God is an amazing God. A loving God. But there’s a side to Him that we don’t like to think too much about. It’s the angry God. The God of judgement and wrath. But if we don’t get our mind around that side of Him, then the good news of Jesus – well there’s nothing good about the news.

Why Sin is a Four Letter Word

Now, something that strikes me as I look around the world in which we live, is that we live in a world where just about anything goes. Even in my short life time – just on half a century, which, in the overall scheme of history, is like a drop in the ocean – things have changed radically. Let me give you just one example.

When I was a young man, a woman falling pregnant outside marriage was a great matter of shame. Today it’s a life style choice that many women make. Many, many couples choose to live together without making the commitment of marriage.

And just in case you think I am plucking that out of the air, the statistics tells us that, in Australia at least, co-habitation before marriage has increased – wait for this – from eighteen percent of couples in 1975 to almost sixty percent today. It’s gone from being the exception, to being more the norm. Just the way things are these days.

You know, sometimes you hear people thumping the table, telling us how bad things are these days, “Now like the good old days when I was young.” The implication is that this younger generation is, well, you know, they have no discipline or standards and if only things were like they were back in the “good old days”.

The problem is, the “good old days” weren’t really that good. Husbands still beat their wives back in the “good old days”. Children were still abused back in the “good old days”. Bad things still happened back in the “good old days” too – let’s be honest.

So the last thing under the sun that I want to be doing is suggesting that we somehow turn the clock back, so that things will be fine again – just like they were in the “good old days” – because we can’t turn the clock back and even if we could, things weren’t necessarily so grand back in the “good old days”. And there is a reason for that because from the moment that Adam and Eve took their first bite of that “apple” from that one tree … the “one” tree in that beautiful, abundant, peaceful garden, of which God said, “Don’t eat the fruit of that tree,” from that moment there has been this thing in the world called “sin”.

Let’s go to the story – Genesis chapter 3, beginning at verse 1 – if you have a Bible:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

Now, you see things have changed in this world. We live in a world where anything goes, right? Well, just about anything! Many a moral standard of yesteryear seems old fashioned and irrelevant and, to many, downright offensive. We are a whole bunch more relaxed about things these days, compared with the rigid old rules of the past century. So this notion of sin; this rebelling against God; this Adam and Eve thing, well, it seems like an outdated throwback from the 1950s. It feels, well, completely irrelevant in the enlightened age in which we live, doesn’t it?

And there are some things from the past, the way women were treated like chattels almost, for instance, that were terrible. Still happens in places around the world today. Or treating people differently because of their skin colour or their nationality. So many flaws and faults in these rigid rules from the past, to be sure and that … that’s why the short, three letter word, “sin” is something of a four letter word these days – a dirty word, a nasty word, a word that implies moral judgement against the standards of the rigid and flawed rules of our childhood.

But I’m not so much talking about that; about man-made rules. The thing … the thing that ushered pain and suffering into this world was our rebellion against God, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden. Read on to chapter 3 of that Book of Genesis and we find that there were some serious consequences to their actions, beyond what we just read. So whilst “sin” is a word that seems to carry, well, a lot of baggage around with it, it speaks of our rebellion against God and that word ‘sin’ as it’s used in the Bible, means literally “to miss the mark; to miss the whole point; to miss out on your share”.

And that’s the consequence of our rebellion against God. It’s not this thing that there are a whole bunch of rigid religious rules that you and I have to follow in order to make it into heaven. That’s not it at all. The point is that God is a God who loves us. He loves you, He loves me beyond anything we can imagine love to be. Writes the Apostle Paul to his friends, in Ephesians chapter 3, beginning at verse 18:

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

He loves you so much, more than words can ever say – beyond understanding – and when we turn our backs on Him; when you and I decide to live our lives our way; when we adopt this “anything goes” attitude; when we decide we can eat the fruit off any tree, there are consequences. I mean these: eat too much of the wrong thing and it will ruin your health; work too hard for too long, without rest and it will ruin your life; play too hard; drink too hard, it will ruin your health and your relationships. Cause and effect! Come on! It’s not rocket science – it’s as plain as the nose on your face and mine. And with Adam and Eve, there was cause and effect – there are consequences.

As much as we try and kid ourselves; as much as we try to tell ourselves that we can have anything and be anything and do anything – “It’ll be okay” – we know it’s a lie and we know there are always consequences. You and I, we’ve been duped into thinking that “sin” is some old fashioned, irrelevant, religious word from the past, when all along it’s the greatest malady of our lives. When all along that rebellion is robbing us of the fruit of a good and healthy relationship with God; a God who loves us so much that He sent us His only Son that whoever believes in Him wouldn’t perish but instead, would have eternal life.

Sowing and Reaping

Now, this word “righteousness”, well, it’s not a word that we use so much these days, in common, day to day language. Self-righteousness maybe, is the only time that we really hear the word. So what is it, why does it matter and why does it produce a harvest? Well, it turns out that this whole “righteousness” thing is a matter of cause and effect. I guess we pretty much understand the word “right”, telling right from wrong. At least, we think we do. If it’s right, it’s right; if it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

Not so much black and white these days; lots of shades of grey there between what people consider to be right and wrong, particularly the wealthier nations and their peoples become, the more focused we become on ourselves rather than on other people around us, that line between right and wrong, well, it’s a bit like the shifting sands. Nevertheless, I guess we all have a sense of right and wrong.

But the word “righteousness” is something of a legal term – it has to do with the law and in the sense of God’s righteousness, it has to do with God’s law, which we find in the Old Testament. Best way I have found to understand it is in terms of our law today.

Let’s say someone does something wrong, whether it’s a minor traffic infringement or a murder. Once we have done that and it’s proven, we stand condemned by the law. By and large, so long as justice is done, we don’t have a problem with that – we understand that we have to stop people from speeding their cars, right through to murdering other people. So, we do something wrong and as the saying goes, we find ourselves on “the wrong side of the law”.

And then there is a debt to be paid – whether it’s a hundred dollar speeding fine or twenty five years in prison for murdering. The law demands justice. That justice acts both as a penalty and, hopefully, as a deterrent but it also gives society justice.

If a loved one of ours is killed by a drunk driver, let’s say, and that drunk driver is tried and convicted and given a fifty dollar fine, then we don’t experience a sense of justice. On the other hand, if that drunk driver is locked up for some number of years – whilst that doesn’t bring our loved one back – our sense of justice is satisfied. But here’s the thing: once the penalty or the debt has been paid by the transgressor, whatever you and I may think of them, they are free because they now have a right standing according to the law.

A murderer, after serving that term in prison, walks out of that gate a free man or a free woman with precisely the same standing according to the law that you and I have. They have served their time; they have paid their debt to society and they are now back on the right side of the law. In a legal sense, they stand justified and here it is; here’s the word “righteousness” – they are back in a right standing with the law that makes them “righteousness”. That’s what righteousness means – to be in the right standing with the law.

So, if we do something wrong, it causes us pain, let alone the pain it causes other people because we find ourselves on the wrong side of the law. Once we take our punishment and serve our dues, we are then righteous again in the eyes of the law. Cause and effect.

And it’s like that with our relationship with God and in life generally. And it’s something that the Apostle Paul talks about with his friends at the church in Galatia, back in the First Century AD. Have a look with me at Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7. He says this:

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you will reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up.

In other words, stop kidding yourself; stop trying to get around God. Whatever you sow, you are going to reap. Cause and effect! Sow rubbish, you will reap rubbish; sow goodness, you will reap goodness. So even though things can be tough; even though sometimes if feels as though the world is against us; even though it feels sometimes that nothing … absolutely nothing is going our way – sow goodness; don’t grow tired in doing that – sow goodness. Sow in God’s direction; sow in God’s way and just at the right time, you will reap a harvest; the harvest of righteousness. Sowing and reaping.

Now there is more to this whole “righteousness” thing than what we do. There is some bad news about righteousness and some good news; great news; fantastic news and we are going to be checking those out next week on the programme. But right now I guess, in a world where the maxim of our day is that pretty much anything goes, I just felt today that we need to debunk that lie; it’s a patent lie.

“Do what feels good! Anything goes, it’ll be fine!” No it won’t, because there’s cause and effect. Get drunk, hop in your car, knock over a pedestrian – there are consequences – cause and effect. “And as you sow, so shall you reap”. Sow goodness and will reap the harvest; the abundant blessing of righteousness; the right standing with God – a God who loves us beyond anything that we can say in words – a God who wants to bless our socks off.

The thing that I want to encourage you with today is this: that doing “good” doesn’t always feel good. Let me say that again, it’s important: doing “good” doesn’t always feel good; loving the unlovable, turning the other cheek, putting others before ourselves. In fact, often it’s tough and it hurts and we want to give up – it’s all too hard. But we reap what we sow: that the universal, godly principle.

As you sow, so shall you reap. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest-time if we do not give up.

And that harvest is the abundant harvest of righteousness – a blessing from God that is absolutely, beyond anything we can imagine right now.

The Wrath of God

Now, in the coming weeks we are going to be talking quite a bit about the harvest that Paul is talking about and we have been talking about today – the harvest of righteousness. But today there is something else that we need to chat about first: it’s the alternative to this wonderful harvest of righteousness. It’s one hell of a subject, but if I didn’t talk about it, then I wouldn’t be doing my job.

The word “wrath” appears through the Bible some 266 times and most of the times it is used, it’s talking about the wrath of God. Now, I know that pretty much, we don’t want to hear about God’s anger and God’s wrath towards those who have rebelled against Him. I know that and I know that first instincts are to reach for the dial and turn this guy off or change stations – I know that too. But I want to encourage you not to do that because this short bit about the wrath of God may be the most important thing that you will ever, ever hear. So stick with me, even though it feels a little bit uncomfortable right now.

God is really, really clear about His impending wrath and that word “wrath” means this: anger which will manifest itself in the form of punishment. And He is also really clear about what things kindle His wrath. Come with me to Colossians chapter 3, beginning a verse 5:

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, vengeance, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.

Here’s the amazing thing: I used to think that God was just one big long list of religious rules – do this, don’t do that. And to be sure, I grew up in a religious tradition that was very much rule based. But the more I read of what God has to say in His Word; the more I go to the source and find exactly what He has to say, the thing I discover is that there are actually very, very few things that God says to us, “Don’t do.” Very few! Look at the list that Paul gives us here:

You must get rid of such things – anger, vengeance, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another …

There are a few others too but actually not many and they are all things that are blatantly wrong. And they are all things that obviously have painful consequences in our lives – right? Why is it we kid ourselves and say, “Well, you know, being a Christian is hard – all these things I’m not allowed to do and I’m not allowed to have any fun?” That’s not what it says! The only things about which God says, “Don’t do them”, are the ones that are going to hurt us and hurt others. And – listen to this – if you and I persist in doing them, then eventually – even though God is slow to anger; even though He is merciful; even though He is a God of grace – eventually His wrath is going to fall on us. It’s a simple message and it’s a message I feel God wants us to hear today.

Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 19:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

These are blindingly, glimpsingly obvious! Hello!! Do you get it? Keep doing these things in stiff necked opposition to what I am telling you and you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It’s that simple! And this alternative to the harvest of righteousness; this not inheriting the Kingdom of God is a frightening prospect because the alternative is living the rest of eternity in the wrath of God – God’s anger and God’s punishment.

Listen to the contrast … the sharp, stark contrast between the eternities reserved for those who worship – in effect – the devil, or the beast, as he is called in this passage I am about to read to you, through their rebellion against God, verses those who worship God, through His Son, Jesus Christ. It’s written in kind of picture language, so let God’s Word paint for you the picture. Revelation chapter 14, verses 9 to 13:

Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labours, for their deeds will follow them.”

John Lennon in his famous song “Imagine” sang these words:

Imagine there’s no Heaven, It’s easy if you try,
No hell below us, above us only sky,
Imagine all the people, living for today …

Well, there are many people imagining that. There are many people living just for today. But one day … one day they will be greatly disappointed – Jesus made that abundantly clear: Matthew chapter 10, verse 28:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Friend, God is a wonderful God, He has a fantastic plan for your life. It’s a plan for us to live in His blessing from this point on and for all eternity. That’s why He sent Jesus, His Son, to pay for our sin so that when we put our trust in Him, we can be forgiven and have this new life; this eternal life.

But listen to me; please listen carefully: if we reject Jesus; if we reject God; if we reject the One whom He sent to suffer for you and me, that our sin would be paid for in full – if we reject Him, there is an alternative. That alternative is an eternal separation from God; it is an eternal torment. It goes on for ever and ever.

I can’t state it anymore plainly than that. I implore you, don’t reject Jesus. God sent Him in His great love to save you and to save me.

God’s Word talks about the harvest of righteousness – and if you’ve ever lived in a farming community you’ll know that harvest time is a time of huge celebration. So this harvest of righteousness – it’s not just empty words, it’s a big deal.

The Fruit of Righteousness

One of the things that we do in this world – particularly, let me say, in the West – is that we get hooked on junk food. Pretty much, most people need three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some don’t get that of course, and others skip meals because they’re too busy to eat. And in between meals we like to have little snacks and often the snacks we consume can be our undoing.

Instead of healthy snack of a banana or an apple or an orange, we go for the chocolate bar or the doughnut or the packet of chips or something equally unhealthy. Of course, one of those every now and then, no problem but if those are the things that we snack on most of the time, they are going to make us sick and tired, literally.

I’ve done that a few times in my life and each time I have eventually come to my senses and replaced those unhealthy snacks with healthy ones, well, at first it seemed like a real burden to give up the junk food snacks, but within a day or two, here’s what happens:

1. What I found is that I rediscover how wonderful fruit tastes: a sweet mandarin, a juicy orange, a crisp apple, a ripe banana. They are fantastic. What a surprise!

2. Within just a few days, I am feeling much healthier: more energy, more alert, a spring in my step. The fruit, as it turns out, is good for us in so many different ways.

Last week on the programme we were chatting about reaping the harvest of righteousness and we saw that God’s righteousness is two things: it’s both bad news and good news. Bad news because He is righteousness and we are not and eventually that brings His wrath crashing down on our heads and good news because He knows that, which is why He sent us Jesus Christ His Son to save us.

Now we are going to talk about the bad news and the good news a bit more next week on the programme but right now we are going to look at the fruit, good, healthy, life-giving fruit. As I mentioned just earlier, making the transition from bad eating habits to good eating habits, at the time always seems … well, it feels like we are making a sacrifice, giving up the sweet chocolate bars and the fatty chips. It’s never fun making that choice and starting on the journey towards healthy eating. But not only is the fruit really, really nice, it yields fruit in our life. We feel better; we have more energy, right?

We know that and it’s the same with sin and righteousness. When we are addicted to some sin – we all have one or two sins that we are predisposed to – it seems like such a sacrifice giving them up, it really does, even though they are not good for us; even though they are hurting us. And often times God helps us by sending us through a rough patch; by disappointing us, so that we can learn for ourselves the impact that our sin is having so that we can feel the pain and have the opportunity to let go of the sin and turn back to Him.

Have a listen to what the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament has to say about this. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 5. If you have a Bible come there with me. He writes:

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children— ‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and he chastises every child whom he accepts.’ Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?

If you do not have that discipline, in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, when we had human parents to discipline us, we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness.

Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.”

You know what he is saying? No pain, no gain, right? And in a sense, that’s what is going on here. So often, we’re travelling through tough times and we don’t take the time to read the signs. We squeal in pain, “Oh God, why is this happening to me?” and we don’t stop to hear His answer. Often times the reason it’s happening because God is at work in our lives and leaving the sin behind is hard, our flesh is addicted to it. It’s like a heroin addict leaving the drug behind. It’s hard, it hurts. And God lets it happen to us because He loves us; because He knows that the peaceful fruit of righteousness is so worth the effort and the pain.

Can we just talk about that fruit for a moment? Can we talk about the harvest; the gain that comes out of the pain? Because it’s like the real fruit that I was talking about before – it is fantastic. When we are wallowing around in our sin, well, you know, that affects our lives. Someone who is living constantly in sin of anger is going to have a rotten life, right? Someone who is labouring under the yoke of unforgiveness is going to have a rotten life. Someone who hasn’t learned to sacrifice and to love is having unhealthy, tragic relationships. The list of cause and effect goes on!

And most times we don’t even notice them. We don’t stop to think about the sin – the cause – and the effect that it’s having on our lives. I use this word “sin” deliberately, as much as it jars with many people because it’s what God calls our rebellion. It means literally to “miss the mark; to miss the whole point; to miss out on our share”. And that’s what we are doing when we are rebelling against God. We are missing out on the goodness, just like when we are stuffing our faces full of unhealthy food, we are missing out on energy and well-being that should be going on in our lives.

But when we allow God’s discipline – through the difficult and often painful circumstances we are travelling through – be the tool that helps us let go of the sin; the tool that shows us the pain and helps us to the heart decision of letting go and turning back to Him, then here’s what’s going to happen: just like giving up junk food snacks, it’s not going to be a pleasant start. It always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time but the peaceful fruit of righteousness, well, it’s kind of like that sense of well-being and vibrancy and energy that we get when we ditch the junk food in favour of the good stuff – the fruit.

I just want to encourage you that sometimes the tough patches are God’s polishing cloth in our lives. And the sin He’s putting His finger on right now is actually ruining our lives. It’s robbing you and me of the peaceful fruit of righteousness that He wants us to live in day by day. So we can struggle and squirm and fight God. The problem is, the longer we do that, the longer He will keep us in that uncomfortable place. Or we can go to Him, ask Him to show us what He is doing and let go of that sin quickly. Yes, even though it never seems pleasant at the time, more likely painful and the sooner we get with His plan; the sooner we will be living in the peaceful fruit of righteousness. What do you think?

The Harvest of Righteousness

I remember when I was in my last year of High School – quite a few years ago now – I travelled to a country town to teach the clarinet at a music camp during the school holidays. And I had the opportunity to stay for a week on a farm. Now, this was a large property and they farmed many thousands of sheep – thousands of them. It was quite an experience for a young guy because I’m a city boy.

I had spent all my time growing up in an industrial city so I had never really thought too much about, well, where things come from – milk, after all, came in bottles, eggs come in cartons, meat comes from the butchers and so on. You don’t really think too much about it when you live in the city, so spending this week on the sheep farm was the most amazing experience.

We had the opportunity to help dip the sheep, so you had to pick them up and throw them down the shoot so they ended up in a trough full of sheep dip – it was back breaking work. And for a lad who had never really thought too much about where lamb chops came from, other than from the butchers, it was a real eye opener.

Farming is hard work. Ever since then I have had the greatest respect for farmers. And not only is it hard work but pretty much they only get their income once or twice a year. And that happens when they take what they have grown – whether that be a crop like wheat or sheep or cattle for slaughter or wool for clothing – when they take what they have grown to market. It happens at harvest time.

But of course there are many things that can interrupt the harvest: drought, flood, fire, a plague of locusts, diseases in animals. And even when there is a bumper crop, often as a result of the abundance, the prices the farmer gets at market are going to plummet. So it’s a tough life and that week on the sheep farm has given me a deep, abiding respect for farmers and their families.

But there is something else, another lasting legacy that this week on the farm, as a young lad, has left with me and that’s an appreciation of the tough reality of farming on one hand and the sense of jubilation of a successful harvest on the other. See we city slickers hear this word “harvest” and it really doesn’t mean too much to us. It kind of washes by. But harvest time is the culmination of the farmer’s work. It’s the time of reaping the reward. A successful harvest brings great joy and a sense of accomplishment and relief and safety and provision, not just for the farming families, but in fact, for the whole community.

That’s what “harvest” means, so when the Bible talks about “harvest” that’s the sense of what’s going on. And remember back then in the first century, there was no welfare or Government assistance or anything like that. If the harvest failed, people starved and it’s still like that in many parts of the world today. Suffice to say, what I am trying to get to here, is the fact that the ‘harvest’ is a big deal – it’s a huge deal. If you live in a rural community, you already know that but it’s not something that’s necessarily that obvious to us city slickers.

So when the Apostle Paul writes to his dear friends in Philippi about this harvest of righteousness, he is saying something big. Philippians chapter 1, beginning at verse 9:

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and the praise of God.

Interesting that he begins his point about this harvest of righteousness with a four letter word “love”! His prayer for his dear friends in Philippi is that their love would overflow more and more because it’s in this flood-tide of God’s love, which works its way out in our love for one another, that we gain the knowledge and develop the insight to know what God’s best is for us. And living out His best isn’t always the easiest thing to do, as we have seen over the course of these last few weeks.

Living out God’s best requires sacrifice and it hurts a lot of times but when our heart is soaked in God’s love; when lives are about overflowing more and more with the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, then in that place, with that humility, with that surrender and sacrifice, we gain the knowledge of God and the insights of God which transform us into His image which help us to live out the righteousness we already have; the right standing we have with Him because of our faith in Jesus who died to pay for our sin and rose again to give us a brand new life; an abundant life; an eternal life.

And friends, that is the thing: the love of God at work in us, that produces what? It produces the harvest – big word that – the harvest of righteousness, which comes to us through Jesus and brings glory and praise and honour to God.

When Jesus was asked, “What’s the most important commandment of all?” He answered Luke chapter 10, verse 27:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.

Love is the most important thing of all. As Paul wrote some years on, in Romans chapter 13, verse 10:

Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

We have kind of been conditioned to believe that love is all about romance and feeling good and … well, sure, those are a couple of aspects of love but that’s not the sort of love that both of these passages talk about. The original Greek word for “love” here is “agape”, which means “unconditional love” – faithful love that never ends and never fails – the sort of love that costs us a lot and often appears to deliver very little at the time.

It’s that sort of love and it doesn’t matter how talented or gifted we are, if we don’t have this sort of love, then in God’s eyes we are nothing but a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. Gifts and abilities and talents without this sacrificial faithful love, are completely worthless. That’s what it says in First Corinthians chapter 13.

Now I know in my own life there have been times that have been so trying and testing, when people have been difficult and unhelpful and hurtful – those times and those places never feel good and yet it is in those times and places that the Word of God has done its greatest work in me. I thank God that early on in my walk with Him, He established in me a pattern of regular Bible reading because it’s in those difficult periods that God’s Word has done His greatest and mightiest works in me.

And it’s still like that today. Friends, in the most difficult times of our lives we can experience this harvest of righteousness, or as it is written elsewhere in the Book of Hebrews, “the peaceful fruit of righteousness”, because as we persist in doing good; in honouring God; in living out the relationship and right standing – that righteousness, purchased for us by Jesus as He took the punishment of our sin on Himself on that cross – as we live that out we discover God Himself.

Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 8.

And that, my friend, is exactly what happens. God draws us ever nearer to Him through the righteousness that He imparted to us through Jesus and the righteousness that He now brings to life in our new lives in Christ. The righteousness that we live out, little by little, He restores us back into His image through the trials of life. That’s the harvest – God Himself, and like every harvest, it’s a big deal. I mean really!

Where Do You Get It?

I hope that as we have been chatting today, it’s starting to sink in that it’s all about the harvest; it’s all about the fruit. God didn’t just send Jesus to save us from an eternity separated from Him, He also sent His Son to buy us a new life, here and now. Now I know so many people who believe in Jesus but aren’t growing into that new life.

I was speaking with someone recently who had been involved in a large survey across a major denomination of God’s church and one of the questions that people had been asked was whether, given their involvement in this church, they felt that they were growing spiritually. You know what? Only thirty percent answered “yes” – the rest, seventy percent, answered “no”.

So here I am, rabbiting on about a new life, the fruit of righteousness, the harvest of righteousness but you have to ask yourself, if that’s what God’s Word says; if that’s what God promises, where do you get it? How do you and I reap the harvest and become part of the thirty percent, rather that the seventy percent who don’t?

My favourite Psalm, well, it’s hard to have just one favourite Psalm, isn’t it? But my FAVOURITE Psalm is Psalm number 1. Have a listen with me because it’s about growing fruit, Psalm 1, verse 1. If you have a Bible, come there with me:

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams, which yield their fruit in season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

I love this because it’s a piece of wisdom on how to bear fruit. It’s a piece of wisdom on how to succeed – not in the world’s sense, but in God’s sense. It’s a piece of wisdom to stop us from withering under the heat and pressures of life. What’s the Psalmist saying? Let’s get a grip! Keep living out your old life; this life of sin and it ain’t going to work out so well.

In the second part of the Psalm which we haven’t read so far, it says exactly that. But you want to be happy and blessed? Then don’t do that old stuff. Don’t go and “follow the advice of the wicked or take the path that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers” – don’t do that! Instead, delight yourself in the Word of God. Meditate on what God has to say, day and night.

And when you do that, you know what it’s like? It’s like a tree being planted right next to a waterway. In fact, the word that used there for “streams of water” literally means “an irrigation channel” – a stream of water that’s deliberately been put there to help the tree to grow good fruit. It’s like planting yourself next to one of those.

Meditate on what God has to say, day and night and you are going to flourish – you are going to bear fruit; you are not going to wither and die when it gets too hot out there. The Word of God is like clean, living, fresh water – drink that in. Be planted right next to that and you won’t be able to help it. You are just going to bear fruit in season.

The Apostle Paul reiterates that in his letter to the Colossians in the New Testament. Colossians chapter 1, beginning at verse 9. He says this:

For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God.

Do you see that? Fruit is linked to knowledge: knowing God, knowing His truth, knowing Him deeply. And it only comes through the Word of God, drinking it in; letting the fresh, living water of His Spirit and His Word fill us, so that we grow – not like the majority of Christians who aren’t growing – that we grow and bear fruit for God’s glory. It only happens when we grow in our knowledge of God.

It does not happen when we wander out there in the wilderness; when we are happy to follow the advice of the wicked or take the path the sinner treads or sit in the seat of scoffers. Do you see what an anathema that is to God? Do you see how opposite that is to the knowledge of God?

Whenever the Bible talks about knowing God, be it in the Old Testament or the New Testament, whenever it talks about that, it doesn’t talk about head knowledge, it talks about knowing God; the fruit is linked to knowing God. The fruit comes from putting our roots deep down in that living water – the Spirit of God and the Word of God – and drinking that in.

That’s what happens when we grow in our knowledge of God – we bear fruit. Not academic knowledge, not head knowledge, not dry knowledge, not the sort of knowledge that helps you pass an exam – it’s a relational knowledge; a deep intimate life knowledge of God that causes us to bear fruit, friend and that’s where we get it. Not by working harder, not by trying to fulfil a whole bunch of rules, not by anything else, except developing a dynamic relationship with Jesus and we do that through His Spirit and His Word.

That’s where we get the fruit. That’s where we get the harvest of righteousness. And that’s why some people are growing spiritually and bearing fruit and others aren’t because some have a deep relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit and His Word and others don’t. It’s pretty simple really. It’s not rocket science.

And the choice there … the choice is for each one of us. Friend, so many Christians go to church; they listen to the sermon, they come home and they never think about it, they never open their Bible and they wonder why their lives aren’t bearing fruit.

Friend, the choice is for each one of us. It’s up to me in my life and let me be really clear; it’s up to you in your life.

You know for years before I met Jesus, I’d hear Christians rabbiting on about the Good news of Jesus. Give me a break. But it wasn’t until I heard the bad news that I realised how fantastic the Good News really was!

The Bad News

Now depending on whether you enjoy your job or not, Monday is either good news or bad news. And the statistics tells us that around two thirds of people don’t enjoy their jobs. That’s a tragedy! So for them, for these two thirds – there is every chance that you are one of them – this work thing is a bunch of bad news.

Now you and I, we would rather have good news than bad news. I would and I’m sure you would too. And so when it comes to thinking about God, well, that has to be good news, doesn’t it? I mean, that’s what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. That word “Gospel” literally means, not “truth” as many people think it does, although it is the truth. No, word “Gospel” means “Good News and glad tidings”. That’s why the angel who spoke to the shepherds on the night of Jesus birth said to them:

Don’t be afraid; for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people: to you is born this day in the city of David, a saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Ahaa! There it was! Good News! Hallelujah! But sad to say, before we talk about the good news, which we are going to do later in the programme, first … first we have to talk about the bad news.

How many times have we heard that line, “There’s good news and there’s bad news, which one do you want to hear first – right?” And inevitably, there are two sides to each coin. And if all I ever talked about on this programme was the good news side of God, then yours truly simply would not be doing his job. But as much as sometimes I would rather ignore it, there is a side to God which, quite frankly, is bad news for the likes of thee and me. At least, as first glance that’s how it seems and yet, the reality is that without the bad news, the good news wouldn’t seem that good at all.

It’s when we understand the bad news about God that the good news becomes, well, absolutely fantastic news. That’s why today we are kicking off with the bad news. So what’s Berni rabbiting on about – good news, bad news?

Well, we are in the middle of a series called “Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness”. It’s about the righteousness of God and it’s about the blessing that flows in our lives when you and I live out God’s righteousness. And we kind of touched on this a little bit, fleetingly, last week. But we are going to pick up on it and really understand it because understanding the bad news about the righteousness of God is absolutely critical in a) making a decision whether we want to accept Jesus as our Saviour or not and, b) living out His righteousness and experiencing the blessing of that.

So what’s the bad news? Well, the bad news is that God is righteous. What’s this righteousness all about? Well, God is completely, absolutely and utterly free from the scourge of humanity which is sin. There is nothing “wrong” in God. There is nothing impure or unholy or deficient or horrible about God. He is one thousand percent; one million percent righteous, from beginning to end; from eternity to eternity. And the only reason that this is bad news is that you and I aren’t!

You know that about you and I know that about me – we are nothing like that. We are often selfish and proud and angry and rude. The list goes on. And whilst perhaps, you have been walking with God for a while now and perhaps a lot has changed in your life, some of that muck is still around, right? It’s like that classic little prayer that goes something like this:

Dear Lord,
So far today, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over indulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But in just a few minutes, God, I’m going to be getting out of bed. And from then on, I’m probably going to need a lot more help.

So, as the Apostle Paul writes:

We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans chapter 3, verse 23.

And the consequences of this sin – this is Romans chapter 6, verse 23:

The wages of sin is death.

Now, that seems a little harsh, until we get back to the bad news – God is righteous and we aren’t. There is nothing in God that is wrong and so His standard, quite simply, is perfection. Now as I was coming to grips with that, early on in my walk with Jesus, the question that I had to resolve in my mind was: well, isn’t this just a tad unreasonable?

I mean, when I was a child, I made mistakes; I wronged my parents. In fact, I did that over and over and over again, but they didn’t take me out the back and shoot me. They might have felt like it and sometimes I was punished but they didn’t kick me out of the house or do anything drastic like that. They suffered through my immaturities as parents are meant to do for their children so that the kids can grow up and mature and become responsible adults. That’s what parents do so, if God is God the Father, what’s with this “the wages of sin is death” thing? I mean, isn’t it unreasonable?

The original Greek word used in the New Testament for this word “righteousness” had its roots in the concept and the notion of “justice”. God is a just God; there are no favourites; there is no partiality. And pretty much none of us would want to argue with that. That’s as it should be because injustice is wrong. Often times when a criminal is handed a light sentence by the courts for something that we consider should have attracted a much harsher penalty, well, you and I are incensed. Why, because we are mean? No! It’s because one of the things that God has handed on to us is His sense of justice. It’s part of our DNA. And so God is a just God. It would be something of a disaster if He wasn’t – right?

And that’s the bad news: break the law, get caught. You have to pay the penalty. And in the case of God, because He is pure and He is just and holy and completely righteous, that standard is way, way beyond anything that any human being can attain.

I haven’t lived a perfect life and nor have you. The only One who has is Jesus, God’s own Son. And so the bad news is that you and I fall short of the glory of God and there is an eternal penalty for our rebellion. There is a price to be paid. Hebrews chapter 10:

For if we wilfully persist in sin, having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgement and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So there it is: that’s the bad news and it’s very, very bad news. Eternity is, after all, a very long time. “The wages of sin is death” – Romans chapter 6, verse 23 – but that’s only half the verse and it’s only half of the story. The second half of the verse goes like this:

But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

And that is the good news that we are going to be talking about soon.

Friend, we don’t want to think too much about the fact that sin has a penalty but if we stop and think about it now, we know that our sin has penalties and consequences in our lives today. I know that if I am angry all the time, it is going to ruin my relationships and rob me of peace and joy – it will rob me of a great life. I know that! And as much as our sin has its out-workings and consequences, here in this life – short term, medium term – it also has consequences long term. It definitely has consequences on that day that you and I stand before God and have to give an account of our lives.

In a parable that Jesus told, this is what happened to a man who approached God in an unworthy state – Matthew chapter 22, verse 13:

The king said to his attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

And it’s the terror of this bad news that makes the good news so fantastically good.

For the wages of sin are death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Good News

Let me ask you a question: how are you doing this fine day? The one thing I know, with frankly millions of people listening to this same message this week, in one hundred and sixty countries around the globe, is that there is going to be a myriad of answers and responses to that question – how are you doing this fine day?

Some people are on top of the world, others are in the absolute depths of despair. And between those two extremes there is every shade of grey, right? And wherever we are, some good news would sure go down well: some good news to shine some light into a dark place; some good news to just brighten a mundane day; and even when we are in the middle of a fantastic patch in life, some good news to put it all into perspective. Well, right now we are going to take a look at the good news.

As we spend this time together, we are not just going share in some good news, we are going to roll in it; we are going to revel in it; we are going to delight in it because the good news that I am talking about isn’t some cliché; it’s not some transient spin. This good news is meant to make a difference in our lives, a real difference, in fact a world of difference, an eternal difference.

As I said earlier, when it comes to God, there’s good news and there’s bad news. We are in the middle of a series right now of messages that I have called “Reaping the Harvest of Righteousness”, because when we live out the goodness and the holiness and the wonderfulness; the righteousness of God, there’s a huge harvest of blessing in that. Not only the sort of blessing always that the world tells us we should have, you know – healthy, wealthy and wise, but a depth of reward, a joy, a peace as we live out the righteousness of God in our own lives.

Bad news though, is that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and the wages of sin is death. The bad news is that God is righteous, you and I aren’t and no matter how hard we work; how hard we labour at it, we will still always fall short of the glory and the righteousness and the wonderful perfection of God. And whilst at first, it might seem a tad unreasonable – death because we’re not as good as God (seems harsh doesn’t it?) – it’s that bad news that makes the good news so absolutely, incredibly, wonderfully fantastic.

The Apostle Paul has this fantastic knack for hitting the nail on the head; for boiling big things down; huge things – seemingly complex things – down into a sentence or two that people like me and perhaps people like you, can actually get our hearts and our minds around. Have another listen. We looked at it earlier. Romans chapter 6, verse 23:

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There they are – the two sides of the coin – the bad news and the good news. And remember when we talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that word Gospel means “good news”. We are talking about the Good News of Jesus. If I were writing a Bible Dictionary, trying to define that Greek word that’s used in the New Testament for “Gospel”, I’d redefine it to mean not just good news but absolutely, mind-blowingly fantastic news!

Now if you are a Christian and you have sat in a pew for a good many years, each Sunday, maybe this Good News has, well, it’s lost its lustre a little bit. You hear something often enough, over and over and over again and well, it becomes mundane; passé; just the way things are. Have to tell you it’s happened to me too from time to time. But here’s the thing: I wonder how many people really, I mean REALLY understand the enormity of this fantastic news about Jesus? What is going on here, when God does this amazing thing in the face of such terrible news?

For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The bad news part of that equation of grace is shockingly terrible news. And if you are someone who has never put their trust in Jesus; if you are someone who has never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Saviour, wrap your mind around this because it’s meant to be shocking. Luke chapter 16, verses 19 to 26:

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man, Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

In Hades, there he was, being tormented; he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in cool water to cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner received evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us is a great chasm that has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to there cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”

Go ahead, be shocked, come to grips with it! Jesus isn’t mincing His words here. He knows about hell and He is painting a vivid picture of the eternal torment of hell. But it’s this picture that makes the Good News so great, because when we believe in this Jesus we become as righteous as God and the horrible penalty is lifted off us.

See, this is the bit I didn’t understand at first. It took me a while to get it. Christians talked about the fact that Jesus’ death on the cross bought me a ticket to heaven if I believed, but no one ever explained to me why that was. I needed to know why.

For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I get the first bit. It’s just; it’s the law – I understand that, but the second bit … Why? Well, let me explain it a little bit further, using some other stuff that Paul wrote, from Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21:

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin”. In other words, he is talking about Jesus. “For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

If we think of God as a God of justice, then the penalty for our sin has to be paid. Someone has to pay. And out of His love and His mercy, God came up with this crazy plan that He Himself, Jesus His Son, should pay. So He became a man. He was nailed to a cross. He took the sins of all the world – you and me and everyone else – on His shoulders, on that cross. He in effect, became sin: He, who knew no sin, was made to be sin, why? So that you and I might become the righteousness of God – stand before God completely free from sin because the legal price for our sin has been paid – NOT BY US but by the death of the Son of God on the cross.

And how do we lay hold of this incredible blessing – of that freedom of forgiveness and eternal life – how do we get it? How do we become as righteous as God Himself? Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

So, how do we get it? By working hard? No! Not at all! God’s grace in Jesus is activated towards us through faith. We obtain the righteousness of God; in fact, we become the righteousness of God, not by working hard, but by believing in Jesus. It’s that simple. And that is why this isn’t just good news, not even just great news, it’s mind-blowingly fantastic news because all … ALL is forgiven! The anger and the wrath and the punishment of God on us, is removed and we now have a new life to live – a life that goes on from now and for all eternity – simply by trusting in what Jesus did for you and for me on that cross. It is that simple!

What Do We Make of it All?

So, what do you make of all that – the bad news, the good news? I’m trying to imagine standing in front of a judge; a magistrate, having done something wrong. In fact, I remember when I was nineteen years old, driving my car into the back of someone else’s car and being charged by the police. I ended up in front of a judge and it was an incredibly daunting thing. He heard the charge, he found me guilty, and what I heard him say was, “Three days in prison.”

I was utterly, well, I had the stuffing completely knocked out of me – I was in shock. The judge’s gavel hit the bench and the Clerk of the Court ushered me out of the stand and out of the court room. And I said to this man, “Did he just say three days in prison?” I was in shock! And the Clerk of the Court turned to me and said, “No, that’s only if you don’t pay the sixty five dollar fine – the sentence for sixty five dollars, or in lieu of that, three days in prison.”

I can’t tell you the relief that flooded through my whole body when I heard that. I thought I was going to jail over something as minor as a traffic infringement, when all I had to do was pay the small fine instead.

That, in a very small way, is what this Good News means to me. The sentence that was hovering over my life; the punishment for all of my life was lifted the moment I believed in Jesus; the sentence of eternal death; an eternity in a ferocious hell separated from God, was lifted because Jesus died on the cross and I’ve chosen to believe. Do you see?

The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And Romans chapter 5, verse 1, says this:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we now stand;And we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

Friend, that grace makes all the difference in our lives. Do you believe in Jesus? Then, if you do, you stand justified by that faith – you have been made right with God through your faith in what Jesus accomplished for you on that brutal cross – complete forgiveness, and through that empty tomb, a new life; a resurrection life; born anew into an eternal life.

Do you see how fantastic that news is? The problem for so many Christians is we have heard this so many times, it’s kind of become “ho, hum”, hasn’t it? And the problem for many who have never believed in Jesus is that, although consequences of their sin has been nagging away, it never really worked through the bad news, because once you do that – consider and understand this bad news – tell you what, you will want to lay hold of the Good News in Jesus Christ.

And friend, if that’s something that you want to do today, then why don’t you pray this prayer with me right now:

Father God, I have heard today and understood the terrible consequences of my sin; my rebellion and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I have done wrong and I turn away from that here and now. But I have also heard this Good News; the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ and I believe in Him and this day I give my life over to You. Thank You that I am forgiven. Thank You that I am safe. Thank You that You will place Your Spirit in me to change my life. And thank You that I have a new life; an eternal life. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Friend, if you have just prayed that prayer with me, then get to and do something about it. Your enemy, the devil, will come and sow seeds of doubt in your mind. Get a Bible, start reading it. Get with some other Christians in a vibrant, Bible believing faith community and grow into the new life that Jesus, the Son of God, purchased for you on that cross, through His death.

The Good News isn’t just good news, it is truly fantastic news. Now it’s time for each one of us to live it out, for now and for all eternity.

Jesus talked rather a lot about slavery on the one hand, and freedom on the other. If you’re a slave, freedom is a big deal. Now He was talking to you and me – still is. Because this whole freedom thing isn’t a theory lesson, He wants us to live it. Freedom!

Free At Last

Now, I want to share something with you today. Yours truly, I have to tell you, I am not stupid. I might be short and slightly dumpy; I may have more grey hair than that of the original colour; it may be that I can’t draw a picture for nuts; there are lots of things I can’t do; lots of things I’m not great at and lots of things I’m just not. But God has blessed me with a pretty nimble mind, so I’m not stupid.

Now the point of me telling you that is not to boast. The point is: even though I am a bit of a bright spark, I spent the first thirty six years of my life in slavery. And here’s the thing: I never realised it! That’s the point. We can be as smart as smart can be; we can be as clever as clever can be on the one hand, but completely miss the whole point of life, on the other.

Do you get it? I mean, I kind of realised that something wasn’t quite right. I kind of realised that I didn’t have the joy and contentment in life that I was so looking for in everything I tried. But I simply had no idea that the reason for that was because I was a slave … a slave to self; a slave to sin.

Now, this idea of slavery may seem a little harsh or extreme. It may seem that I am somewhat overstating the case when I say that I was a slave to sin. After all, slavery is a brutal thing. Let’s just stop and think for a moment what it means to be a slave. A slave is someone who has no rights. His or her master can abuse them; they have to do what their masters tell them to do; they have no freedoms; they can’t come and go as they please. And if we look at slavery down through the ages, slaves are the most oppressed of all people.

Somehow, innately, we know that men and women and children have been born to be free. It doesn’t mean we can do anything we like. Obviously, we need laws but good laws, not oppressive laws. So, human spirit is meant to be free, albeit in the right and proper constraints of the society.

So, when someone becomes a slave, it’s just wrong. Interesting that the Bible, which was written over a period of a couple of thousand years – the last Books being completed in the First Century AD. The Bible doesn’t take issue with slavery – neither does it endorse slavery. It just kind of accepts it as a fact of life. Now, I have some ideas as to why that might be but that’s for another time.

But God’s Word does link sin with the concept of slavery, over and over and over again, in the New Testament especially. Let’s have a listen to what Jesus said on this. John chapter 8, beginning a verse 28:

So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed.

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Now this is a really interesting exchange and I can really, really put myself in the shoes of the people who took umbrage with Jesus about this whole slavery thing. Jesus is explaining that in order for people to be saved and have a relationship with God, they had to believe in Him. That’s radical! All the other messiahs out there and there were lots of people claiming to be the promised Messiah around Jesus time. They all pointed at this or that or someone else. Jesus pointed at Himself. “Believe in me!” He was directly claiming to be God in the flesh – outrageously radical – which is one of the reasons the religious leaders had Him crucified.

But it says here in verse 30 that: “… many believed”. But then the bit that people took umbrage with:

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word you truly are my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

Now, when someone talks to you and me about freedom these days, the first thing we think about, probably, is not slavery, because most of us aren’t slaves. Although I have no doubt that of the millions of people listening to this message around the globe, right now, some in fact, are slaves. Most of us aren’t and so if someone comes and talks to us about freedom, slavery is not front of mind.

But it was back in the first century because there were lots of slaves. The words about being made free, intentionally pointed to freedom from slavery. People knew what He was talking about and that how it was taken. And this is where the Jews who believed in Him had a problem.

They answered Him, “We are descendants of Abraham, we have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?

And that’s where Jesus hits them between the eyes.

Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household. The son has a place there forever. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Friend, sin is slavery. Let me say that again: sin is slavery. It is a yoke of oppression. It robs us of freedom and of life. When we are wrapped up in our own selves and in our own selfish desires; when we are trying to get the world to bow down to us, rather than us loving and serving those around us, friend, we lose our lives. And Jesus came to set the captives free – that’s why righteousness is so important. Righteousness is the opposite of sin.

As we saw last week on the programme, righteousness is not just an attribute of God; it’s something that God gives to us as a free gift, when we believe in Jesus. We become the righteousness of God.

Now we are going to live life either in sin or in righteousness. We are! It’s one or the other and once we have a right standing with God (that’s what “righteousness” means); once we have become righteous because we believe in Jesus, we are meant to live that out. It’s like the criminal who has served his time in prison and he is released and he steps out of that gate and he either continues in his criminal ways – which many do, and they end up back behind bars which, frankly, has always struck me as sheer lunacy but it shows you how powerful sin is in people’s lives – OR following his release, he mends his ways; and he lives out his new life of freedom and gets the benefits of all that. He is not in prison anymore; he can live out his new life. The new man, set free.

Well, you and I have been set free if we believe in Jesus, through faith.

Question is: how are we going to live that out?

The Power of Change

Now, blind Freddy can see that being forgiven and having a right standing with God is only part of the equation – it’s only the beginning. It’s like a prisoner being set free at the end of his sentence. He steps out of the prison gate. It’s a huge step, but it’s only the first one of the rest of his life of freedom.

Freedom is something to be lived out and so it is for anyone who has taken the first step of believing in Jesus: believing what He did for us on that cross; believing that He rose from the dead to give us a new life; believing that He has placed His Holy Spirit inside us so that we can live that new life of freedom.

Jesus said this, listen very carefully. John chapter 8, verses 34 to 36:

Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

And the Apostle Paul, some decades on, restates it so that we won’t miss it. Galatians chapter 5, verse 1:

For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

In other words: the reason that we have been set free is in order to be free, to live out our new lives of freedom.

For freedom Christ has set us free.

God hasn’t set us free through this great and mighty act of love – the sacrifice of His Son – in order for us to submit again to the yoke of slavery which sin places on us. He set us free so that we can be free from sin, free indeed!

You and I both know – we chatted about this earlier – that a prisoner who has served his sentence, steps out of that prison gate a free man but he can return to his life of crime and many of them do and eventually he finds himself back behind bars. Or we can live out this new life as a free man, a free woman, without breaking the law; without turning against God for the rest of our days.

I have never been incarcerated but I’d have thought it would be a horrible thing. I’d have thought that one night, let alone a year or two or twenty would be more than enough to convince anyone not to reoffend. But many, many do and the majority of people in prison today are in fact, re-offenders. Incredible. Mad, you might say.

But think about it: it’s exactly what many a believer in Christ does. We believe – we take the first step of freedom – we believe in Jesus, but then we go on living just like before, only to discover that this new found freedom in Christ, isn’t what it was cracked up to be because we are submitting back to that cruel yoke of slavery which is sin. Now, in part, that is because sin is so deeply engrained in our flesh. And the Apostle Paul has this exact same problem. Romans chapter 7, beginning at verse 15:

I do not understand my own actions. Because I do not do what I want, I do the very thing that I hate. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, that is what I do. So I find this to be a law that whenever I want to do this good, evil lies close at hand. I delight in the law of God in my inmost being, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

That’s the problem we all face. “Man, this ‘sin’ thing is so strong in me. I’m so weak, how am I ever going to live it out, this righteousness of God? How am I ever going to reap the harvest, the blessing; the fruit of righteousness? I just can’t do it!” And therein lies the whole point: you and I can’t do … we can’t do it on our own; we simply can’t. I can’t and you can’t, we need the blessing of God; we need the power of God.

The question is: where do you get it? The question is: will He give me the power; will He give you the power? What would you say if I told you we already have the power? Have a listen to this promise from God’s Word. Second Peter chapter 1, verses 2 to 4:

May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in this world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.

Need something to be godly? I do! You do too, actually. Well, God has already given us that – past tense. It is a done deal! Don’t you like that? God has already given us everything needed for life. In other words, He has given us our lives back; real life, abundant life because we are now righteousness through faith in Jesus and we have a right standing with Him. But not just what’s needed for life but also for godliness.

He’s given us everything we need to escape from the corruption of this world and become – wait for it – participants of the divine nature; to be one with God; to know God so deeply; for the image of God to be so bright and so vibrant and so powerful in us. Get it? We already have everything we need

Just like Jesus prayed for us in John chapter 17, that we would become one with Him, the way Him and His Father are one. We have to work at that. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we change; the more we love Him and experience His love in return, the more our behaviour changes. And that’s why we stand firm; that’s why our lives are changed:

For this reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness and goodness with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with endurance and endurance with godliness and godliness with mutual affection and mutual affection with love. If these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter chapter 1:5-8)

Friend, God has already given you and me so much in Jesus. Wake up!! Stop grumbling. Stop living under this deception that we can’t beat sin in our lives. It’s already beaten on the cross! We already have a new life through the empty tomb. We already have the power of the Spirit – the very same one who raised Jesus from the dead. Read it. Ephesians chapter 1:

We have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing through Christ in heavenly places.

Believe that. It’s God’s promise. It’s the power to change. Just believe!

A Transformed Life

Well, we are almost at the end of another series and it’s amazing how quickly time flies. Now, over these last few weeks we have been talking about reaping a harvest … reaping the harvest of righteousness.

As I have said on a few occasions now, in this series, I used to think that righteousness was a bunch of rules I had to live by: do this and God will smile upon my life; do that, WHACK, He’ll punish me. That was my view of this word ‘righteousness’ which, let’s face it, is not used so much these days anymore.

But that’s not what God had in mind when He had the Apostle Paul write these words in his letter to the church at Philippi. Philippians chapter 1, beginning at verse 9:

And this is my prayer: that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ, you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

It’s not a matter of rules, it’s about love, see? And that’s what I had to get out of my system. And to tell you the truth, my hunch is, even after a decade and a half of walking with Jesus, even after almost a decade of teaching God’s Word on air as I am doing right now, my hunch is I am still getting this misconception of a ruled based God out of my system.

I know we all have to live by rules, the law for starters. Obviously, we all have to live by some rules. But by and large we don’t mind that; we get it, ninety nine times out of a hundred that in order to live in a society, there have to be some boundaries set that organise the place and make sure everyone is kind of looked after and kept safe.

But on the fringes of those rules – let’s be honest – there are some rough edges. This is the place where arguments happen: on the fringes; on the borders; in the disputed territories. I mean, disputes between neighbours, what are they about? The fence line; the noise – they are about things either on the boundary or things that cross over the boundary that one party thinks, “Well, that’s fine” and the other one thinks, “No, it’s not”.

It’s the same in the home or at work. Disputes happen when someone breaks some rules that we have in our heads, whether they are valid or not. The more we think about it, the more rules are a big deal in this world. The ones that are written down called laws, the ones that are unspoken but accepted and then the ones that you and I carry around as our own personal set of rules.

So it’s easy to imagine that God is this rule-bound God. After all that’s what the Old Testament is about – the whole Old Testament story of God, loving and engaging His chosen people, Israel, and their universal inability to keep His law; His rules given through Moses. The whole of the Old Testament screams out at you that this whole rule thing just doesn’t work. And there is a reason for that. Have a listen to what the Apostle Paul writes:

My friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another; to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law; dead to that which held us captive so that we are slaves, not on to the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

See, there it is. All that rules really do is point out where we are going wrong. There is no power in the law to change our hearts. We work at it and we work at it and we are still not pure and holy and perfect, the way God is. So the law holds us captive but Jesus died and rose again and those of us, who believe in Him, in effect, die and rise again. We die to sin, we die to the law and we are raised up into a new life. Born again! No longer under the burden of law, but a new life; a transformed life, living in love and forgiveness; living as one with God because He put His Holy Spirit in us – a new law in the Spirit, the law of life rather than of death.

How is this possible? Because all my sins, past, present and future, have been paid for by Jesus on the cross – yours too. So when you and I fail God, as we do almost every day, no longer are we condemned under the law. We go to God, we admit our mistakes, we turn away from them and we ask Him for His forgiveness through Jesus, and then we get on with life.

We died to that whole ruled-based thing and now there is a whole new life ahead of us – that’s the whole point. Not to mope around like nothing has changed; not to whinge and complain about things; not to live as though we are still condemned men and women, but to live a new, vibrant life. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17:

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away and, see, everything has become new.

Hello! Wake up! This is fantastic news and the thing that changes now is our hearts. Once we are not condemned anymore; once we are free; once we are enjoying Jesus and the presence of His Spirit, man, we want to do His will; we want to live out righteousness. God’s ways become a whole bunch easier, because instead of pulling against them, we are so delighted with this new life, we just want to live it out with Him for His glory and that’s why we want to do it His way.

That’s exactly what Paul writes in his New Testament letter to the church at Philippi. Philippians chapter 2, beginning at verse 12:

Therefore my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

We obey God which we should, not because we are rule-bound to do so; not because we are dragged into that place, kicking and screaming, but because He is at work in us, enabling us, not just to do what is right, but to want to do what is right. That’s huge! This is the Gospel of grace and of love and of mercy, all made possible by Jesus dying for you and me, so our sins could be forgiven and rising again from the dead that we may have a brand new life in the Spirit – the Holy Spirit – whom He sends to dwell in each one of us, each person who puts their faith in Jesus.

You know, you stand back and you think about what God has done, and you think, “That is just awesome.” I mean, if that isn’t good news, tell me what is!