Every now and then, you and I have a rush of blood to the head, and we decide to go it alone.  Yeah! But it generally doesn’t take us all that long to realise that going alone, is exhausting. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that so many people are so tired. 

Beginning of another week. Beginning of another week. This is no drill. Isn’t it amazing how time marches on? Nothing you can do about that. You can’t roll it back. You can’t do a fast-forward to skip the bits we don’t like. Every Monday morning it’s, well, it’s Monday morning. That’s it. Nothing, absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.

A close friend of mine, Graham, turned 70 the other day. He was a Colonel in the army when I was a Captain serving under him. And then we formed an IT consulting firm together with a third guy. And when we did that way back in 1988 Graham was a year younger than I am now.

And as I was writing his birthday card recently I stopped to think back on what incredibly hard work it had been starting off this consulting company. The 3 of us left the army, none of us had ever run a business or worked in the private sector and those first 5 to 7 years we had to carve something new out of a coalface.

We had to develop experience and develop a client base and develop a company from scratch. There were months when we couldn’t pay ourselves. There were times when we didn’t know whether we’d survive. They were a tough few years. And then, when it grew and became successful, it was even hard work maintaining that success. You’re only as good as your last job in the consulting game but there was one thing, one thing that made it all tolerable and that one thing was Graham.

Funny thing, I was a fresh-faced young Captain working for Graham, a Colonel in the army, but we somehow hit it off, just kind of clicked. So when he invited me into this new venture after we’d all left the army I jumped at it. Ultimately Graham, our other partner, he be the Major, Mark, and I were three equal shareholders in this consulting firm. We owned it.

But we made Graham the managing director or the CEO if you will. And there was a reason for that, he was the oldest, 20 years my senior and he was the smartest. Graham had and still has a wisdom that I value very highly.

When I read the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament a lot of it’s about wisdom. Passages like this one, Proverbs chapter 3 beginning at verse 13:

 Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding for her income is better than silver and her revenue better than gold.

See, when I read passages like that I think of Graham’s wisdom. He took a hold of me when I was in my late 20’s, smart as a button, lots of energy, lots of enthusiasm, but frankly a bit immature, a bit green. I had a lot to learn. And Graham took it upon himself to teach me for the next 17 years or so. He was my mentor and I, in effect, was his deputy, his under study.

It took me a while to realise that but without him doing what he did for me I wouldn’t be who I am today, it’s as simple as that. But here’s the thing, even though he was the oldest, even though he was the smartest, even though we made him the boss if you like, even though he was the Colonel and I’d been the Captain, even though he was a strong leader, he made those tough early years tolerable by being our servant.

He didn’t sit on high and push memos and edicts out the door, he put his nose to the grindstone and he pushed harder than just about anyone I’ve ever known.

Now why am I telling you this? Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at how tired, how exhausted we all get in life and what to do about it, how to enter God’s rest. And we’re continuing again with that same theme this week on the program.

And this week I want to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to enter into God’s rest. How, actually, to live a life where we’re not physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted ’cause that’s what a lot of people are, exhausted. What we need so often in life is help: help not just in doing what we have to do, as important as that is, but also help in improving things; help in dealing with things and coping with things and making things better and changing things for the better; help in learning how to improve, to behave differently, to react differently, because all those things make a difference, a huge difference to our lives.

When we get things right, irrespective of the pressures that we’re living under, we can have rest. If we don’t, if we’re angry all the time or touchy, if we take things personally all the time, then we’re going to be exhausted.

And when I started off in this fledgling IT consulting firm way back in 1988, the last thing I expected was to get a mentor like Graham to teach me those things in life. And he imparted his wisdom into my life through the things we experienced together; through the conflict situations in client organisation; through the financial pressures; dealing with staff; planning for the future. All those experiences he used, very carefully, to teach me his wisdom. What an incredible blessing! And one that I didn’t expect from the Colonel, the boss.

Now I guess that brings me to the point of today’s message. The same mentorship and guidance and help are something that God promises us over and over and over and over and over again in His Word. Some of the feminists get a bit upset when in Genesis chapter 2, verse 18, it says about Eve, the woman, that she was Adam’s helper.

Because we have this wacky hierarchical view of the world that puts the helper below the one being helped on the old totem pole, don’t we? What would you say if I told you that throughout the Old Testament when this word ‘helper’ is used by far the most common usage is in terms of God being our helper? Psalm 54, verse 4:

But surely God is my helper. The Lord is the upholder of my life.

Jesus was very specific about wanting to be our helper. Matthew chapter 11 beginning at verse 28:

Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens for I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you’ll find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

See, the picture of two oxen yoked together pulling a load. What the farmer did, he would always yoke a young inexperienced ox with an older, more mature one who knew the drill, who could teach the younger one.

Imagine God’s own Son, the creator of the universe, the King of kings, the Lord of lords saying to you, saying to me, in affect, ‘So things are tough hey? Well come and do it my way. Come on, let me teach you and show you how. I’ll put my shoulder into it. I’ll use all that I am and all that I have to lighten your load. It will be much easier that way and you will discover rest for your souls.’

We never ever expect God to be our helper. He’s way up there and we’re down here in the pecking order. But the reason I told you the story about Graham and how he impacted my life is that I think it’s the best way to explain what Jesus is talking about here.

Except that instead of having a fallible man doing the mentoring and the helping and the serving, Jesus is talking about God Himself doing that for us. So every trial, every tribulation, every tough spot, every tight corner, every pothole in the road, every situation that exhausts us is our opportunity to say, ‘Hang on, there’s a different way of handling this. I don’t have to be scared. I don’t have to be upset or angry. All those things are exhausting. There’s a bold practical promise from the Son of God that if I get myself yoked up alongside Him that it will be much easier. Even though I’m pulling this heavy load that God would be my helper, guiding me as to which direction I should go in, how fast I should walk. And then putting His shoulder to the wheel and pushing in the same direction as me.

Now that … that is rest.

One of the things that you and I tend to do, is that we appoint ourselves as judge, jury and executioner when it comes to other people’s behaviour. Hmm. The problem with that is that it’s hard work. It’s exhausting. 

I was watching a TV show the other day, it’s called Law and Order, an American show about the criminal justice system. And in each episode they have a crime and the police try to solve the crime and then the District Attorney prosecutes the alleged criminal in the courts system.

Anyhow this particular episode that I was watching the other day involved a capital crime and the criminal was handed a death sentence by the jury. Now, here in Australia we no longer have the death penalty. They do in parts of the US. Some countries have it, others don’t.

And even though I have some pretty strong views on the death penalty, I think, the last thing I want to do today is get into the rights and the wrongs of that issue. I guess what struck me as I watched this show however was the thought of being on that jury and having to decide whether to hand down a sentence to take someone’s life.

Now whatever your views are on the death penalty just stop with me for a moment and imagine that you’re sitting in a jury room deliberating on whether or not to hand down a death sentence to someone, sitting there talking with 11 other men and women about whether this person should live or whether they should die. I know that that’s something that, I just can’t even imagine, having to make that sort of a decision. How about you?

The decision to terminate a life or the decision to lock someone up for months or years or even a life term, they’re weighty decisions, aren’t they? And the reason that countries seek to develop a robust and independent system of justice with impartial judges and where appropriate impartial juries who carefully weigh the evidence that’s been presented according to some very strict rules for evidence.

The reason we do that is because punishing someone is no light thing. On the one hand, we don’t want someone who’s obviously guilty to walk free or to receive an inappropriate light sentence. But on the other we don’t want someone who’s innocent being punished or even someone who’s guilty to be given an unduly harsh sentence. So what do we do? Well, as best as we can and it’s never perfect, we create a justice system that carefully weighs the evidence and hands out appropriate sentences to those who are found guilty.

Now you may have heard me mention my friend Paul before. He’s a Magistrate in the children’s court. Imagine the decisions he has to make every day of the week. Should this child stay with the mother, the father or go into foster care? Should this young teenager go to jail? It’s a tough gig I would have thought, being a judge.

But you know something, day after day, when people rub us the wrong way, when we cross swords with someone, what we want to be to those people who annoy us or hurt us or whatever, we want to be the judge, the jury and the executioner. We want to pay them back to get our own brand of justice.

At work someone stabs us in the back, what’s our response? Well our natural inclination is to stab them right back. You’ve heard that saying, ‘Don’t get angry, get even’. That’s what it’s all about and that’s exactly why, when it comes to crime, we need independent judges and juries to carefully weigh the evidence rather than the victim or the victim’s family extracting vengeance.

Most of us can see that and yet when Jesus tells us to stop judging people we want to race straight past and ignore Him because we want for ourselves with those people who have hurt us in some way, we want justice. And pretty much the way we extract our perverse sense of justice out of a situation is through revenge.

It may just be a cold shoulder or a terse tone, it maybe something much worse. But revenge is revenge. The problem is if you live life like that man it’s exhausting. Have a listen to Jesus’ take on this whole ‘judging, justice, revenge’ thing that we carry on with in our lives. Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 to 5:

Don’t judge so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement that you make you will be judged and with the measure that you give that will be the measure you get back. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye but you don’t notice the log in your own eye? Or how long can you say to your neighbour, ‘let me take the speck out of your eye’ while there’s a log in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you’ll see clearly enough to take the speck out of your neighbours eye.

See the first part of that is particularly telling with me, with the judgement you make you will be judged. Now Jesus doesn’t tell us whether that’s by people or by God. I kind of assume it’s both. If we become all judgemental and self-righteous you know what other people do in response? They just start judging us right on back and sadly, because none of us is perfect, we end up copping the flack.

All this judging, all this being judged, man it is hard work. It is exhausting. And here’s what I figure, I can get on and enjoy my life or I can focus my energies on judging all the imperfections I find in the people around me. There’s plenty of those because no-one’s perfect. All that judging is hard work.

Let me take you back to the jury room for a moment, the weight of making a fair judgment. Imagine having to live your life in that jury room all the time, the weight of responsibility of getting it right. But of course when we judge other people in our way in our day-to-day lives we don’t care about getting it right, we just want our brand of justice. The ‘my way or the highway’ style of justice and that equals revenge; getting even; getting our own back. And that’s hard work.

It’s time to get a revelation today. Every person on this planet is imperfect. Every person that we come into contact with at some point is going to fall short of our expectations, they’re going to step on our sense of self, and they’re potentially going to hurt us.

That is simply a given. It’s never, ever, ever going to be any different in this lifetime. So we can either drive ourselves to exhaustion by judging every man, woman and child we come into contact with. Or we can get off our high horses and first deal with our blind spots.

Come on, let’s get real here. First deal with the log in our own eye so that we can see clearly to help the other guy with a speck in his. Because sure as God made little green apples I am not going to see the speck in your eye clearly when mine has a log of revenge in it is I? Or vice versa.

That my friend is what Jesus calls hypocrisy. And living life like that is plain exhausting. Judging people all the time is exhausting.

Over the last few weeks on the program we’ve looked at getting some of God’s rest, God’s peace into our lives. And there’s no rest in being judge, jury and executioner. There’s no rest in getting revenge. Winning ain’t where it’s at.

You know where I’ve discovered rest? Letting go of the judgement, just not judging people anymore. Getting over myself and my own warped sense of justice and accepting no one’s perfect. That’s the wisdom that Jesus was teaching his disciples back in the passage we just read and that’s the wisdom I believe He’s teaching us today. It’s no different a couple of thousand years on.

You and I, we can’t have peace, we can’t have rest living lives as self-appointed judges of the universe. We just can’t.

Whether we like it or not, people out there are going to hurt us. It’s just, unfortunately, one of those completely unavoidable realities of life. And as a result, so many, many people carry unforgiveness around in their hearts. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of it this way, but unforgiveness is downright exhausting.

One of the character flaws that I’ve had to overcome in my life, is anger.  Seems that I was born something of a perfectionist, and my favourite saying used to ne –it’s so hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys. But the thing about being constantly angry, is that actually, it drains the life out of you. It is seriously exhausting!

I want you to think back to the last time you told a lie; the last time you were dishonest. There’s every chance you remember it, because once you’ve been dishonest, you have to keep protecting that lie, lest you be caught out. And that, as things turn out, is hard work!

We live in a world where things are not always what they seem. In fact the more reliant we are on the media in shaping our understanding of reality, the more distorted things can become. Spin doctors, PR firms, vested interest, the glossy face of advertising. Reality, ain’t what it used to be?

Back in the good old days, before TV and the internet, people just didn’t consume as much information and entertainment as they do today. In fact there are still many parts of the world today where those media haven’t taken root and in those places reality is much more tangible.

But the moment we go to mass visual media in particular we enter a whole different world. It’s a world where reality and fantasy blur. It’s a world where you can make something that isn’t, seem as though it is. And the longer we immerse in that world the less concerned we become with the old-fashioned concepts like, well, the truth.

‘Truth? There is no such thing. There are just a whole bunch of different perspectives on the same thing.’ And in that environment the easiest thing in the world is to rationalise away dishonesty. The easiest thing in the world is to think to ourselves, ‘Well no, I’m not really lying. I’m in a world where everyone is clamouring for people’s attention. I’m just putting my best foot forward so that I’ll get noticed’. And that, that’s a slippery slope.

Now this program, A Different Perspective, it’s not just being listened to on your local station but right around the world. So it’s hard for me to make broad sweeping generalisations about things like politics. But in my country, which of course is Australia, I really feel sorry for politicians, I really do. It’s a tough gig.

Our system of governments based on the British Westminster System with an independent head of state, two houses of parliament – an upper and a lower house – and a government that’s formed by a majority in the lower house. The Prime Minister is the leader of that majority so it’s a parliamentary system rather than an executive system like say the US.

Anyhow what strikes me about the lives that politicians in Australia lead is that the media forces them into a corner. I’m not saying it’s the media’s fault; it’s just that the news is so instant. At the sniff of anything the media’s on to it. Tough interviews, questions sometimes designed to sell newspapers instead of necessarily being news worthy in and of themselves.

The politicians are trying to run a country but often politics and the media make the handling of complex delicate issues very difficult. Of course I love the transparency the media brings but it’s tough on the politicians. How do you balance the delicacy of dealing with an extremely complex issue with the demands of the media for quick, simple, cheap and popular 8-second grabs?

You’d be torn in this direction and that direction and staying honest would be incredibly hard work. I don’t know how they do it. Now reduce that down from the macro of politics to the micro of your life and mine in this fast-moving world, we kind of have the same problem.

I can’t tell you the number of times that people have sat before me in job interviews and told me all sorts of lies about themselves just to get the job. Selling themselves as something they aren’t in order to get the gig.

And every now and then I’ve made the wrong choice. I picked someone who on the surface and even with reference checks seemed to have the ability only to discover that they were simply never ever cut out to do that particular job. And then, then comes the pain both to the organisation and the individual of having to let them go.

And here, I guess, is the point of all my rambling. Dishonesty is hard work. When someone misrepresents themselves into a job that they can’t do, that’s exhausting. Have you ever been in a job that you weren’t cut out for? My, it’s hard work. Whereas when you’re doing the thing that you were always made to do, even though it’s hard work of course, there’s a natural ease to it.

I want to share with you a couple of words of wisdom from God’s Word about the burden of dishonesty. Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about entering into God’s rest. I guess because so many people are exhausted and tired and the whole dishonesty thing, keeping up appearances, is exhausting. That’s why we’re chatting about it today.

So, here are some words of wisdom from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. Firstly, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 8:

Better is a little with righteousness than large income with injustice.

And Proverbs 19, verse 1.

Better the poor walking with integrity than one perverse of speech who is a fool.

See the thing that drives dishonesty is the need to win; the need to have it all; the need to be on top; the need to be seen as something better than we are. to have more than the next guy. And because we want those things we present something on the outside that we really aren’t on the inside.

We put on a ‘face’; we try to deceive people into believing that we’re one thing when actually we’re something else entirely. In war one of the things you try to do is to deceive your enemy. But in life the whole deception thing is hard work.

I know a man who’s had a couple of extra marital affairs in his time and as I watched him live through that behaviour I saw how his dishonesty took its toll on his health. That’s why God’s wisdom is basically this. We’re better off having less but having it honestly than having more but gaining it dishonestly.

Dishonesty is exhausting and it doesn’t have to be grand theft or an extra marital affair. It can be as simple as trying to keep up appearances at being something or someone that we’re just not. It can be a simple as always trying to impress people when inside there’s a deep poverty.

Dishonesty comes in all different shapes and sizes and what I’ve discovered, because I used to be someone who was always keeping up appearances, when I gave that away man my life just became a whole bunch easier. I realised I didn’t have to impress anyone anymore. I could just be who I am, good at some things, lousy at others. That’s okay; we’re all good at some things and lousy at others.

But there’s an old computer term WYSIWYG which stands for ‘what you see is what you get’. And so, all of a sudden, when you’re a WYSIWYG person you’re not carrying around the burden of dishonesty anymore. You can lie straight in bed at night because you’re being honest with yourself.

Whatever its form dishonesty is exhausting and it keeps us from entering the rest and the peace of God. That’s what God’s Word says:

It’s better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil among the proud. (Proverbs 16:19)

There are some things that are more valuable than money and reputation. Just being yourself and enjoying who you are without any need to hide anything, isn’t that where it’s at? Come on, what sort of dishonesty might you be prone to sometimes? Is it really worth it or is it tiring you out?

Maybe, just maybe there are a few things we need to let go of so that we can enter into Gods rest, His peace, His rest instead of living under this exhausting, tiring yoke of dishonesty. You know, maybe you find that a little bit confronting. Maybe it’s a little bit in your face.

Can I just ask you to stop and think over the next day or so to ask these questions honestly of yourself because my friend, this is the message I believe God’s giving us today? He wants us to know His rest and His peace.