we're going to look at, tomorrow, on the program. Keith, it's been great to talk to you.
Keith: Thank you Berni.