Receiving the Best of the Best – christianityworks

Episode 1. A Gift Like No Other (1)

God does some really strange things sometimes. Take Christmas. The King of Kings arrives in a stable. Completely without fanfare. Completely not what anybody was expecting. So what was it all about …

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It’s odd that if Jesus truly was and is the Son of God that He should enter this world, not with a fanfare of trumpets but with His glory veiled.

Mediocrity Begets Mediocrity

We live in a world where, increasingly, mediocrity is the norm. Now, that’s not to say that some people don’t work hard and achieve extraordinary things – of course they do. But have you noticed that the more choices we have the more complex our life becomes. And the more complex it becomes, the more detached we become from one another.

I was at a hardware store recently, buying some grout for the tiles in our bathroom – just a few dollars – and when I went to the checkout, there was a young lady there to serve me. I use that term ‘serve’ very loosely, but the young woman at the next checkout had no one to serve so she was over talking to this young lady. And the whole time I was at the counter, these two just chatted away and I think they were a little shocked when I pulled them up. What was happening was that the customer was being treated like an interruption to their social life, instead of the customer whose patronage pays their wages.

The more sophisticated our world becomes – entertainment options, purchasing options the more detached we become – not just in the affluent West but in societies where traditionally, people and families and communities would be much closer. And we’re not just the ones on the receiving end of this mediocrity, the great temptation is to become part of the culture of mediocrity – to be more concerned about fulfilling our desires and our needs and less focused on caring for and loving other people.

Churches are full of mediocrity. Had an email from a man recently who had been through some terrible tragedies in his life. When he was a kid his parents and his sisters were killed in a car accident and then when he grew up, well, his wife and his children were killed by a drunk driver. He ended up in a mental health unit and he went from one church to another and they rejected him because where he was living, to the point where he now even struggles to believe that there is a God.

Come on, let’s examine our own lives. It’s so easy for us to be annoyed with mediocrity – we’re so often on the receiving end of it and yet, how easy is it for us to dish that same mediocrity up to other people? See, mediocrity begets mediocrity. And that’s no more true than in the lead up to Christmas – rushing around to do all the last minute things.

Down here in the Southern Hemisphere we are getting, not just for Christmas, with the presents and the food and all those preparations for goodness knows what, but most of us will be heading off for our summer break – a few well earned weeks in the sun and surf and sand.

So over these next couple of weeks it’s going to be a frenetic time – rushing around. Its Christmas after all – presents to buy, family get togethers to organise – there’s so much to do. We go down to the shops – there are crowds and they’re pushing and shoving … and the sales assistants behind the counter, who are so tired – I mean, some of them have been working, literally, around the clock with stores open 24/7 in so many places.

So by the time Christmas arrives, we just kind of fall over the line; we only just make it – we’re exhausted. Too tired to think about Christmas; too exhausted to celebrate what Christmas is all about. Anyhow, it’s all about spending money on our credit cards which we don’t have.

If you are living in a country similar to mine, you’ll know what I’m talking about – mediocrity begets mediocrity. And so the whole idea of Christmas is so easily lost, isn’t it? So what if I said to you that Christmas is about receiving the best of the best – the very best – God’s best? Sounds like a good idea but it just doesn’t gel with what we experience, does it?

What if I said to you that Christmas is about a love so great that nothing was too much to give? Sounds good in theory! And perhaps you’re even someone who believes that that’s what Christmas is all about, but let me asked you this … is that what your experience of Christmas is? Is that the sort of Christmas that you live out, year after year? And the answer for ninety nine percent of people is ‘No’.

And if you’re someone who is living in a place without the wealth that I have been talking about, you are probably sitting there wondering, ‘Man, how … how can these people live like that? There are millions of people listening to this programme who are living in poverty, in war zones, afraid for their very lives – people who may even be persecuted for just believing in Jesus. And here’s some guy talking about the receiving of the ‘best of the best’ from God at Christmas. A love so great that words simply can’t describe it and you look around and you think to yourself, ‘What is he talking about?’

Well, what I’m talking about is this: it comes straight from God’s Word, the Bible. It tells us what Christmas is all about. It comes from First John chapter 4, verse 9:

“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”

There it is! There’s what Christmas is all about. Christmas is God telling us something, but what? Have another listen: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into this world so that we might live through him.”

Christmas is God telling us how much He loves us and He tells us of the infinite love that He has for us by what? By mere words? By giving us a tie or a bottle of perfume, all wrapped up nice under the tree? No, no, He tell us of His infinite love for us by giving us something or Someone of infinite value; a gift so great that no price can be put on it – His one and only Son.

Now over these next few weeks, heading up to Christmas, we are going to spend some time together; some time out from all the madness and carryon that we carry on with, unwrapping this Christmas present of great value. Because the problem with Christmas presents is this: someone can give you a present, but if we leave it under the tree, if we never unwrap it, well, it’s useless – it just gets thrown away. We need to open the present in order to receive it and this very first Christmas present, God’s one and only Son, is no different.

That’s why I have called this series, “Receiving the Best of the Best” – God’s best. There is no better ‘best’ than this one and my prayer is that, as we share together of some of the stories of this miraculous coming of God in the flesh, it’ll be kind of like … like unwrapping the present in our hearts. And my prayer for you, for each one of us, is that in doing that together, we’ll be receiving the best of the best – God’s best!

A New Shot at Life

One of the saddest sights I think I have ever seen is a forest of old growth trees cut down. These beautiful, majestic old trees, that began their lives as little seeds fallen to the forest floor, that grew through many decades of sun and wind and rain and storm, to become majestic old trees … trees that provided homes for the birds and the animals; trees that breathe fresh oxygen into an atmosphere chocking on Co2; trees that provided shade and beauty and a rich organic fragrance.

And then in just a few hours, men with chain saws came along and felled this ancient forest. What was left were stumps, remains where there once was life. All those stumps in the ground were like tombstones marking the death of beauty and majesty, the loss of life, the sense of desolation. I look at one of those stumps and what I see is a life cut off, cut short, brutally, ugly and sadly.

I don’t know about you but I remember my life being like one of those stumps once. It felt as though my life had been cut off. That same feeling of brutal desolation and hopelessness because when a tree has been cut down like that, well, that’s it, it’s all over, there’s no future, no hope, just a tombstone to mark the spot.

And so it was in the life of Israel. I mean, amazing things happened to those people from the time God spoke to Abraham and gave him a son, Isaac, who had a son Jacob, who had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. They were in slavery in Egypt for centuries and then they crossed through the Red Sea and forty years in the wilderness and then finally, into the Promised Land.

And they had judges and kings but they were supposed to be blessed in the Promised Land, only they dishonoured God. And so in 587BC they ended up in exile; in slavery in Babylon and eventually they came back again but were under foreign occupation.

God spoke to them through the prophets of old but they rejected the prophets. They killed most of them and then they went through the most brutal occupations and punishment from God because they rejected God’s prophets. They turned their backs on their God and they were paying the price. And then, all of a sudden, God stopped talking … God stopped sending His prophets to call them back to Him. There was dead silence from God. And it went on for four centuries.

By this time the Romans had occupied Israel. Caesar was a brutal dictator. People were oppressed again – here in their own land – the Promised Land. All the promises God had made to them; all the hope they had for the future. But it needed some Messiah, a King like David to lead them back to freedom, the way David had done a thousand years before but nothing … just stumps, just tombstones where once there was freedom and vibrancy and blessing.

Things looked completely hopeless but centuries before, God had spoken of this time through His prophet Isaiah. Have a listen with me, what God said through Isaiah, beginning in chapter 11, verse 1. He said:

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.”

What a fabulous picture! “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jessie.” Jessie was King David’s father. He had lived a thousand years before Jesus was born. David had been promised something by God around 1000BC. David had just had victory over his enemies – he was feeling pretty pleased with himself and he decided to build a house for God … a temple. ‘I’ll do this for God as my way of saying ‘Thank You’’, but God turned that idea on its head with this promise: Second Samuel chapter 7, verses 12 to 16:

“When your days are fulfilled (David) and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”

Here it was – a great promise – a Kingdom forever. That’s why Isaiah talks about the stump of Jessie. The promise to David was grand and majestic, to rule forever and here was Israel, just before Jesus was born, an occupied land. What had happened to God’s promises? They were cut off like a stump.

But then … then comes Jesus, a direct descendant for Jessie and then from David – one of David’s royal blood line. And He emerges – not with some great trumpet fanfare – He doesn’t burst onto the world stage in a blaze of media glory, like some superstar. He’s born into a filthy stable somewhere in Bethlehem and the picture of His birth is painted here by Isaiah, centuries before. It’s a picture that emerges out of the desolation of Israel and out of the promise made to David many years before. Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1:

“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jessie and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

My friend, that is so often how Jesus chooses to come into our lives – amidst the desolation; amidst the loss, the sense of what should have been and could have been. He doesn’t come with some great trumpet fanfare. He comes as a tender green shoot, a new shoot, a new life – so soft and so delicate, just a small green bud of life that bursts forth to grow a mighty tree out of this apparently, dead stump. That’s what was going on the night when Jesus was born into this world.

That’s what goes on in our lives when we accept Him into our hearts. He brings a tender new shoot, a small soft green shoot of life. That’s the plan!

A Strange Sort of King

I remember when I was a young man, training to be an army officer at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia. We had an Honour Guard to line the entrance to the College. It was a special occasion. We put on a parade for her, all four hundred of us. It was a grand affair – pomp and ceremony – we practised so hard for that parade, I have to tell you, and our drill was just perfect. But after all, the Queen was visiting! That’s what you do for royalty; at least we did back then.

And that’s why, when I look back to the coming of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, that first Christmas a couple of thousand years ago – it’s such a strange affair. It’s odd that if Jesus truly was and is the Son of God, how odd is it that He should enter this world, not with a fanfare of trumpets; not with a clear pronouncement and proclamation amongst God’s chosen people, Israel – but with His glory veiled, hidden. Strange that He should arrive in a stable, don’t you think? Strange indeed!

I know that if I were God, my son surely would have been born into a castle. No one would have been in any doubt who he was and what he was there for. And if I were God, people would have been waiting on my son, hands and feet. There would have been parades and honour guards and pomp and ceremony, that’s for sure. But lucky for you, I’m not God. And God choose this rather odd way of bringing His Son into the world.

Was it something He dreamed up on the spur of the moment, or was this always His plan? Well, if we go back to the prophet Isaiah who prophesied over seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, is seems that God always had a plan for His Son to be, well, humble. Have a listen – Isaiah chapter 53, verses 1 to 3:

“Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces,
he was despised, and we held him of no account.”

That’s what God said through Isaiah seven hundred years before Jesus was born. Let’s think about this for a moment. Israel were God’s chosen people – they had all the promises of God; they had the blessing; they had the Promised Land. This is where they were going to live and milk and honey flowed but they turned their backs against God and in 587BC they suffered a great punishment. What happened was, the Babylonians, God raised them up against Israel and destroyed Israel and took those who were left alive into captivity for seventy years.

And when they got back they found their Promised Land under occupation. First it was, of course, the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks and by the first century, it was the Romans, the brutal Romans. This was a brutal occupation. So by the time Jesus came, they were expecting a King to save them from the occupation; to set them free; to restore them back to the freedom they had enjoyed in the Promised Land under their kings, like David, a thousand years before. That’s what we were looking at earlier.

See, they were expecting a Messiah, but one like you and I would expect when someone says the word ‘king’. Surely God would send them another king just like David, to sit on the throne in Jerusalem and kick those Romans out of this place and restore Israel back to its former glory; back to living in the blessing of God. But that didn’t happen!

In fact, the Nation of Israel lived under one form of occupation or another until 1948, when the modern state of Israel was declared. That was almost two thousand years on. So God wasn’t in the business, back then, of meeting the worldly expectations of His people and my hunch is, He’s still not in that business.

See, He was doing something different; He was doing something new, so He sends them His Son, the Messiah, who, as Isaiah had prophesied, “had no form or majesty that we should look at him; nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” And what did the people do? Did they rejoice? Did they say: ‘WOW, look at this, God is doing something so much better than we expected. He didn’t send us some earthly king to establish our earthly kingdom. He didn’t come to establish a kingdom that surely, one day has to pass away. No, no, God did something much better than that: He sent us the heavenly King, to establish the Kingdom of heaven here on earth – a Kingdom that would never pass away.’ Is that what they said; is that the conclusion that people came to? No!!

As Isaiah prophesied and rightly predicted, He was despised and rejected by others and they held him of no account. In fact, even after three and a half years, His disciples, they saw all the amazing miracles Jesus did; they heard Him preach those amazing sermons; they even witnessed His death and His miraculous resurrection. After all that, here’s what the disciples ask Him: Acts chapter 1, verse 6:

“So when they had come together the disciples ask him, “Lord, Is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom of Israel?”

See, they couldn’t let go of their worldly view; they still didn’t get it! Jesus didn’t come back to restore an earthly kingdom; Jesus wasn’t born on that starry night in Bethlehem to fit in with our worldly expectations and to dance to our tune. He didn’t come to us to establish something that one day would pass away. Jesus came to establish an utterly different kind of Kingdom – a Kingdom from out of this world – the Kingdom of God that reigns in our hearts – a Kingdom not of this world; a Kingdom that would last forever.

Let me ask you, what do you make of this rather strange sort of a King, Jesus? What does this whole Christmas thing come to mean to you? Is it a whole children’s pantomime kind of ritual thing that you go through every year? Or has this rather odd, rather radical, rather unconventional King established His Kingdom in your heart? And if you are struggling to answer that question; if you are not quite sure whether He has really touched your heart, then you would be alone.

See, many a man, many and woman struggles to know – ‘How can I know if Jesus is the Lord of my life? Well, actually, it is so much easier than you might think because as you hear these words; as you listen to someone telling you the wonderful story of Jesus; as you engage with the Christmas story, it becomes so much more than a ritual – it becomes so much than a pantomime.

When God has touched our hearts through His Son Jesus Christ, our hearts ache to belong to Him. That’s how you know! You long to live your whole eternity in the light of His glory. That’s how you know.

My friend Christmas is coming! Can I ask you, what has Christmas come to mean to you? How are you going to celebrate Christmas? Is it going to be the same old, same old again this year – just doing the same things that we’ve always done? Or is it perhaps time this year to really focus on the beautiful, wonderful story of God’s love, which is the story of Christmas, after all.

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Episode 2. A Gift Like No Other (2)

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God is issuing us an invitation to His Son’s birthday party because all along it’s been for ordinary, everyday people like you and me.

A Rocky Road to Christmas

Well, you know, Christmas is just about upon us. It’s exciting! Come on, get in the spirit!! It’s Christmas – presents, celebration, time for a bit of a break from work! Isn’t that fantastic? Well, this may surprise you but the answer for so many people is: ‘No’. There’s nothing fantastic and there are so many reasons for that.

Some of the people listening to this programme today are living in a war zone. Some have just lost a loved one; some are watching their children starve; some are looking out at the gloom of a Northern Hemisphere winter, wondering what there can possibly be to get excited about; some are contemplating yet another Christmas completely alone; and some are just so tired and so exhausted, that all they can see themselves doing on Christmas Day is kind of collapsing over the line.

Did you know that in most places – most countries, most societies on planet earth – that there’s a significant spike in the incidence of domestic violence over Christmas? We can’t begin to imagine why people live like that but many do. Almost without doubt, there’s a woman listening to this programme right now, who’s contemplating yet another beating, or even worse, from the man who is supposed to love her more than any other person on this planet.

For many, many people, despite all the commercial hype, despite what all the religious people are telling us, it’s a rocky road this road heading towards Christmas. Maybe that’s how you feel about Christmas – it’s a rocky road! It can often be the way.

I’ve had Christmases like that; all these people telling me how wonderful Christmas should be and all these messages of hope and joy and presents and commercial hype. Do you know what they did? They amplified my pain; they pointed out to me, how lonely I really was; how bad my life really was; how much everyone else had and how little I seemed to have. Whatever it is Christmas, can be a rocky road.

And when our rocky road doesn’t match the hoopla of Christmas, it’s so easy for us to conclude that, well, Christmas isn’t for us. God didn’t mean for this to be a joy and a blessing for me and that … that makes things even worse than if there were no Christmas at all. And I know there are so many people listening to the programme today, around the world, who are sitting there nodding – you know exactly what I’m talking about.

So we are going to spend a short time together looking at Christmas from that place … from that place of being on that journey along a rocky road – not really understanding why we’re here or where we’re going or perhaps what’s going to happen when we get there. And the best way to do that is to look at Christmas through the eyes of someone on such a rocky road, in fact through two people – a couple, an engaged couple – Mary and Joseph, on a rocky road to that first Christmas.

You know the whole Christmas thing … a bit of a pantomime, isn’t it? You know, the little Baby Jesus and the manger and the stable scene. So many kids pantomimes that we were in when we were kids and we’ve watched them as adults, so, in our heads, it’s easy to reduce Christmas to this nice, little, safe, soft, fluffy story. But let’s take a look at the real thing – not through kids’ eyes and their understanding but through our eyes and an adults understanding.

There’s Mary: she’s, you know, nine months pregnant. There’s a two week donkey ride from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Can you imagine? Fantastic! And they’re not married, Mary and Joseph. She’s pregnant and they’re not married! There’s huge shame associated with this.

And heading down this road, they’re not heading to a five star hotel that Joseph booked on the internet. I mean he can’t ring ahead on his mobile phone to check their booking. They don’t know what’s happening when they get there – to Bethlehem. Will there be a room?

So think of Joseph. Let’s look at this whole Christmas thing through his eyes for a moment. He’s not married to Mary yet; she is carrying someone else’s child. Okay, she says it was God and not some other man, yea, right! And an angel appeared to him and told it was so, so he’s accepted that in faith, but there must be lingering doubt!

And even if it is God’s child, it’s not his, and this is his wife to be, after all – the woman he loves and that would hurt any man’s heart. Can you imagine how that’s hurting in his heart as he is walking this rocky road towards that first Christmas? And he’s the husband-to-be; the provider and protector of this little family-to-be. They’re travelling to Bethlehem by a decree of the Roman Emperor because there’s a Roman census on. They don’t know what’s going to happen when they get there! Will they find somewhere to stay? Will Mary make it that far?

“How am I going to provide for this little family that isn’t even my family yet? How am I going to make it all work and bring it all together and keep them all safe? And when this child is born, will I be able to love it as though it were my own? Will I be able to find it in my heart to love this child like that?” All these thoughts and the ‘what ifs’ and the concerns and the worries are swilling around inside him as he walks alongside that donkey, carrying his pregnant bride-to-be along this rocky road.

And Mary! All Mary can think about is this baby inside her. It’s so uncomfortable on the back of this donkey, hour after hour, day after day. Are my waters going to break, it could be any minute? We’re in the middle of nowhere! Where will I have my baby? What’s going to happen? Is it going to hurt? It could happen any day, any moment!

All those promises from God, the glory of an angel appearing to her – that was great back then but here she is, due any minute, sitting on the back of a smelly, uncomfortable donkey on a road to goodness knows where. If God is God, if this is His Son that she’s carrying inside her, what a way to treat her. How can it possibly be true?

So, that was it – the rocky road towards the first Christmas. Not a safe, comfortable little pantomime but a tough, real life story that ended up with no room at the inn and a smelly, disgusting, draughty stable to have a baby in, surrounded by smelly, disgusting farm animals in that place where you had to be careful where you put your foot down.

When we sit here in the dung heap of our own lives, it feels sometimes like that smelly stable, doesn’t it? And it feels like the glory and the presence of God just doesn’t belong in this place. But it was into such a place that God’s own Son was born. It was into such a place that the glory of the Lord burst forth in a way that no one could ever have predicted or even imagined. It is into such a place that Jesus Christ, the Son of God has come and there’s a reason for that.

Christmas is God telling us that He is on this rocky road with us; He is truly in this place with us. It’s especially into such a place, such a life, the glory of God has come. That’s what Christmas is about – God is with us!

A Great Christmas Disappointment

It seems that Australia is a long way from anywhere, so to fly to the USA is anywhere between fifteen and twenty five hours, depending on exactly where you are headed and the connections and, you know, the things that happen along the way. And after a long journey, when you get to the other end, what you are really hanging out for is just to get to your hotel room, have a long, hot shower, lie down on a flat bed. I mean, it doesn’t have to be a fancy expensive hotel – it’s all about just getting there, knowing there is somewhere where you can lay your head and just have a wash.

One time it was a thirty-four hour trip, door to door, from Sydney to Chicago. I was speaking at an I.T. conference and I arrived at the hotel and the man said, ‘I’m sorry sir, our computers are down, we don’t know which rooms are ready, which ones aren’t and we can’t check you in for at least four hours.’ Huh? I . . . I cannot begin to tell you how that felt – it was terrible! I just wanted to go to my room.

Funny this sense of ‘self’ that we have! It doesn’t matter whether we’re rich or poor we just want to have a roof over our heads and somewhere to lay our head down to sleep; somewhere to call home. And of course, many, many people in this world don’t have that. Many, many people listening to the programme today don’t have that. Just simple, basic things – food, water, sanitation, electricity – most of the people alive on this planet today, don’t have all of those things. And yet our simple desire is to have them.

And it seems that Christmas has grown into this thing that’s all about ‘having’; having so much more. The advertising and the hype and the hoopla and the expectations – it’s almost as though, well, it’s almost as though the message we’re sending out is that Christmas is only for those who can afford it. It seems that Santa Clause doesn’t manage to get to the kids in the really poor places on the planet. Funny how that works! Why is that?

I was sharing with you earlier about this dejection of the long trip and not being able to get into my hotel room. I was so annoyed at the time of this great inconvenience – a four hour delay on my room in Chicago when I had been travelling for thirty six hours.

So let’s begin to imagine the disappointment of Joseph and Mary when they arrive in Bethlehem. A couple of weeks on the road; Mary is heavily pregnant. I mean this uncomfortable donkey ride and they arrive in that place that’s packed to the rafters with people. Let’s take a look at it – if you’ve got a Bible, grab it – it’s in Luke chapter 2, beginning at verse 1:

“In those days a decree went out from the Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was the governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver the child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them at the inn.”

See, I was just going to Chicago to speak at some I.T. conference for a few days. Joseph and Mary, on the other hand, they were on a journey for God. They must have been thinking to themselves, ‘What rotten timing!’ Here’s Mary about to have a baby and the Emperor decrees a census. It was probably a couple of weeks walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

I mean, I’m not a woman, I can’t imagine what it is like to be pregnant but those who are listening and who have been pregnant, can you imagine being close to term and spending two weeks on the back of a donkey, wondering the whole way where they would stay at when they got there. Would there be a room for them? Would there be somewhere safe and clean and comfortable for her to give birth to her baby? She was at least, according to the angel, carrying God’s Son!

Well, you can imagine them talking along the way. ‘It’s going to be fine, God will look after us. I mean, it’s His Son. He’ll probably do some miracle and it’ll happen and someone will give us this great place to stay and it will all work out. Come on, Mary, this is God’s Son, its okay.’ That would be what God would do, wouldn’t it? Hump! They get to Bethlehem – nothing! They go to one inn; they go to the next; they go to one lodging house; they go to the next – they looked everywhere – nothing! And just because one inn keeper took pity on them, did they get even a stable!!

I think back to the day I was sitting in that hotel foyer in Chicago and how dejected and grumpy I was after this thirty six hour flight and a four hour delay to my comfortable room and I compare that to Mary – this girl carrying God’s Son. Pregnant, about to give birth, two weeks uncomfortable journey – I can’t imagine what a disappointment that first Christmas would have been for her. Giving birth in a stable!! God’s Son!! What was God thinking?

For many of us Christmas can feel like something of a disappointment. We look around at our surroundings and our circumstances and our feelings and all that’s going on and we look at Christmas and it feels like such a disappointment. Let me take you back into Mary’s disappointment for just a moment because it was in the midst of this disappointment and the heaviness of her heart, that Jesus was born – right into that place with her.

And it’s in the middle of our disappointments and our circumstances and the heaviness of our heart, that Jesus, the Son of God, comes to meet us, having become one of us, understanding what it was to be human – travelling through all the sorts of ups and downs and things that you and I have travel through and then much, much more. Jesus is the One that comes to us and this is what He says: Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30 – He comes along and says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Christmas may well be a disappointment but Christ isn’t. He came amidst all that disappointment; He came for you and me. That’s what Christmas is all about!!

Your Christmas Invitation

I think we all remember being left out of a birthday party or two when we were kids. You know, one of our friends at school who was having a birthday party and their parents set a limit of no more than ten kids and we just happened to be number eleven on their list. So all our other friends in the group, that we hung around with in the playground, all the others were there having fun at the party and we were left at home, alone. That sort of thing hurts, doesn’t it? I mean, it really does hurt – this sense that we are not invited to party.

I remember that happening to me once. I was about, I don’t know, eight or nine years old. I sat in the back yard behind the garage and I cried, imagining all my friends having fun at this party. I look back on that and on Monday morning we went to school and I felt like a leper, you know, they were all laughing and joking and carrying on about the fun they had and I just felt completely alone. Yea, it hurts! And of course this is a birthday; Christmas is a birthday.
It’s Jesus birthday. The question is for you and I though, are we invited? Are you invited? am I invited?

See, when I was growing up I had these really, I don’t know, crazy impressions of what Christmas was. We’d go to church and you’d see these churches and cathedrals and cardinals and crimson clad clergy. I mean, big stuff happens in big churches at Christmas, important religious people doing ‘churchy’ things. That must be what God is looking for from us. That’s what I thought. You know, ministers and priests praying big prayers and preaching lofty sermons. It didn’t mean much to me as a kid, but it sure sounded impressive; it looked impressive. That must be what God’s looking for.

Okay, for many people these days, church doesn’t feel like that anymore. But whether we have a faith in Jesus or not, many of us are left wondering, ‘What’s this party all about? What should it look like? Am I invited to God’s birthday party?’

I know a man and he’s married to a woman who all her life has had this strong and mighty faith in Jesus and he finds that faith daunting. He’d like to believe in Jesus but he knows he doesn’t have that sort of strong and exuberant faith that his wife does, so he finds it all very daunting. Let me ask you, ‘Is he invited to this birthday party of the Son of God – Christmas?

Even these days at Christmas time on the TV news, they seem to interview the Catholic Archbishop and the Anglican Archbishop – these old and very respectable looking, very impressive sounding men in front of a backdrop of soaring stained glass windows in a cathedral – they’re certainly invited. The question is, am I invited? Are you invited?

Do you see what I’m saying? There are the religious heavyweights on the one hand and then there just bog ordinary, everyday people like you and me with no position in the religious hierarchy, on the other. So it is easy for us to want to believe that we are invited but to imagine somehow, that it’s an exclusive party for the super-Christians – that we don’t make the cut when it comes to the list of God’s friends who He invites to the party. Is that true?

Well, let’s look at the very first Christmas. Question is, who was invited? Was the Roman Emperor, the most powerful man in the world, was he invited? No, because he thought he was god. Was the local Governor, Herod, invited? No. he wanted to kill God, or at least God’s Son. Were the members of the Sanhedrin, the religious heavyweights of the day, in Jerusalem – were they invited to that stable in Bethlehem? No, and if they had been, chances are, they wouldn’t have gone because their god only lived in the temple.

So who was invited? Well, there were the Wise Men, the Magi, and there was one other group that was invited. Let’s have a listen. It comes from Luke chapter 2, verses 8 to 20:

“In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be the sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us. ”So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary . . . Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told to them.”

So, a bunch of lowly, humble shepherds – not the Emperor, not the Governor, not the religious heavyweights – just a bunch of lowly shepherds out in the fields somewhere, on a night, which for them, was just like any other night. Just another day at the office, answering emails, pushing bits of paper around, making sure the sheep didn’t wander off.

And then this amazing light show! The glory of God breaks forth in the heavens before them – angels! Can you imagine? And they go and they were gob smacked at having seen God’s own Son and they went back to their fields, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

See what’s going on here? God is telling us something. He’s issuing us an invitation to His Son’s birthday party because all along … all along, it’s been for ordinary, everyday people like you and me, not just for the super-spiritual. God humbled Himself by becoming a man and being born into a humble place as a humble carpenter’s Son so that He could be with us.

It doesn’t matter what our lives look like at the moment. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done wrong. It doesn’t matter how far we may have strayed for God. It doesn’t matter how inadequate or hopeless or dejected we may feel, because God’s having a party and it’s ‘come as you are’ – we’re all invited!

As the glory of God breaks out across this world through the coming of His Son, there’s something He’s trying to tell us: Christmas is God saying “You’re invited – yes, you, you’re invited. Come and meet My Son!”

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Episode 3. Living the Best Life I Can Live (1)

As we stand at the threshold of another year – the key question is this – Is this New Year going to better than the last? I mean how can I set out and life the best life I can – whatever this …

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The joy of the Lord that comes from a close, tender relationship with Jesus; that joy lasts forever – that joy is what makes us strong.

Whatever You Do, Do Well

Well, this past year has been something of a milestone for me – it’s the year when I turned fifty! Now, I remember turning forty; that was a real celebration and when I turned forty, I looked at fifty and thought, ‘That’s scary!’ That’s starting to get really old – I mean, after fifty comes sixty and after that seventy – funny how we can end up wishing our lives away.

But life does slip by quickly and whilst we all like to get as much out of life as we can, many of us go about it the wrong way … many of us imagine that life owes us something and the more we get out of it, the better things will be.

But Jesus turned that on its head. He said, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts chapter 20, verse 35) The more we give in life the more we get out of it. It’s a maxim that we know to be true, but in this consumer world, where what we get, or at least what we buy, makes the world go around – it’s easy to forget.

So as we contemplate this year ahead, I thought this week and next week on the programme, we’d look at a subject that’s important to each one of us – living the best l life that we can live. And it has so much more to do with giving than it has with receiving.

Back at school – well, that’s an eternity ago – but then again it feels like just yesterday….you know that funny kind of feeling. But there’s one thing that I remember from high school, or the Senior School that I attended, it was the school motto: age quod agis. The literal translation is ‘do what you are doing’ but what it means is to ‘pay attention to what you are doing’ and the way it is often translated is ’Whatever you do, do well’.

In other words don’t just drift through life but whatever it is that you turn your hand to, do it to the best of your abilities. Not a bad motto! It talks about someone taking control of their lives, grabbing the bull by the horns and just doing their best at everything. And this was something my parents taught me too – in everything big and small. I remember each Saturday morning we had to clean out our rooms – my sister and I – vacuum the carpet, dust, tidy up, and my parents used to come and check it out.

I had a dark brown carpet in my room – it really showed up any little bits of fluff and if there was some small bits of fluff left on it after I’d vacuumed, I had to do it again. It sounds petty, doesn’t it? But what I learned was ‘age quod agis’, to do things well.

We live in a world where most people don’t live like that. One of my pet things – you’ve probably heard it before – is the customer service and I’m using that term very loosely now – the customer service you so often get in large department stores. So often the staff don’t care – almost as though you are interrupting them by coming to the counter. Not all of them of course but many, many times we’ve had terrible service from large organisations. I sure you have experienced the same … mediocrity! That’s what we often get … mediocrity and in a world of the mediocre it really easy to become part of that culture.

Somehow, mediocrity doesn’t feel particularly godly. I mean I can’t imagine Jesus turning a slipshod piece of work out of His father’s carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. I can’t imagine Him preaching one of those sermons that wanders all over the place and ten minutes after it’s finished, no one can remember what it was about. I can’t imagine Him giving anything less than of His best.

Have a listen to the Apostle Paul and how he puts it in First Corinthians chapter 9, verses 24 to 27. If you have a Bible, grab it – First Corinthians chapter 9, verses 24 to 27:

“Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air, but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.”

I love that picture in verse 26, “I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though one beating the air.” Two great pictures! You can imagine an athlete running off the track in the Olympics – aimlessly, without purpose. Is that what they train for? No, they train with the aim of winning the race. Or the boxer – as much as boxing isn’t my scene really – the boxer flailing in the air – is that what he does? Or does he aim to land his punches for maximum effect?

Paul here is talking about focus and doing the very best that he can and that involves sacrifice. And the reason … the reason that so many people aren’t getting the most out of life is because they are running like a runner running aimlessly and a boxer beating the air.

The reason that so many people aren’t getting the most out of life is because they’re not putting the most into life. There’s something about doing your best and achieving your best – it’s invigorating; it’s rewarding.

Now in all likely-hood my best and your best are going to be completely different. we’re all different people, our gifts and abilities and our personality types and the things that we are motivated to do, can be quite different. So it’s not about competing here – it’s not about my best being better that your best or vice versa – it’s about each one of us doing the best; being our best in all that we do.

From mediocrity comes lethargy – we become lifeless and unmotivated and even someone who has been through hurt and loss or damage, needs to find something that they are good at – that one thing that God made them to do and get out there and get on with life and go and do it.

The thing that I have discovered in life is that, by and large, we are powerless to get rid of the bad things in our lives – the addictions, the sin, the stuff that robs us of life but when we go to God and pray about it and let His Spirit get to work in our lives; when we start living out the goodness, the gifts, the abilities, the talents that He has put into us – with co-operation with His will, this is what happens. All of a sudden, God’s goodness displaces our badness – all of a sudden we get our energy and our drive and our enthusiasm back.

Problem is so many people aren’t living out the life God planned for them. So many people aren’t being who God made them to be and doing what God made them to do. We are going to talk about that later on in the programme.

So here’s my question: as you look at your life, what’s happen to the best of the best in your life? Are you living out God’s best? Are you being the best ‘you’ that God made you to be? Is it time to take stock of life and look at the things you once enjoyed doing but that have gone by the wayside because, well, it’s just what happens in the busy-ness of life.

Age quod agis – whatever you do, do it well.

Discovering Your Best

And that’s why I am going to introduce to you my beautiful daughter Melissa. She’s a young woman now and she is doing something with her life that she was really cut out to do. But when she was growing up, what she wanted to be was a famous tennis player. One of her older brothers was very, very good at tennis.

Well, you know generation ‘Y’, they all wanted to be famous and so she decided in her early teenage years that she wanted to be a famous tennis player. So in high school when we told her to study hard, she’d say, ‘No, no, I don’t have to. Maths and English and Geography aren’t important to me because I’m going to be a famous tennis player.

Now that’s all well and good, but Jacqui and I could tell by just watching her, that she was never going to be a famous player. I mean you have to run after the ball to be a famous tennis player. You have to have a temperament with drive and nerves like steel to be a famous tennis player. You have to be prepared to work up a sweat on the court and train for hours and hours and hours to be a famous tennis player.

And when we looked at Melissa, what we saw was a beautiful, fun loving young girl but there was no way she was ever going to be a famous tennis player. The dilemma we were faced with then was: what do we do about this? Do we ruin her dream or do we sit down with her and give her the cold, hard facts. Not easy!

See, this is a normal part of growing up and we want our kids to have their dreams but the problem is, that when you’re young – you know, late teen years; early twenties – you don’t really know enough about yourself; who you are, what you enjoy doing verses the things that drain you and tire you because you are not naturally good at them. The really scary thing though, is that very, very few people actually ever figure that out.

I was interested to read a survey the other day – quite a comprehensive one, of church-goers in Germany and they were asked if they could identify their own particular gifting. I mean, the New Testament talks about how God has gifted each one of us and lists them – Romans chapter 12, First Corinthians chapter 12 and Ephesians chapter 4 – and get this, eighty per cent … eighty per cent were unable to identify their own particular gifting.

What does that tell you? It tells you that most people haven’t figured out who God made them to be and what God made them to do. Eighty percent! That’s absolutely frightening! There are so many people out there doing things they were never cut out to do!

Now you may have heard me talk about this particular verse that we are going to look at right now, over this last year or so. In fact, over the last year I have written a book based on this verse. But you have to humour me because it’s a vital verse. It’s Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10. It says this:

“For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand so that we could walk in them.”

In other words, God made us; handcrafted by Him we are, you and I – and He made each one of us specifically, to do the things that He prepared beforehand for us to do. And so, if we don’t know what we have really been made to do, is it any wonder, that so many people aren’t living out the best life that they could be living?

Imaging someone who is a soft, gentle person; a more people oriented person than an outcome oriented one, imagine that sort of person being promoted into a tough, hardnosed leadership role at work. How well is that going to work? And conversely, imagine an outcome oriented, goal oriented, driven individual like me, getting a job as a councillor. I’d make a terrible councillor!

And it’s a really funny thing – so often it’s hard for us to really see things about ourselves. I remember years ago when I was at Bible College; we were in our final year of the Ministry Degree – in a small tutorial – probably half a dozen or so students and the lecturer. We were talking about our giftings and the lecturer had us go around and for each person in turn, had the other people in the group tell that person what they thought his or her gifting was.

One by one, it happened and then they came to me. I really didn’t know what they were going to say. I was in my forties – I didn’t really know what they would say. And one after the other they came back and they said, ‘Berni is clearly a leader.’ Now I quizzed them and they were really definite about it. They made the point that I was the sort of person they would follow and the lecturer agreed. We’d been together now for almost three years at college so we were getting to know each other pretty well.

Can I tell you, I was shocked! I never saw myself as a leader – not at all. At work, in my company, we had a CEO and I was second in charge and I was happy for him to go on and be the leader and I’d follow along behind him. But that revelation in that group changed everything for me – it explained a whole bunch of things. And then when it came to taking over as the CEO of this ministry, Christianityworks, where we produce these radio programmes, I wasn’t afraid of doing that – it kind of came naturally.

Do you see how easy it is to go through life not knowing who we are or what we were made to do? No wonder so many people are missing out on God’s best. This isn’t about ‘me, me, me’, it’s about living the life that God made us to live.

I don’t care what age you are, it’s never too late to start figuring it out and then start doing things at work, at home, at church that fit with our natural gifting and personality type and leave those other things to other people who are gifted and made to do them.

Back to Melissa, my daughter. I started off with her story, just a little bit before. She’s such a good example of this – she’s a heart person – a person who empathises with others and feels what they feel. She’s hardly the sort of person with the drive and the nerves of steel that a famous tennis player is going to need. So we discovered in late high school that school wasn’t really her gig either. I mean, some of us are academics, others aren’t and for too long, I think, we have valued academic achievement over other abilities that so many people have.

So one Sunday afternoon, my wife Jacqui and I were out for a walk, we saw a sign at a beauty therapy shop for an apprentice. Now, this is a physically very demanding job – they have to know a lot, it’s hard work doing a two hour massage. It took her a while but she became an apprentice and all of a sudden, something clicked. Never do we have to make sure she’s on time for work or that she’s studying or anything like that – she has found her gig.

It’s a combination of practical abilities, which I could never have, and the whole heart relationship thing that goes on with her fellow work mates and her clients. She is thriving and flourishing and enjoying and achieving because she’s doing a job she is meant to be doing. There’s a great fit between who she is and what she is doing.

I want to encourage you – if you are one of the eighty percent, it is time to figure out who you are, what God made you to do and then go and do it to the best of your ability. Stop mucking around – we only get one chance at life. What’s it going to be this year for the year ahead?

Life is There to Be Enjoyed

Christians become intensely nervous when they hear someone like me say, ‘Life is there to be enjoyed.’ Why? Because what it smacks of is a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What that smacks of is turning things round so that God is serving us instead of us serving Him. And a statement like that, ‘Life is there to be enjoyed,’ sounds more like something out of an advertisement for a luxury holiday or a new car, than it does something that God would say.

Didn’t Jesus say, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me?” and the reason that the idea of enjoying our lives seems to contradict Jesus, is that we equate joy with a luxury that this world has to offer. We equate joy with holidays and nice clothes and good food and a new car and a big house and all that other stuff. We think that joy comes when we indulge ourselves.

Now we kind of know that ultimately, those things don’t bring us joy, but we live them out hoping that one day, they will anyway. And the one thing that we would never imagine is that the place … the only place that true, lasting, abiding joy is to be found is in taking up your cross and following Jesus. Surely that can’t be enjoyable, can it?

But listen to what Jesus said – Matthew chapter 13, verse 44:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then, in his joy, went and sold all that he had to buy that field.”

See, what the listeners of Jesus, in those days were thinking about when He said ‘Kingdom’ was the notion of a totalitarian rule and authority. That’s what it meant. And Jesus told this story of a man who discovers a hidden treasure – and boy, I mean, if you and I stumbled across a hidden treasure – wouldn’t there be joy in that? – so he gives up his money to have this hidden treasure. And that hidden treasure is the Kingdom of God – the rule of God in our lives.

It’s like a hidden treasure! It’s hidden and if we want to hang onto our old life and our old values, we can’t ever have the treasure, but if we give up the old life; if we turn away from the old way, then … then we can have the treasure which is the rule of God in our lives – the Kingdom of God. That’s where joy is to be found and the word that Jesus uses there for ‘joy’ is the same word from which we get ‘charisma’ and ‘charismatic’.

It’s a wonderful thing ‘joy’ – it’s a free gift from God and we are meant to enjoy our lives. In fact, joy is an essential part of a normative Christian life. Not some optional extra; not something that we are meant to have every now and then, when the going gets good, but a deep, abiding thing that stays with us every moment of every day. Even when we are weeping; even when we are experiencing pain, deep down inside somewhere, He wants us to know Him and experience His deep and abiding joy.

It’s an interesting time in Israel’s history. They had been in the Promised Land for about five hundred years and they sinned against God, and so they were punished; they were exiled to Babylon for seventy years as slaves. But eventually God brings them back to the Promised Land, quite miraculously, and they set about rebuilding Jerusalem, the temple, the buildings, the protective wall round the city.

And while they are building the wall Ezra, the prophet gathers the Nation of Israel together; the returned exiles; the remnant of what once was and leads them through and explains to them the sin of the Nation and their disobedience against God, as a Nation and the people’s hearts are torn apart; they ache because of their sin.

See, turning back to God; repenting, that’s often what it’s like. We know that we have taken our rebellion and our sin to heart; we know that we are truly sorry when we ache over the wrong that we have done before God, when it hurts. Anyhow, have a listen to how the people reacted to what Ezra had to say to them and then what God said to His people through the prophet. Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 9 to 12:

“Nehemiah, the governor, Ezra the priest and the scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people, said to them all, “This day is sacred to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The Levites calmed all the people, “Be still, for this is a sacred day. Do not grieve.” Then all the people went away to eat and to drink and to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.”

To this day, when God’s people dedicated their lives to Him, it was a day of sadness and regret to the people but God wanted them to know His joy in their repentance. His joy at having led His people back to Him and in fact, joy had an important role to play in their lives. Did you pick it? Did you see what Nehemiah said to them back there? He said, “Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The joy that we receive from God is what makes us strong – when we are grieving and down and dejected and regretting – that’s when we are weak. Now there are times when we are going to go through those things – certainly there are. Being a Christian is not about living in some permanent state of happiness – we don’t live on cloud nine – but we are not meant to stay in dejection either.

Right at the other end of the scale of cloud nine, means some people live in a constant, almost a lifelong state of weakness because they don’t know the joy of the Lord. They race around looking for medicines and pills and therapies and all sorts of things … things that will make them happy. But happiness is a passing thing; it’s fleeting – the joy of the Lord is deep and abiding.

The joy of the Lord … the joy that comes from a close tender relationship with Jesus; the joy of knowing Him personally in our actual experience, that joy lasts forever – that joy is what makes us strong.

If there is something now quite not right in your life and you’ve been looking everywhere for a solution; you’ve tried everything, then let me put your spirit at rest. You can stop looking; you can stop searching – you’ve arrived; you’ve found the solution – look no further for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

The answer isn’t out there somewhere. The answer is in Jesus Christ – a personal, intimate relationship with Him because it’s in that relationship that we find healing. It’s from that relationship that His joy; the joy of the Lord, comes and once that happens a whole bunch of other things in our lives just fall into place.

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Episode 4. Living the Best Life I Can Live (2)

As we step over the line into yet another year – the key question is this – Is this New Year going to better than the last? I mean how can I set out and life the best life I can – whatever this …

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Love is at its best, at its finest, at its most sublime, in the midst of great sacrifice. We need only glance back at the cross to realise that.

My Best for my God

This is so incredibly hard to believe. Here we are, at the first week of a new year, and what that tells me is that my parents were right when I was growing up. Life slips away faster and faster as you get older. Last year I turned fifty; this year, I’ll be fifty-one, and whilst none of us wants to wish our lives away, it’s a sobering thing to stand back and look at how quickly life passes us by. Each day, when it’s gone it’s gone. Another week; another month; another year; another decade…

That’s why this week we’re going to be continuing our look at living the best lives that we possibly can. I don’t know about you, but I want to live my life to the full – to live all that God has planned for me, and not just to experience it all for my own satisfaction, but to give it all for other people’s satisfaction so that others will be blessed.

So this week on the programme, we’re going to be looking at living our best into some of the most important relationships that we have here on this earth, beginning today with the single-most important relationship of all – our relationship with God. See, there’s a problem in our relationship with God because … well, we can’t see Him. Everything else in our lives crowds Him out: Work and family and all the things we do and paying the bills and even going to church. All those things, we can see and touch and feel, so we deal with them and we experience them – good or bad, up or down.

As you look over your last week, what were you doing? Well, me, it’s a bit of a holiday down here in the southern hemisphere being summer of course, so it’s a time to rest, down at the beach, enjoying the weather… But in a normal workweek, I would have been rushing around; writing programmes; recording them; finishing off the latest book and getting it off to the publisher.

It’s so easy to get caught up in things, even really good things; even things for God, and yet miss out on that most important thing of all, the most important relationship of all, our relationship with God Himself. If I’m going to live the best life I can possibly live, then I have to sort out my relationship with my Lord and my God, first and foremost. That’s what Jesus said when He was asked what was the most important of all the commandments. Luke 10:27:

“He answered: ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself’.”

So how do we do that? I mean amidst all the busyness of our lives, all the troubles and the conflicts and the things that drag us off-course, how can we live our best in our relationship with God? It’s an important question: So often a question we don’t ask. You know what we do? When something’s not quite right in our lives, we go looking for a solution for that thing that’s not quite right. Maybe it’s in our marriage-relationship, (we’re going to look at that in some more detail after the break) things aren’t going so well, so we try to sort that out; or our finances; or in a situation or relationship at work. And what we do is we try to work on those and fix them.

We might pray about them, but we see the symptom and we try to deal with it, without ever dealing first and foremost with the disease, and the disease is this: When we don’t honour God, when we don’t treat Him as Lord, what happens is that the blessings start to dry up. That’s because God honours those who honour Him. 1 Samuel 2:30:

“Those who honour Me I will honour, and those who despise Me shall be treated with contempt.”

See, we want to treat God as someone who serves us – someone who blesses us when we ask, and of course He does want to bless us, but like any dad, that blessing involves honour. That’s why the fifth commandment has a blessing attached to it. Exodus 20:12:

“Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”

My friend, unless we first and foremost live out our best for God, then we haven’t a hope of living out the very best life that we can live. I mean it makes sense, doesn’t it? So, the question is, as we stand here on the threshold of a new year, how do we do that; exactly how? Well, the answer – the answer comes to us of course from God’s Word. It’s in a concept that we find right throughout the Bible – the idea of the firstfruits. Have a listen. Exodus 34:26:

“The best of the firstfruits of your ground, you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God.”

See, the notion of the firstfruits is about giving to God the first and the best of what we have – the first and the best of the harvest; the first and the best of the flock; the first and the best of our time and our attention and our money, and all that we are. It’s about honouring God with our first and our best, so as you and I contemplate the year ahead, as we think about getting our house in order, the first priority isn’t our marriage (as vitally important as that is), or our children or our job or our finances; our first priority is God. And as I reflect on that in my own life, getting my own priorities sorted out, there are three specific areas that I’m focusing on: My time, my talents, and my finances.

Firstly, my time. You see, time is really valuable. We live in a really busy, hectic kind of world, and loving and honouring God involves time, so there’s a conflict – time to pray; time to listen; time to read His Word; time to ponder what He’s saying. Any relationship, any love, involves time, and that so often is the one thing we don’t have to give our God or if we do, it’s rushed; it’s not when we’re at our best.

If there were just one thing, one thing that I would encourage you to get sorted this year, just one out of so many, it would be setting aside the firstfruits of your time for God; that time when you’re at your best, unhurried, focused. That one thing will radically transform everything else, that time of prayer and conversation with God, that time of just spending time in His Word. Time with God, the best and the first, every day.

The second one is our talents: Who we are; our abilities; our gifts; the things that we’re called to do; the things that we love to do. How can I use those, the talents and the gifts that God’s given me, the best of the best, first and foremost for God’s glory?

And finally, our finances: So many things God wants to do in this world and to get done in this world, and God almost always uses His people to fund His work, and so many things are being held back because His people don’t give the first and the best of their finances radically, sacrificially, and missionally.

Our time, our talents, and our finances – the firstfruits, for God.

My Best for my Marriage

Well, ok. After our relationship with our God, the next-most important relationship we will live out on this earth is our relationship with the person whom we marry. Now, not everyone gets married, and not everyone is married right now, but most people do get married because it’s the natural thing for us to do, and for anyone who is married, our marriage is a huge part of our lives.

So let’s take a look at what it means to live out our very best in our marriages – not in some kind of half-hearted way, but in a way that removes all the selfishness and the resentment and all that stuff, that builds up in our relationship in the marriage like ply, and it ends up bringing hurt and pain and disease into that most important of all human relationships – the relationship between a wife and a husband. Despite everything that’s gone on in the past, how can we start living out the very best in our marriages, starting now; right now?

The starting-point for marriage of course is romance. There’s this attraction between two people – a natural desire for the two to become one. But I mean it generally doesn’t take too long for the romance and the lustre of the marriage to wear off: a year, two, three, and before we know it, the cares of this world have taken over – the mortgage; the kids; the long hours; the commuting; the financial pressures.

And then of course, on-top of all that, these two once starry-eyed lovers discover that they see the world oh so differently in so many things. Not only is she a ‘she’ and he’s a ‘he’, but they have different personality-types. They have habits that start to grate on one another. There are arguments and unforgiveness creeps in and … well … before long, it seems like a brick wall’s grown up between the two of them – brick by brick.

What happened to the romance? What happened to the two becoming one – that thing that Jesus talked about? Is this all there is to marriage? Well, we all go through that to a greater or lesser degree. The reality sets in, and it doesn’t work out quite like the romantic comedies of Hollywood producers suggest that it should work out, and so one or other or both of them ends up losing heart. They withdraw back into their shells – two people living separate lives under one roof. No wonder almost one in two marriages ends in divorce. No wonder that so few people are ever fulfilled in their marriage-relationship!

And I know that there are many, many, many people listening today who so relate to what I’ve been talking about, with their ears keenly tuned in to find out what comes next. What is the answer? Is there, in fact, an answer at all? Well there is, but it may not be the one that you’re looking for. It’s a glorious answer; a glorious solution; a God-solution, and invariably God’s solutions to love-problems involve sacrifice – great sacrifice.

I want you to listen to God’s own explanation of the greatest transaction of love that has ever taken place in the history of humanity – the giving of His own Son’s life, as a ransom for you and me. It’s a transaction summed up in a very, very familiar verse. John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life.”

Now most people know that one backwards, but listen to the subtext; the explanation; the fine print if you like, in the very next verse. Listen, and let it sink into your heart in the context of your own marriage. John 3:17:

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

See, God had every right to condemn the world. He had every right to judge you and me, and to punish us. He could have sent His Son to give us a good, swift kick in the tail, and then to rain down fire and brimstone on us all, because we all like sheep have gone astray. We all have wandered off and rejected God. We all have fallen short of the glory of God, but instead … instead He sent His Son to die for us.

Now, ok. Jesus preached a lot of sermons; He opened up the Scriptures; He told us what God’s like; He showed us what God’s like. He left us in no doubt as to what it meant to honour and obey God, but His greatest sermon was preached with almost no words at all. His greatest sermon was preached on the cross. It was a sacrifice through which we hear God crying out: ‘Don’t you realise how much I love you?’

My wife Jackie is so different to me, and I’m so different to her. It’s so easy for anger and discord to creep in: Judgment; unforgiveness, because we want our soul mate to be like us – to serve us; to meet us on our terms and with our expectations. Our natural sinful state looks for what we can get out of marriage, and when we don’t get it, we start behaving badly, but the marriage of which God talks in His Word says nothing about getting all that we can get. It talks more about giving all that we can give. Ephesians 5:22:

“Wives, be subject to your husbands, as you are to the Lord.”

Ephesians 5:25:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”

See, neither of those is particularly convenient or popular, because they speak of sacrifice. And my friend, love is at its best, at its finest, at its most sublime, in the midst of great sacrifice. We need only glance back at the cross to realise that. How can you and I live the very best in our marriages? By taking up our cross and following Jesus; by laying down our lives, our selfish demands, our petty grievances, and by giving the deepest thing that we can give – complete forgiveness to our wife or our husband. Complete; absolute. It’s a sacrifice. It hurts, but when we do that, we are set free to live out our very best in our marriages.

God didn’t give you to your wife or your husband to judge them or to condemn them. He gave you to her or him to save them; to uphold them; to be there for them; to love them with a faithful and sacrificial love that speaks of the love of Jesus Christ in our hearts. When I finally realised my job wasn’t to change Jackie, but to love her, then, then I was set free to live out my very best for her in our marriage.

My Best for my Children

Last night my daughter Melissa came home from work, she works as a beauty therapist in a small business not far from where we live, and she asked me to help her design a brochure for the business. Anyhow, it was about 7:30 in the evening and I’d been up since 4 am in the morning … It’s just how I’m wired, I’m afraid. I have to say, I was pretty tired. I was looking forward to watching some TV and the last thing, the very last thing that I felt like doing was helping her to design a brochure.

See, that’s often the way with us men. We put so much into our jobs, and at the end of the day we have very little left for our children. And you mothers who work, sure; you might cook dinner, but our kids need more than just dinner from us. They need us to listen to them and to nurture them and to feel their hurts and to encourage them and to help them – something my wife Jackie has been teaching me over the years, and she’s still teaching me.

So, Melissa and I designed this brochure together, and I rediscovered something that I already knew: that even though I was tired, it was great fun doing this thing together. We’ve looked today at living out our best for God and our best for our wives or husbands, so let’s go on now to look at the next-most important relationship we’re going to have on this earth: our relationship with our children.

You see, that’s a difficult one for many people. People have feelings of guilt in a busy world, feelings of inadequacy as parents … the world’s changing so quickly. Our kids sometimes feel as though they live on a completely different planet to us. Most people don’t feel like they’re very good parents. I’m not. I have to tell you, I’m not a natural father. I’m a driven sort of individual; I’m outcome-oriented and goal-oriented, and so I don’t handle immaturity very well. It’s just not my first love because other people’s immaturity slows me down, just how I’m wired.

But by definition children are immature, and that’s the whole point. That’s why God’s given them to us. God gives them to us in a family so we can protect them and nurture them, guide them and teach them through from their childhood, from immaturity, through into adulthood, so they in turn can be self-sufficient and capable of bringing children into this world and doing the same thing all over again. The whole point of putting them into our family is that they’ll be surrounded by their parents’ love, and protection. They require an enormous investment.

Our three are now 29, 27 and Melissa, 18 years old. The two eldest are boys – young men now of course, who have gone their own way, and being who I am, I enjoy them so much more now than I did when they were difficult teenagers – pushing the boundaries, and flexing their muscles … And our youngest, Melissa … She’s an apprentice and doing so well, and she’s so much more fun to be around than she was even a year or two ago – at least, that’s how I see it.

Now the reason I’m being so brutally honest and direct with you about how I feel is that all too often, we don’t talk about this stuff. We see all these super-mums and super-dads out there, and in our heart of hearts, we kind of go: ‘Wow! You know, I could never be a good parent like that’, so we feel guilt and we get all dejected and discouraged and we just kind of continue along with our current pattern of ineffective behaviour towards our kids, but these children are a gift from God. They are our lasting legacy in this world.

When we’re gone, they’ll probably still be here, and their children, and their children’s children, and the generations after that. What we teach them as parents, the patterns of parenting, will not only effect their lives, but will be handed down for generations to come. In this modern, fast, disconnected, fragmented, technology-oriented world in which we live, what’s the most important thing we can give our children? How can we be and give, and live our best for our children?

Kids are pretty resilient. Most of us as adults can look back on our parents with hindsight and see their imperfections. None of them were perfect, but we appreciate what they gave us, and we remember the good times – often just the little things. All kids really want to know is that we love them, that they are the apple of our eye, that they’re our priority.

Earlier on in the programme, we talked about the firstfruits concept – giving our best and our first to God. Well, you know something? Our kids need some of our firstfruits as well – not the dregs that are left-over, but our best. They need some of our very best. I (like any other parent) have made many, many mistakes along the way, but you know what? I hope and pray that as each of my children grow up, they know that I would give anything and do anything for them.

Above all, they need our time when they’re growing up – our undivided attention. Not with one eye on the television and the other on them, but our focus and our attention, because that speaks to them of our love, and they need our discipline and guidance. Too many parents give up on difficult kids. They just throw up their hands in the air in despair and let their children get away with blue murder, but all that tells the kids is that you don’t love them enough to persist and to set boundaries and to help them through the difficult growing-up things that God put them in our family for us to help. Proverbs 22:6:

“Train a child in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.”

Just some time and some attention and some help and some words of encouragement and a hug. If kids know that their parents will be there for them when they need them, that’s what they really need. And if they know that we’ll lift them up and make them do things for themselves when they can, and help them to grow and develop, that’s what they’ll remember in years to come.

Being a mum or dad isn’t rocket science. It’s hard work, to be sure, but it’s not rocket science, and for me, being a better dad is something that my wife Jackie’s helped me with and coached me in, because she’s a much more natural parent (given who she is) than I am (given who I am). Bringing up our children may well be the most important job that God ever gives us to do, and as we look forward to the New Year, hey; let’s make it a priority. Let’s make parenting a really, really important part of our lives.

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Series: Receiving the Best of the Best

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Episode 1. A Gift Like No Other (1)

Episode 2. A Gift Like No Other (2)

Episode 3. Living the Best Life I Can Live (1)

Episode 4. Living the Best Life I Can Live (2)

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