I remember once I was at an international airport, in a foreign country, and I lost my passport. It turns out that without your identity, you can’t go anywhere. And that, sadly, is how many people are living their lives. Without a clue about their identity!

Who Am I?

When we talk about being ‘the me I was meant to be’, first we have to understand ‘who’ I was meant to be and who you and I are meant to be, is what God made us to be. Who am I?

I’m always excited when we start a new series and that’s exactly what we are doing on the programme today. This is the first programme in a four-part series that I’ve called Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I am.

Often we live life, day-to-day, without thinking too much about it. We just go along and do the things we always do. We get up, we go to work, we go to school, whatever it is we do, we do it over and over and over again. But for a lot of people, bubbling away deep inside somewhere, is this sense of ‘What’s this all about? Why am I doing this? What’s the point?’

And the reality is this: we get to live just one life on this earth. It’s not a dress rehearsal; it never is. We can’t hit the rewind button and replay bits the way we would have preferred them to go the first time around, you know. When today is gone, it’s gone and that’s it. Every year, every week, every day, every moment that you and I have lived up to this point, is gone and we can never get it back. The only thing left in our time here on earth is the time between right now and when we breathe our last breath. It’s a sobering thought!

Most people have a sense of destiny, whether or not they believe in Jesus, they believe in things that are meant to be. How often have you heard someone say, ‘Well, I think that was just meant to be,’ or, ‘If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.’ Whether it’s karma or whether it’s a kind of ‘c’est sera, sera; whatever will be, will be’ thing, we have a sense of destiny to fulfil and I believe that’s because you and I, we are all made in the image of God.

Not everybody knows Him; not everybody has a relationship with Jesus Christ but because each one of us is made in the image of God, there’s something inside us that says, ‘Hang on a minute, I think there’s a plan for my life.’ And when we look at the time we have left, a profound question of life emerges: ‘Am I living my life to the full? Am I being the person I was created to be? Do I really know who I am?’ These are huge questions! And it’s not about ‘having’ things, it’s about ‘being’; it’s about living out that destiny.

The turning point of my life came when I was thirty-six years old. I was reading a book and the author ask a question, ‘Do you want to ‘be’ or do you want to ‘have’?’ I’ll say that again, ‘Do you want to ‘be’ or do you want to ‘have’?’ And I realised, very clearly at that point in my life, I wanted to ‘have’ more than I wanted to ‘be’.

And having things, having money and buying new things and all that stuff is not ‘being’; it’s not ‘living’ as much as the world and the television will blare at us, that having this ‘thing’ will make us happy. We just know it doesn’t work that way.

‘Having’ is about the next car or the next sound system or the next pair of shoes – ‘being’ is a profound sense of joy and contentment, being really happy with who we are, enjoying the relationships that we have and the life that we have.

Let me ask you something – as you contemplate the time that you have left on planet earth, when you ask yourself the question: ‘Am I living my life to the full?’ What’s the answer, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? If it’s ‘Yes’ we are talking about a profound sense of joy and peace and contentment that I was talking about just before. And if the answer is ‘No’ then we are talking a nagging sense that ‘I’m missing out on something. Is this all there is? Surely there must be something more.’

My experience is that most people, by far the majority, are in the ‘No’ category, or at least to the ‘No’ end of the spectrum. And that’s why we are going to be doing this series, Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I Am. To help us get the whole foundation of life sorted out … come on, we’ve got just one chance at this. Let’s get it right; let’s live it out; let’s get our lives on track – live it out to the full.

Let’s live a life, that when we are on death’s doorstep, we can look back with a deep and a profound sense of satisfaction, and say to ourselves, ‘You know, I lived it to the full. I became the person that I was meant to be, now I am ready for my eternity with God.’

Father, I pray as we spend some time in Your Word together today and over the next few weeks, You will just open our hearts to the wonder of creation; to the wonder of how You made us – each one of us so different and yet, each one in Your image. And show us Lord, the ‘me’ that we are meant to be … the life that we are meant to live to the full. We ask that in Jesus name. Amen.

You know, for me, the starting point of living life to the full, is knowing where I’ve come from and who I am. So many people in the midst of life aren’t really comfortable with whom they are and when that’s the case you don’t have a real sense of security. You are like a cork bobbing around in a stormy ocean.

I’m going to explore that today and have a look at Psalm 139. So if you have a Bible, grab it, open it up with me. This is a Psalm that I come back to again and again and again in my own life because it reminds me of who I am. And what I love about this Psalm is the writer starts in the middle of the dilemmas of his life and works his way back to God, to discover who he is. Have a listen. We’ll look at the first part – have a listen:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
Such a knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there, if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the farthest side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for the darkness is as light to you.

That is awesome, isn’t it?

A Different Perspective

I love that Psalm that we just read before because it’s all about life. It’s about someone – probably King David – looking at their lives from God’s perspective. I love it so much, you’re going to have to excuse me; we are going to read it again, because I love it.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
Such a knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there, if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the farthest side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for the darkness is as light to you.

See, God knows what we are thinking. He knows when we come in and go out. He knows when we are lying down and when we are standing up. He knows before a word is even on our tongue, exactly what it is that we are going to say and what we are going to feel and what we are going to ask Him for. Exactly what we’re thinking; exactly what the needs and the cries of our hearts are. Wherever you go; wherever I go, He hems us in, in the heavens, in the depths, on the farthest side of the sea. And when life is pitch black and dark, even there His light will shine.

See, King David is writing about life. I mean, we all travel through darkness and sometimes life can feel so empty and hollow and it’s like ‘going nowhere’. Have you ever woken up on Monday morning and contemplated the week ahead and just wished that it would go away and you think, ‘I just can’t face another week of this’?

And David starts off his Psalm with a profound understanding that it doesn’t matter where he goes, what he does, how dark it feels, God, if I rise up on the wings of the dawn; if I settle on the farthest side of the sea; even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. Even if it’s so black and I’m afraid that the darkness is going to hide me, even then – the darkness isn’t dark to You, God; the night will shine like the day because the darkness is as light to you.

Something that I really used to struggle with, especially after I became a Christian, is that, somehow, my faith; the sacred things of life, seems to be such a long way apart from life itself. When I became a Christian I was in the Information Technology Industry. I ran a successful consulting firm and I’d go and deal with organisations and their issues and their technologies and their projects and their project plans and their system architectures – all that stuff that was my work life. And I thought what’s that got to do with my faith? What’s all this stuff got to do with God? There was this huge disconnect between what I saw as God stuff and what was work stuff; the sacred stuff and the profane stuff.

And this Psalm helped me to see that God was in every part of my life. Not just in the holy, sacred bits; not just at church during worship; not only in the sacred zone but in every bit of my life. With the mum who’s got a lounge room full of wet nappies drying and a crying baby and feeding it in the middle of the night. With the elderly widow who’s in a residential aged care facility and the body is not what it used to be and you don’t have the mobility and the flexibility any more. At work and at school and in life! Do you get it?

God is there every minute of every day. God is in that place with you and with me, every minute of every day – His love pours out from heaven to you and to me. He has searched us and He knows us. He knows when we lie down and when we stand up and even before a word is on our lips, He already knows it. God is smack bang in the middle of our lives – every bit of our lives.

Now that casts life in a whole new light. Even though now I am in full-time ministry I still, every now and then, do a bit of Information Technology consulting and it’s a bit like the Apostle Paul with his tent ministry; it helped fund our ministry here at Christianityworks for quite a while. And I can be sitting in meetings, talking about technologies and projects and stuff and today, I have this sense of depth and meaning for me because I know, even when my mind is focussed on those mundane things, God is still in that place – He’s still there with me – everything I do; everything I say is for His glory.

But the Psalmist takes it to a much deeper level – he tells us why. And that’s the heart of today’s message – why does life have meaning for David? Why is it that he can know that God is in this place with him? Why is that knowledge of God just too wonderful for him – too lofty to attain? We are going to look at the ‘why’ in the second half of this Psalm, so if you have a Bible, grab it. We are going to be looking at the second half of Psalm 139 next.

That’s something I truly encourage you to do if you can. Get a Bible, open up Psalm 139 – there is something amazing, wonderful and powerful that happens when we open up God’s Word and let Him speak to us direct. Somehow His Spirit lifts the words up off the page and drops them in our hearts and we are never the same again. Everything becomes new!

Where Am I Going?

Okay, why is it that David can be so profoundly delighted and confident that God is in the middle of his life? Let’s have a look at the second half of this Psalm 139 and see what lies behind David’s over-the-top exuberance. Let’s begin at verse 13. This is what it says:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.

I love this!! We all started life off in our mother’s womb; in that dark hidden place as a little speck in the depths of the earth and God created our innermost being; He knit us together in our mother’s wombs. We can praise Him because we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made me who I am and God made you who you are. We are His choice.

Now there are some bits that we like about ourselves and I guess there are some bits that we don’t. And not only did He make us who we are; each strand of our DNA according to the blue print of His great and mighty heart, for you and me, not only did He do that, but He planned every day of our lives.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before even one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

You see when we talk about living life to the full and being who God made us to be, first we need to understand who we were meant to be and who you and I were meant to be, is what God made us to be – our looks, our abilities, our personality type, the things that fire our hearts; our imaginations, the things that we like and the things that we don’t like.

You know, I grew up as a kid, not liking beetroot – I still don’t much like beetroot; it’s just something in me – I don’t like beetroot. Why is that? Why is it that I don’t like beetroot and maybe you do? I don’t know but that’s how God made me – it’s just what He does – He makes each one of us so wondrously different. The ‘me’ that I was meant to be is the ‘me’ that God created me to be and the same is true of you.

It’s not just karma; it’s not just the luck of the draw; it’s not just some vague notion of chance or destiny. Your DNA; all the strands that scientists have spent trying to discover how we are made up; all that stuff was laid down according to God’s blueprint … a blueprint that He crafted in His heart before time began – a blueprint for your DNA and mine; who we are and a plan for our days – who we are and what would happen.

He knows every hair on our head, every thought, every desire, every dream, every hope and every hurt. Why? Because He knit us together in our innermost being; He was there when we were formed in our mother’s wombs. You are who you are, not only because that’s how He made you but that’s how He deliberately, purposely dreamt of making you and then He handcrafted you to be who you are.

Is your heart delighted? Are you excited by what God planned for you before time began? See, so many people spend so much of their lives, not liking themselves but the truth about who we are is profound – it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful.

All the time when we don’t like who we are; all the time when we are trying to be someone else, because you want to look like that person or you want to be able to do what they can do – all that time, we are fighting against God. We are who we are because He, in His infinite wisdom and mercy and creativity, handcrafted us, He planned us, He knew us and all the days were planned in His heart before time began.

Let me challenge you today; let me get right in your face with this. Are you prepared to live every minute of every day in the wondrous knowledge that God handcrafted you and all of your days? If I want to be the ‘me’ I was meant to be, if I want to live my life to the full, I need to accept what God meant me to be and what plan He had for my life.

Let me say it again because this is so important. If I want to live my life to the full, I have to accept what God meant me to be and the plan He has for my life. He loves us just the way we are and for some of us, it’s time to do exactly the same thing – to love ourselves just the way He made us.

Some people can never be the ‘me’ that they were meant to be because they haven’t accepted what God meant them to be. You know, I may want to be a basketball player but I have to tell you, just quietly, between you and me, I’m not tall enough; I’m vertically challenged. It doesn’t matter how much I want to be a basketball player, I would never be a basketball player – I am just the wrong shape.

Sure we have all made mistakes and there are consequences that we are living out of those mistakes and people have scars and people have broken relationships. We’ll talk about some of those things next week on the programme. But fundamentally, we are who we are because God made us that way. We are no surprise to God and what we are going to do is no surprise to God either. And in the middle of that … in the middle of that He wants to break in – He wants to help us to change and to help us to deal with the hurts and the scars and the things of the past and to bring us a peace and a rest.

And you know something? There’s going to be no peace and no rest for you and for me until we just accept who we are. When we know deep inside ‘I am who He made me to be – this day, no matter what it brings; no matter how much it hurts, this day was set apart by Him for me before any day yet existed. It is time to love who we are, to honour God, to thank Him and to praise Him.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Your works are so wonderful, I know that full well.

See, the Psalmist when he looked up at God and realised that God had made him; handcrafted him; that God had given him every day – the Psalmist was gob smacked; the Psalmist was in awe. He said, God, this is too wonderful for me. God was there, He saw my unformed substance, He made me. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are so wonderful, I know that full well.

He saw my unformed substance and the problem is, that while we are living a life where we forget that, we can never live out to the full what God made us to be. We forget how His heart beats for us. His heart is to see us, you and me, take His Scripture – His Word – into our hearts today. Don’t just leave it there – grab your Bible, spend some time in Psalm 139, with the Lord over this coming week. Let Him transform you.

For me this is at the centre of who I am. I come back here to this Psalm … Psalm 139 again and again and again because in this Psalm I experience a healing stream – of God’s love.

I remember once I was in San Francisco – it was the first time I’d driven on what was to me the wrong side of the road. We ended up going over the very long By Bridge by accident. It turned out I’d taken a wrong turn and I was completely lost. Have you ever taken … a wrong turn?

Over the Bridge

Most of us have a sense of destiny to our lives. You know, there is a life, somehow, that we are meant to live and a ‘me’ that we are meant to be. Yet so often in life – maybe this has happened to you – you wake up in the morning and you think, ‘Hang on a minute. Life isn’t what it’s meant to be – look at me – who am I? Am I living my life out to the full?

Well, today’s programme is the second in a series of four that I’ve called exactly that: ‘Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I am.’ Last week we started with Psalm 139. It says that you and I are handcrafted by God, every strand of our DNA was laid down according to His plan – every minute of every day, every up, every down – is a part of His plan before time even began.

Now there are two options for me. I can either see myself as some random collection of atoms evolved from a primeval slime or as someone handcrafted by God. Now for me – I don’t know how it is for you – but for me it takes a whole bunch less faith to believe that God created me than to think of myself as some random collection of molecules that just happened to come together and create the complex person that I am.

And as I look around at people and you see how wonderful and beautiful and complex and intricately made they are, with such huge potential; I don’t know, I just can’t look at a person and think of them as just a random collection of molecules. Psalm 139 is beautiful and is really worth a read and we will look at it again a bit later on the programme.

Today though, I want to come along side and look at where we are in our lives today. See, I know people who believe in Jesus Christ who will say to me, ‘Berni, my life, well, it’s not how it’s meant to be. There’s something missing. I mean, I hear people talking about how God wants to bless us but I’m not experiencing that – I feel empty; I feel life is just drifting by – I feel there must be something more.’ Well that’s because there is – so what’s wrong?

I’d like to share a story with you about the first time I visited one of the most beautiful cities in the world – the city of San Francisco in the United States. It’s absolutely one of my favourite cities on the planet. Anyhow, it was a work trip and I had a couple of clients with me. I was a consultant in the IT industry at the time and these two clients, Vince and Hans, – the three of us had to drive around San Francisco, in fact, the whole Bay area.

We had to go across the Bay Bridge to a little place called Walnut Creek. Now that sounds great but it was a pretty daunting trip. More people live in the Bay area of San Francisco than live in the whole of Australia – so muggins me, I was the consultant; I got to be the driver. Now, it’s not only a huge, daunting, unfamiliar city but remember, they all drive on the wrong side of the road, so making a left hand turn, the three of us would do it together.

You know, the other guys in the front seat and back seat would say, ‘Ok, left hand turn, we have to end up on the other side of the road,’ so we would all talk our way through this left hand turn, making sure that instead of ending up in the gutter, I ended up on the other side of the road.

Anyhow, back to the Bay Bridge. The Bay Bridge is not some small, tiny little bridge – it’s not the Golden Gate Bridge – the Bay Bridge is actually a really long bridge; it goes for four and a half miles; over seven kilometres. Its two stories, it just goes, literally, for miles.

In our travels that first visit to San Francisco, we actually went across the Bay Bridge twice – only once intentionally. I’m not sure what happened, but the second time, we were navigating our way through down town and we wanted to be there for a meeting but before we knew it, we were on some freeway that takes you over the Bay Bridge and there was no way off. I’d made a wrong turn; there was no alternative, we just had to travel miles across the Bay Bridge and we ended up on the other side of the Bay.

It was a beautiful drive – it was a lovely day, the sun was shining; it was fabulous but as nice as it was over there, that’s not where we were meant to be. We had two choices – we could spend the rest of our visit driving around the other side of the Bay – the wrong area or turn back and come home so that we could be where we were meant to be.

We are talking about today living our lives to the full. Being who God made us to be – being on the journey He’s chosen for us. God has a plan but sometimes we take a wrong turn. Let’s go back to Psalm 139 that we looked at last week because it’s such a beautiful Psalm. Here’s God’s plan – the Psalmist says:

For God you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.

Don’t you love it? It’s the Psalmist saying, ‘God, You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your work is so wonderful, I know that full well. I wasn’t hidden from You when I was being made in that secret place. When I was woven together there in the depths of the earth, You saw my unformed substance. And all the days that You were going to give me; they’ve been written in Your book already before any of them existed.’ Oh God, that is so awesome – it’s beautiful.

God made us – you and me – who we are. He handcrafted us – He dreamt us up in His heart, before time even began and then … then He set each day aside for us; every part, every journey, every experience, before any of them existed. That’s huge!! I am who He made me to be; you are who He made you to be and He has a plan for our lives and God is a good and a loving God – He has a good and loving plan.

That’s not to say we won’t experience pain or be rejected or go through some bad times. All those things, well, we’d rather we didn’t have them but they do happen. In fact, Jesus said, “Follow Me and you will be rejected. Follow Me and you will experience pain,” but He has a plan, never the less, a rich tapestry with threads of gold and silver and some dark threads in there too. When you lose someone you love you can be sitting there in pain and tears and yet still, deep inside, know that you are right in the centre of God’s plan.

Or on the other hand, everything can be going along fine on the surface but on the inside, somehow you know you’re miles away from God’s plan. Maybe you’ve taken a wrong turn – we will talk about that next.

On the Wrong Side of the Bay 

Have you ever seriously been lost? I can tell you, it’s not a good feeling. There I was in San Francisco; in a foreign land; in an unfamiliar city, driving across this HUGE Bay Bridge and it seemed to go on forever; only to get to the other side and on the other side I was still driving on the wrong side of the road. And there was traffic and there were one way streets and there was no easy way of turning around. I can tell you, as beautiful as San Francisco is and was to me on that day, this was not a good feeling. All because I took that one, stupid, wrong turn – now I was miles away from where I wanted to be.

And that’s exactly what happens in our lives – we take this one wrong turn. What does that mean exactly? Well, God made us who we are – He has a plan for our lives; a good and a perfect plan. We saw that earlier in Psalm 139 and when we live out who we are and walk day by day, step by step in the plan that God has for us, there’s something right about it; there’s something good about it. When we are living out God’s plan, there’s just a joy about that in our lives.

On the other hand sometimes we don’t do that. Sometimes we take a left or a right when God wants us to go straight ahead. Now, I’ve done both – I’ve been lost and today I’m being the man I was meant to be – and I can tell you, there is just no comparison between the two. I wouldn’t go back to my lost-ness for anything.

Back then on paper I earned so much more than I do now but today I am so much richer than I ever was. I had a sense, way back then that God kind of created me and He probably had a plan for me but I just wanted to do things my way. I was young and I wanted to do it my way and so I turned my back on God and chased wealth and fame and fortune and I actually, pretty much got what I was after, just to discover how empty and unfulfilling and hollow those things really were.

But you know, it doesn’t have to be completely walking away from God. For some people taking a wrong turn in life can be seemingly a small thing. Somehow getting out of the habit of spending time in prayer and reading the Bible; somehow just drifting away from God or you still do those things but there’s this one person in your life you just can’t forgive or you’re caught up in something you know is wrong. ‘Ah, but what the … you know, God’ll understand.’

Psalm 119 is the longest of all the Psalms and the last verse, verse 176, says this:

I have strayed like a lost sheep.

Now, sheep aren’t stupid, mind you – they are quite bright. The issue is they’re very short-sighted – they can’t really see clearly beyond about fifteen feet and on top of that, they don’t have a very good sense of direction. They can’t get back home once they’re lost.

You know, I think we are like that – we follow this or we follow that – this takes our fancy; that takes our fancy – it can be seemingly harmless. Maybe just a bit of extra money and we buy a new lounge suite, and then we redecorate this room and that room and before you know it, we are so enjoying our possessions that we don’t have room for God in our lives. That’s how these things happen. It’s so easy to wander off; to stray like a lost sheep.

I don’t know about you, but I have a naturally tendency towards spiritual myopia (short-sightedness). And we need to hang so close to Jesus – in fact, He said, ‘Apart from Me you can do nothing.’ Jeremiah chapter 50, verse 6, says this:

 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray
and caused them to roam on the mountains.
They wandered over the mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.
Whoever found them devoured them;

Things, people, lead us astray and when we are wandering out there in the wilderness and the mountains we forget our own resting place – we forget how wonderful it is to be living the life that God planned for us – to be in His rest. And so we do get devoured and we do get eaten up because it’s terrible out there without Jesus – and that’s it for me.

See, God is my resting place – that close and intimate relationship with Him. You know that you can just go to Him and rest in Him in the cool of the morning and the heat of the day and there’s a peace and a joy – just a wonderful knowledge of Him in that. Now this isn’t a crutch – I’m as self-reliant and outcome focussed person as you’ll ever meet. I’m not talking about a crutch, I talking about a knowledge; a certain knowledge that God is in this place with me and I am smack bang in the centre of His plan for me. That’s it!

Have a look around? Does this feel like the place you are meant to be? Examine your heart? Do you look like the person you are meant to be or is something wrong – is something missing?

The whole of the Old Testament is about Israel’s struggle with their sin. God had this amazing plan to bless them – the Promised Land, peace, plenty of food, more peace – over and over again they took a wrong turn. They turned their backs on Him; sometimes completely; sometimes just in one area of their lives. But the Bible has a name for that; it’s called ‘sin’ – it’s taking a wrong turn.

Here we are, made in His image and we let sin creep in and mar that image – it robs us of being the person we are meant to be. It transports us into a wilderness; a lost-ness. Why? Because God is a holy God – it means that He is good and He’s perfect and He’s wondrous and our sin and our rebellion are our rejection of Him. They separate us from Him.

The question is when we have taken a wrong turn, how … how do we get back?

The Way Home

When we talk about taking a wrong turn, it’s one thing to admit that this is what we’ve done and it’s an important first step but the question is how do we get back? I was sharing before with you the story of when I was lost in San Francisco and ended up over the Bay Bridge with this long, big four and a half mile – seven kilometre bridge – just because I took one little wrong turn. And we headed over that bridge and we ended up on the other side of the Bay, miles away from where we were meant to be, down town, for our meeting. Way on the other side!

And you might say, ‘Berni, well, it’s obvious, to get back, just turn around and go back on the same bridge.’ Well, maybe in theory it’s obvious, but remember, we were driving on the wrong side of the road; on the opposite side to what I’m used to driving. You get to the other side of the Bay and there’s traffic and there are roads and there are signs – I’m not really familiar with the road rules. Can you do a U-turn at a traffic light or not in the U.S.A.? I don’t know because in Australia, in one state, you are allowed to and in another state, you’re not.

It’s years ago now but I remember the sense … the sense of panic and confusion. The way back may have been obvious in theory but on the ground, it was far from obvious. Isn’t that exactly what it’s like when we take a wrong turn in our lives? You may slip up; one silly wrong turn and you end up miles away from God and His plan and who you are meant to be. And it’s like being on the other side of the Bay in San Francisco – it’s a long way away. You can’t swim back; you can’t get back there in your own strength, so on the ground, it’s confusing and scary.

Would He have me back? I mean, look at what I’ve done! Besides, it’s not as simple as that – I have to give this up or that up – that wouldn’t work out in my life … on and on we go. We make so many excuses; we make it so complicated; we run around in ever decreasing circles: ‘Aw, my life isn’t what it’s meant to be; something’s missing; I’m not being the ‘me’ I was meant to be.’ And vaguely, away out in the distance, we sense the God who created us; who planned our lives for us; who wants to bless us, but how do we get back?

I wonder if you can relate to that! I think we’ve all been there and maybe you’re in that place today. Now I thank God for Jesus’ disciples because they kind of went ahead and made all the mistakes that we make and particularly Thomas. Jesus said,

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God – trust in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it wasn’t so I wouldn’t have told you that. I am going to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come back and take you with me so that you are also where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going and Thomas said to him, ‘We don’t know where you are going so how can we know the way?’

And Jesus answered them, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him because you have seen me.

See, Jesus is going to be crucified, and then He’s going to rise again and He’s going to ascend to heaven – they don’t really understand that yet. And Thomas, what’s he expecting? He wants a road map! He was on the other side of the Bay, on the wrong side of the road and he’s saying to Jesus, ‘How do I get back across the bridge?’ and Jesus said, ‘Don’t you get it? Thomas, I’m the way; I am the bridge.’ You don’t cross that huge gulf from lost-ness to God unless you go on the bridge, ‘And that bridge,’ said Jesus, ‘is Me.’

In Luke chapter 15, Jesus told them this parable:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the open country to go after the lost sheep until he finds it? Then he calls out to his friends and his neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.

When we take a wrong turn; when we rebel against God, we kind of think He will never want me back! I don’t know how to go back; it’s just not working. Here is Jesus; He’s got a shepherds heart; He goes out looking for one lost sheep and He said:

I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand is not the good shepherd who owns the sheep, when the wolves come, he runs away but I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays his life down for his sheep.

He comes out to get us; He has compassion on us. And you know something? Maybe that’s what He is doing right now. Do you think it’s a coincidence that we are together right now? Or is Jesus reaching out through His Word calling you home? Have you ever been wandering out there in the wilderness wondering, how do I get close to God again?’ Have you taken a wrong turn? Are you ready to admit it and say to God, ‘God, forgive me through Jesus Christ, Your Son, forgive me.’

The way home is when we trust that in Jesus we are forgiven. When we let Him lead us home, because we can’t get there on our own, we’ll discover where home is. When we let Him, by His Spirit and by His Word, make things right in our hearts, we’ll discover the peace and the plan that God has for us. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5 and verse 1:

Therefore since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

Being the person God made us to be; living the life He planned for us, to the full – we can’t do those things when we take a wrong turn. And when we do take a wrong turn, it’s not a surprise to Him – He knows – He understands. He wants us back with Him; He wants to get us close … really close to Him and the only way that you and I can do that is to be forgiven through Jesus Christ; through what He did on the cross.

And then, can I tell you something? Set aside some time each day and pray and read His Word and just rest in His presence. Instead of panicking and running around in ever decreasing circles, today; right now; this very minute, you can turn to Jesus Christ and say, ‘Father, I’m on the wrong side of the Bay and I’m lost and I know I can’t get back to You in my own strength and that’s why I need Jesus.’

Then and only then, we discover that the ‘me’ each one of us is meant to be and the plan that God has for our lives is so awesome. See, God made us to be with Him. Jesus prayer before He went to the cross was this: ‘Father, I want them to be with Me; I want them to be one with Me, just like you and I are one, I want them to be with me where I am so that they can behold my glory.’

Jesus went to the cross and purchased this one thing with His life for you and me. Have you taken a wrong turn? There’s a road sign; there’s a sign home and it says, ‘Jesus’. The shepherd has come out to bring you home!

We get one crack at life. Just the one. So why is it that so many people are living a life that’s not fulfilling? A life that’s not enjoyable? A life that – let’s face it – is way short of God’s good plan for them? Why are so many people living the fresh new life they have in Jesus, as though they’re still dead in their sins? Why is that?

Life for Today 

Can I ask you something? Are you really living life to the full – I mean REALLY? So many people are struggling to discover their destiny; where they fit. Ok, maybe life’s kind of chugging along okay, but we all have this sense of somehow, ‘I have a destiny – a life I’m supposed to live – a ‘me’ I’m meant to be.’

And I don’t apologise for the fact that over the last few weeks we have been unpacking that from God’s perspective. I just passionately believe that He so wants each one of us to discover that when we have a relationship with Him – a real relationship, you know – that all of a sudden we can be the person He meant us to be.

And today we are in the third programme of a series that I’ve called ‘Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I Am.’ I’d like to look at the story of Lazarus because, in a sense, if we are going to talk about ‘living life to the full’, well we have to die to the old ‘me’ and rise to the new ‘me’. And I love how Jesus tackled that when His good friend Lazarus up and died on Him. It’s a powerful story – it’s about a real man who died and who Jesus brought back to life again.

I always love to see what Jesus did and then ask ‘What does that tell me about God?’ And you see an attitude in Jesus that tells us that He means for us, here and now, to have life today. The Lazarus story had a powerful impact on my life, so let’s have a look at it. We’ll go and have a look at the first part of the story in John chapter 11, verses 1 to 15.

A man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus – they said, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’

When he heard this, he said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.’ Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Then he said to his disciples, ‘Okay, now let us go back to Judea.’

‘But Rabbi,’ they said, ‘a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?’

 And Jesus answered them, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world’s light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light.’

After he said this, he went on to tell them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.’

And his disciples replied, ‘Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.’ Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But come on, let us go to him.’

Interesting story – Lazarus is dying; it turns out that Lazarus is a really good friend of Jesus and Jesus could have prevented his death, yet He didn’t! Jesus knew two days before and He decided not to go; He decided to wait where He was and then go a couple of days later.

Now what was God doing? I think God was trying to make a point…..a point at a couple of levels. Remember Jesus said, “For your sake, I’m glad I didn’t go so that you may believe.” The first point is the power of Jesus because as we’ll see later on in the programme, ultimately He brings Lazarus back to life again. But I think there’s another point – that God is in the business of bringing the dead back to life.

Over these last few weeks we have dealt with an issue that so many of us don’t want to deal with, head on – sin. I mean, I think in our society today ‘sin’ is a four letter word. There’s stuff in our lives that we know is wrong and it robs us of life itself. As I look back on my life as a wealthy, apparently successful businessman on the outside – what people saw, they envied. I seemed to have it all together – I seemed to have it all.

But on the inside I was dead; I was empty; I was hollow; I was a shell. I truly describe myself as a dead man walking. You know something? It doesn’t matter how much we deny it; how much we try to put a respectful veneer over or sell it as a feature of our freedom to do whatever we want – that’s all of us at some point – dead inside. And that’s how God sees us before we meet Jesus; that’s how we are until we encounter Jesus Christ.

At this point some people might be saying, ‘Come on, Berni, bit old-fashioned point of view isn’t it?’ If you’re in that camp can I encourage you to do something? Take a good hard look at the way you’re living your life – ask yourself, ‘Am I living my life to the full?’ God lets us go through that – to be a dead man walking – for a reason. It’s the same as with Lazarus – Jesus waited for him to die before bringing him back to life because God wanted to make a point. God’s in the ‘new life’ business and it’s a miracle and He needed to make that point because we just don’t get it sometimes. I didn’t, and nor did Lazarus’s family. Let’s have a look:

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already died and he’d been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. And when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. 

‘Lord,’ Martha said, ‘If you had been here; if only you’d been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that now God will give you whatever you ask.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 

And Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection on that last day.’

And Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.’

And after she said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and said. ‘The Teacher is here, Jesus is here and he’s asking for you.’ When Mary heard this, she quickly got up and went to Jesus. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews, who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, ‘Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ Comes from John chapter 11, verses 17 to 32.

Ultimately, as we will see later, Jesus did bring Lazarus back to life but no one could believe that Jesus would do that, here and now. They’d all seen Him do miracles; they had all seen Him heal people but they couldn’t imagine how He could actually bring Lazarus back to life.

But Jesus had another plan; a new life, here and now. The question is: Do you believe?

All Wrapped Up

You know, I reckon, if there is a God; if God is God then He is going to want us to live life to the full. I mean, outrageously, abundantly, to the full – not a two out of ten, not a seven out of ten, a minimum of a ten out of ten and then some. That doesn’t mean there won’t be ups and downs; of course, there always will but I don’t know, my hunch is, He’d want us to live a life of outrageous joy right through the ups and downs. But I know so many people … people who believe in Jesus and people who don’t – who seem to be living a two or a five or a seven out of ten kind of life. Always this nagging sense of destiny; there’s something more for them but never really getting close to that. Me, I want to live my life to the full. How about you?

And you know, there’s an amazing portrait of that kind of half-life; a not really complete life, in the Bible. We’ve just been looking at the story of Lazarus – about how Lazarus died and was a good friend of Jesus. They come and tell Jesus that Lazarus is about to kick the bucket and yet He still waits a few days before He goes. And you know what everyone says when He gets there? ‘How come You didn’t get here sooner – You could have healed him?’

Bit like us! ‘God, how come You dished up this life that I living right now? How come You couldn’t get here sooner? You could have made it better back then.’ But Jesus tells them, ‘You know something? I’m glad I didn’t get here because God is about to make a point….about to do something that you don’t expect.’

Everyone wanted Jesus to have fixed the problems before Lazarus died but Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Lazarus is dead and for your sake I’m glad I wasn’t there so that you may believe, but let’s get going to him now.’ So no one can see it. Yet Jesus says to Martha, his sister, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ And Martha says, ‘I know one day he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ She didn’t get it either – she was happy to believe in ‘the pie in the sky when you die’ but not in ‘steak on the plate while you wait’.

Let’s pick up the story in John chapter 11, verse 38:

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to Lazarus’ tomb – it was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ‘Take away the stone,’ he said.

‘But Lord, said Martha, the sister of the dead man, ‘by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been dead for four days.’

Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?’

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you would always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.’

When he said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, Lazarus, come out!’ And the dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

And Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.’

Jesus was deeply moved – Lazarus was a good friend. He cared for Lazarus – Jesus wept for Lazarus. This isn’t some stunt – it’s a tender encounter and everyone else was thinking, ‘Jesus can’t do this! I mean, this Lazarus guy has been dead for four days – he’s on the nose.’ I reckon we have to be careful about telling God what He can’t do … about putting Him in a little box, imagining somehow, He could never really bring Lazarus back to life … or us back to life, you and me.

See, all these people – Martha and Mary, the disciples, all the other Jews that were around – they’d seen Jesus doing amazing miracles; they knew Him, yet they didn’t believe that He could bring a man back to life. But He did!

Look at the picture of Lazarus though, as he walks out of the tomb. ‘The dead man came out. His hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face.’ He was dressed in grave clothes. Can I tell you something? He looks a lot like many of the people I know – this picture of Lazarus in his grave clothes, living a half-life; bound up in their grave clothes; bound up in the things of the past. Jesus has breathed new life into them. He’d breathed new life into Lazarus. Under those grave clothes, Lazarus’ cheeks were pink; Lazarus was breathing, yet he was bound up in his grave clothes.

Isn’t that something we do sometimes? We accept Jesus as our Saviour and yet we have one foot in the past life; that dead half-life that didn’t work and one foot in the new ‘Jesus’ life. Kind of hoping that things will work out and they never quite do. There’s a reason for that – you can’t live your life wrapped in grave clothes!

If you believe in Jesus, like Lazarus, there’s life in you – fresh pink cheeks; LIFE! Jesus sets us free but then people want to hang onto the past – it just doesn’t work. What sort of life do you think it would have been if Lazarus had stayed in those grave clothes? And in any case, it wasn’t Jesus’ plan. Look what He said: ‘Jesus said to them, ‘Take off the grave clothes and let him go.’ Don’t you like that? Jesus commanded that the grave clothes be taken off and he be let go; that he be set free. ‘Let him be with Me as he was meant to be.’

Being the person God meant us to be; living life to the full, is a ‘boots and all’ thing for you and me. ‘Aw, but I still want to hang onto the things and … this or that, or that attitude or this compromise. I still want to cheat and lie and be tight with money and not serve other people because you know, none of those things are particularly convenient.’

Great! Great, stay in your grave clothes then but don’t expect to live your life to the full. You can’t do it!

The alternative is to set our hearts like flint: I’m following Jesus! I’m living out the life that He’s given us no matter what the cost. For a heroin addict to give up heroin there’s a cost. For an alcoholic to give up alcohol there’s a cost. The first step is admitting where we are and who we are and the second step is deciding, here and now: ‘you know something – this guy on the radio has a point. I have to do something; I have to get those grave clothes off me. I have to ditch some things and get on with this new life that Jesus has given me.’

Time to Walk on Glass

Today and over the last few weeks we have been talking about knowing who we are and living our lives out to the full. We all want that; we all want somehow to grow into who we were meant to be, to realise our destiny. And maybe over the last few weeks you have been tuning in and something inside you has been shouting, ‘Yes! That’s exactly what I want but … (there’s always a ‘but’) but surely God would never do this for me? Nothing’s ever going to change in my life. Okay, He raised Lazarus from the dead that was two thousand years ago. Okay, He raised Jesus from the dead. Okay, God can do anything He wants, but you know something, I just don’t believe He would do it for me.’

That’s the crunch isn’t it? It’s amazing you know: people can believe a whole bunch of things – they can believe that God can forgive them, that Jesus rose from the dead, that we have eternal life. In a sense, those things are easy to believe because they’re a long way off. But when you look at the problems of life, believing that God can intervene and make things better, believing that He will – that’s just a bit harder. Believing He can deal with those yucky, ugly bits inside us, that’s even harder still.

I mean, I was an incredibly tough self-centred businessman; I used to eat wimps for breakfast, you know. So, when I came to believing all those other things about God and Jesus and stuff, I knew straight away there were going to be some tough things to deal with in me. And on top of it all, I was going through a tough time personally. ‘Surely not, Berni?’ Absolutely! That’s when I came to faith in Jesus Christ – a decade and a half ago – when things were really tough in my life.

I was listening to another really high profile businessman lately about his life. He took a company from nine million to half a billion in just a few years. And everyone looked at him during that time and thought, ‘Man, what a superstar! What a corporate genius and hero!’ But the secret was he had his head down over the toilet bowl coughing up blood because that was what was going on inside him. He almost lost his marriage – he was sick with worry.

The crazy thing we do is we look on the outward sides of success but God looks on our hearts – on the stuff going on on the inside. And do you know something? If He isn’t in the business of fixing those things in us, whatever they are – yours are bound to be different from mine, of course they are – then what’s the point? I mean if it doesn’t work, what’s the point? And do you know something? When we are in the middle of those things it’s so hard … so incredibly hard to believe that He would ever come alongside us and give us a new life, like He did with Lazarus.

You know what I mean, or is it just me? The Apostle Paul writing to the Ephesian church was busting to help them with exactly that. This is what he wrote, almost two thousand years ago. He said:

I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you may know the hope to which he has called you – the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and the incomparably great power for those who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him up from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly realms, far above rule or authority and power and dominion; every title that can be given, not only in the present age but in the one to come.

See, Paul’s saying that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the very same power that’s at work in you and me, and Paul’s saying, ‘I just wish you knew the hope and the riches and the power that’s at work in you.’

A few years back, I went to Toronto in Canada and I went to visit the CN Tower. At the time it was the tallest, manmade, freestanding structure in the world and part way up – three hundred and forty-two metres up there’s an observation deck that you can go to, the trick is, it has a glass floor. Now they tell you that the glass floor is five times stronger than the concrete floor. Is that a help? No! I was petrified!

It took me a long time to walk out on this glass floor. It was an awful feeling. You could look down between your feet and you could see birds flying what seemed miles below – these little specks. And I wasn’t the only one – everybody seemed scared to walk out onto this glass floor.

But here is it – if I want to be the person God made me to be; if I want to live my life to the full, you have to step out on the glass floor; you have to put your faith in the promises of God. Okay, it’s an uncomfortable feeling sometimes, but there it is. And sometimes when we step out; when we have been living our lives saying, ‘You know, nothing’s ever going to change in my life, my relationships, my problems, my this, that and the other are never going to change,’ – when we read God’s promises; when we read what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1: ‘I wish you knew the riches and the inheritance and the glory and the power that you have.’

When we walk out onto those promises, all of a sudden, God does something in us – hope and riches and power – we need to live this new life that Jesus died and rose again to give us. Galatians chapter 2, verse 20 says:

I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.’ Now, that’s a fairly well-known passage but listen to the next bit: ‘The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’

Can we honestly say that the life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me? Jesus died on that cross so that my sins and yours will be forgiven. He rose again to give us certain hope and a certain promise of eternal life and His plan is for that eternal life to begin now!

I know you have problems in your life. Get a revelation: we all do! We all have things and issues and problems in our lives that we would rather not have but in the middle of those … in the middle of those, God’s plan is for you to be the person He made you to be. It’s for you to live your life out to the full and taking hold of that life; being the person God made you to be, living the life God gave you is a step of faith.

We accept our salvation from God by faith; we have to accept our new life by faith too. We have to believe it before we can see it. It’s God plan and it’s a great plan and He wants you and me to live our lives to the full and know who we are in Christ – to live with an active faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus went and took Lazarus out of the grave when no one expected He could do that. No one believed that He could do that. Jesus was making a point – ‘I am in the ‘new life’ business.’ Here was Jesus saying, “I am the resurrection, the truth. I’m in the business of giving people a fresh, new life.’ And sometimes He gives us that and we still want to wander round in the old grave clothes. Take OFF the grave clothes and He will set you free.

When we take that step out, He steps in and does things we could never do. He deals with the things we could never deal with and the reason is: so that we can never boast that is was ‘me’ – ‘I did it!’ I didn’t! He did!!

One of the great paradoxes in life is that the more we try to look after ourselves, the more we care about what’s in it for us, the less satisfying life becomes and the less contented we become. I wonder … why is that?

Life’s Great Paradox

Well, here we are again in this last programme of this four week series that I’ve called ‘Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I Am’. Now we can’t talk about that without exploring one of life’s great paradoxes. Life is full of paradoxes and contradictions and complexities. It’s funny how we can see something one way and believe it with all our hearts that that’s how it is and then in an instant, we discover it’s wrong. Like lemmings, we all rush in one direction and then, just in time, someone says ‘You realise that’s a cliff?’

People and societies chase after this idea or that belief; they believe it with all their hearts, only to discover, it doesn’t work. Take just one thing … take consumerism, for example. The advertising industry has a single, very simple mantra that rings out through almost every advertisement you see – it’s this: ‘if you buy me, you’ll be happy!’

And to convince us of that, each ad has this glossy image of success – the things we aspire to. In effect, the ad tells us what to aspire to because they define success – fine dining, business class travel, crystal clear wide screen television, a big house. Who doesn’t want those things? But when finally, we get there, so what? I mean, great! What’s next?

Who doesn’t want good espresso coffee, or to sit in those wide, comfortable seats at the front of the plane or … or drive a really nice car or have a happy family? You know, when you look at these ads, they really get me.

The Father’s and the Mother’s Day ads on television; these images of happy, well-adjusted children, just what mum and dad want and they race into mum and dad’s bedroom and they jump on the bed and they give them presents and we think, ‘WOW, I’d like my family to be like that.’ Or the margarine ads – they have happy, smiling, well-adjusted families, having morning breakfasts and fresh orange juice and slapping the margarine on the toast.

Or these watches – you know these up market watches that cost thousands of dollars, surrounded by images of multi-million dollar racing yachts, appealing to the man inside the man. Or the four-wheel drives – have you noticed they’re always on beautiful, wide country roads and never in the maddening peak-hour traffic, where most people drive them?

Or the washing powder that’s going to make your clothes whiter than white and brighter than bright, or the showers that never need cleaning, or germ-free sparkling toilets … the list goes on and on and on and they all have the same message: ‘buy me and you’ll be happy.’ But the plain, simple fact is that it’s not true!

Most of those things – they’re good; there’s nothing wrong with any of those things but they don’t fill us. We don’t feel fulfilled because we have a clean shower – well, we might for a few minutes but just doesn’t go on, does it? Even career, even power and big salaries and self actuation; whatever people want out of their career, it doesn’t matter what it is – how exciting, how glamorous it is, eventually it all becomes mundane and ho-hum.

Now you might be saying to me, ‘Berni, what’s the matter with you today? I mean, you’re all down and pessimistic.’ Well, actually, I’m not! But I know a lot of people who are; people living on this treadmill all their lives, going round and round and round and round and round, just to discover that it’s hollow and that it’s empty. You know something? Even the most wonderful marriage on the planet – if something’s not right inside each one of us, the marriage ends up being hollow.

You see, the problem is, we’ve been conned; we’ve believed this ‘buy me and you’ll be happy’ mantra. Now we kind of know it doesn’t work, but what’s the alternative? We don’t know anything else so we just keep on going round and round the same track again – people swilling around those glossy, ritzy shopping malls. What for?

The last three weeks on the programme we have been looking at the subject of ‘Living Life to the Full’. We all have a sense of destiny; a sense of a life that we should be living; the person that we are meant to be and so many people have that sense but they’re not living it.

A few weeks ago we started with the fact that God had a plan for you and me before time began. He laid down the very strands of our DNA; the foundations of our lives; who we would be and when we see ourselves that way, through God’s eyes, I tell you what, you and I look a whole bunch different.

Then in the second programme we looked at really discovering who we are; discovering what God made me to be and you to be. Not being squeezed into a different mould by what other people say, but really saying, ‘Who am I?’ And that’s as much about knowing ‘who I am’ as knowing ‘who we aren’t.’

And last week we looked at the fact that it’s time to step out into the life that God planned for us and sometimes that’s counter intuitive; sometimes we don’t feel like it’s the right time. It’s time to believe instead of staying tangled up in all those old things of the past; those old things that we know just didn’t work – it’s time to step out into the life that God planned for us.

This week I’d like to unpack this paradox of, on the one hand, we try and fill ourselves with satisfaction and joy and things and yet the more we stuff in the emptier we feel. Why is that? Why doesn’t it work? Why is it that somehow we try and live our lives kind of the way it’s supposed to make sense, but it doesn’t make sense? ‘I don’t feel fulfilled; I don’t feel like I’m being the ‘me’ I was meant to be.’ What is that?

To me it’s the hardest paradox of all – one that I had to discover in my life, the hard way, because when we think about it, being the person I’m meant to be; living my life to the full, based on God’s plan, we end up swallowing the advertising industry’s mantra, hook, line and sinker. You see, the advertising industry wants to put ‘me’ in the centre of everything and tell ‘me’ that everything else has to flow into ‘me’ to fill me up – fill me, fill me, fill me till I burst. ‘That’s what’ll make you happy!’

But does that make us feel full and satisfied? I don’t know, for me, I ended up feeling bloated and then empty again; bloated and empty again – it was a constant cycle. The sad thing is, people sacrifice their lives to this stuff – they lose their marriages over it because they just don’t know any better. Nobody’s ever given them a viable alternative.

Bernard Leven – I love this – he’s a well-known British columnist; he wrote this. He said,

Countries like ours are full of people who have all they desire and yet they lead lives of quiet desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there’s a hole inside and no matter how much food and drink we pour into it; however many motor cars and TVs we stuff it with; however many well-balanced kids and loyal friends we parade around the edges of it, it aches.

So many people relate to that … this paradox that the more we try to fill ourselves up, the emptier we feel. It’s like all the rivers flowing into the Dead Sea. You know, that’s what the Dead Sea is – all the rivers are flowing in and none of them flow out and nothing can live in it – everything is dead.

But, what’s the alternative? What’s the answer?

Putting First Things First

One of the things that we’re all pretty much conditioned to in life, is coming first. Now we all can’t come first all the time but it’s pretty natural though, that we all want to be first – the best looking, the brightest, the most articulate. Even when we think we have those things under control though, this competitive spirit, every now and then – it just rears up its head.

We want to win – an argument, a situation, some minor conflict at work or at home – we want to have the final word. We want to assert our view, our way, our need, whatever it is. To be blunt, we just want to win and sometimes winning comes at such a high price.

Let’s face it, if I’m going to be the person I was meant to be, I have to win – it stands to reason. Really, doesn’t it? Yea, well, there are some problems with that – this ‘I have to be first’ thing because we can’t always be first. If everybody wants to be first, nobody would be. And it sets up this thing were we become our own little demigods. And the moment things don’t work we have to throw a little tantrum or a big tantrum.

That’s how I used to live my life. I expected everybody to bow and scrape to me and if they didn’t, I just rolled straight over the top of them or through them. And if you were somehow offended or annoyed or disappointed with me, I felt as though you were robbing me of being the ‘me’ I was meant to be. I was this little tin-pot god, on my own little tin-pot throne and I discovered, you know, it’s not much fun living life like that, especially when you are surrounded by people with the same worldview.

The paradox is that being first doesn’t work. Now Jesus disciples were having a great argument about which one of them was the greatest – you know, the Mohammad Ali – ‘I am the greatest’ syndrome.

They came to Capernaum and when they went inside the house, Jesus said to them, ‘So, what were you guys arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the twelve to him and said, ‘Look, if anyone wants to be the first, he must be the very last and the servant of all.’ And Jesus took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, Jesus said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, doesn’t just welcome me but my Father, the one who sent me.’

Don’t you love that? They’re all kind of talking behind Jesus’ back, you know, about whose the greatest and I don’t imagine that Peter was saying, ‘You know, I think John’s the greatest.’ My hunch is, Peter was saying, ‘I think I’m the greatest,’ and John was saying, ‘I think I’m the greatest.’ Don’t you love it? And when Jesus says, ‘So, what were you guys arguing about on the road?’ they didn’t want to tell Him. Why? Because it’s such a stupid argument and they knew it. And we know it! Then this profound statement from Mark chapter 9, verse 35:

If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.

Just seventeen little words and He turns everything on its head! ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’

He puts His finger on one of the deepest maladies on the planet. One of the things that stop us from being the person God made us to be; from living life to the full, is wanting to be the greatest. Who are the people who are first in your heart? Let me ask you that – who are they? Well, I’ll tell you – they’re the one who have sacrificed the most for you. The ones that you and I hold dearest in our hearts, are the ones who loved us when we were unlovable; who put up with us when we were difficult; who were there for us when we blew it and who picked us up and dusted us off and got us going again.

And those people, instead of wanting to be first; instead of insisting on their rights; instead of all that and condemning us, and all the things that we think we’re owed and deserve, they served us. And in doing that, they were in fact, last, not first but by being last in our lives, by serving us, they have become first in our hearts. Being first isn’t about sitting on our little thrones and winning, it’s ultimately about sowing seeds into someone’s life through gentleness and compassion and service.

If you want to be first, you have to be the servant of all and then leave a legacy of respect and gratitude and profound appreciation in other peoples’ hearts. Being first is the thing that happens in their hearts when we serve them, instead of what happens in our heart when they serve us. It’s an amazing discovery – it turns life right around and it’s pretty simple; it’s not rocket science but it’s one of those things we forget in our busyness to make sure that we get everything that we think we’re entitled to.

I didn’t start discovering a life that was being lived to the full; I didn’t start living my life to the full until I resigned from my little tin-pot despotic roll as my own pathetic little god and I handed the god job over to the One whose job it is. And the amazing thing is, as counter intuitive as it may feel; when I started serving other people, that’s when I started enjoying my life.

Not having to win each argument; not having to come out on top; or not having to be smarter or faster or better or brighter than the next guy – all of a sudden I wasn’t trying to live an impossible life of being first. Life became a whole bunch simpler – I had a peace, I had a joy, I had a rest and I don’t have to get angry every time someone doesn’t meet my expectations any more.

If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.

But more than that, I discovered who I was meant to be. I discovered a life to be lived to the full – that I have these gifts and abilities that God wants to use, from me into other peoples’ lives that we were talking about last week. And you and I know that when we do that, it’s so incredibly satisfying. We resign from being first and the ‘me’ at the centre of the universe and discover what it means to serve – the pleasure and the fulfilment and the … then you know what happens?

All of a sudden in a whole bunch of peoples’ hearts, we have a warm significance; a first-ness, if I can call it that, that only comes when we become their servant. Jesus said it over and over again – a profound truth. He said it another way – you can read it in Luke chapter 9, verse 24 and 25. He said:

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose their very self?

In other words, this is such an important part of living life to the full and being the person God made us to be. We need to resign from the position of ‘God’ and hand it back to Him.

On a Personal Note

Well, here we are almost at the end of this series that I’ve called ‘Living Life to the Full by Knowing Who I Am’. I just believe that before time began God had the most amazing plan for you and me; a plan for who He would make us to be; our very nature, our DNA, what we’d look like, how we’d walk and a plan for our lives – every minute of every day. You can read about it in Psalm 139.

And it’s a plan that He gives us complete freedom of choice over … a choice to accept it or reject it; a choice to live out the life that He laid out before us, before time began or to go our own way. And that choice … that freedom is an awesome thing. I mean, it’s so very, very ‘God’, isn’t it? But it’s a choice that has consequences.

The question I have for you today is: How do you choose? We can’t change the past; we can’t ever change the past but from this moment forward, how do you choose? Something I often share with people is the heart of God; the passion He has for us and it’s a passion for a relationship, from the beginning of the Bible to the end. You see Him say it:

I will be your God and you will be my people.

He talks about walking in our midst and being with us and it’s an eternal plan that He hatched before time began and we can still be living that plan out long after time ends, in eternity.

Remember over these last few weeks we had a good look at Psalm 139 and the Psalmist puts it this way:

God, you created my inmost being.
You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed substance.

All the days ordained for me were already written in your book.

Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it such a … a non-surprise that God wants to have a relationship with us? I mean, He handcrafted us; He planned us and yet each one of us strayed away from that plan – I certainly did. Somehow I had this sense –‘well, you know, I can do better on my own. Who needs God and all that religion stuff?’ And in this process of going our own way, what we discover, each one of us, is that, our way is somehow empty and hollow and it doesn’t go where we think it should have gone.

And we struggle and we fight and we wrestle and some people even decide to believe in God and go to church but somehow they never quite get around to making a decision – a big decision – a decision to get with God’s plan; to live the life He gave us and to be the person He made us – completely, with everything that we are.

I’m going to give you that opportunity to make that decision today – to take a step of faith. We’ll do that in a moment, but before we go there, I want to point something out – there’s a cost; there’s always a cost. When we invite Jesus Christ to be the Lord of our lives – not just some distant thing or person we believe in but the Lord of our lives – when we put Him in the driver’s seat – this is not some half-hearted thing, it’s committing our lives to Him, lock, stock and barrel.

Perhaps you are at that point in life where you know there’s a destiny out there for you but somehow it’s eluded you. Maybe you’ve been pondering and considering this whole ‘Jesus’ thing and thinking, ‘Well, yea, I think I’m ready to invite Him into my life.’ Well, yes, it is an invitation but it’s a two-sided transaction. It’s also a giving of your life over to Him and that means we don’t always get to have our way anymore – it’s His way

Because when we accept, in faith, that Jesus died for us on that cross and rose again; when we accept that and believe that, then we aren’t our own person anymore, because we were bought at a price and that price was His life. And so it’s not me in the driver’s seat anymore but Him and that’s a very real decision. Jesus said to His disciples:

If anyone would come after me, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

That picture, of taking up your cross, is a picture of crucifixion. It is a brutal picture and so along the way there are going to be some things that we will have to sacrifice – our little tin-pot throne, for starters. There’ll be some things that we would rather do ‘this way’ but will have to do ‘that way’; His way.

And here’s the rub: when we take that step of faith – no matter where we are in our individual journeys right now – it’s a step of faith but it’s coming home – it’s a decision to get in step with His plan. The beginning of the most amazing journey – yes, there will be trials and there will be blessings but through it all, that’s where we will discover the life that God meant for us to live to the full.

Is it any surprise that if God made us to have a relationship with Him, then the only place that we’ll really discover who we are and what we’re meant to be doing, is in that relationship.

This is where the journey’s headed – it comes for Revelation chapter 21 – it is a picture of eternity; a picture of heaven. It goes like this:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth for, the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘The dwelling place of God is with his people and he will live among them and they will be his people and he will be their God. He’ll wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain for the old things have gone and passed away.’

That’s eternal life and it gets to start here and now. Do you want to be the person God made you to be? Do you want to live the life He made for you? Do you want to spend eternity with Him? If you would like that why don’t you just pray this prayer with me?

Father, we have heard Your Word today and somehow it’s touched us so amazingly inside. Lord, we have all gone our own way – each one of us – and we can just see that You have a plan. You have made us to be the person you made us to be, Lord, You handcrafted us. Father, we just want to turn away from our own path today, this very minute and get with Your plan and get on Your path and we just accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour and our Lord. Not just someone we believe in from a distance but as our King and our Lord; the Lord of our lives – we give our lives, lock, stock and barrel; a thousand percent, Lord God, to You. Father, put us back into Your plan – give us the life we were meant to have. Help us to discover who You made us to be. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

My friend, if you prayed that prayer, then you are back in relationship with God through Jesus Christ!!