The whole idea of celebrating the beginning of a new year is that there’s a sense of … well … it’s out with the old and in with the new, and yet so many of us struggle to let go of the past. Well, I believe that God has something new for you this year: Not just one thing, but lots of things.

 

New Mercies

Have you ever been at a New Year’s eve party, and everybody’s celebrating and yahooing and carrying on, and then there’s the countdown: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year! And there’s lots of kissing and hugging and all that stuff, and yet the last thing you feel like doing is celebrating. What is there to celebrate? Last year was somewhere between a real shocker and nothing out of the ordinary. This year, well … It looks a bit … well, you know … and so you look around at all these other people smiling and laughing and slapping each other on the back, and inside you feel just a bit empty.

If that’s a bit how the beginning of this year feels for you, well, you wouldn’t be alone, seriously. So many people have nothing much to celebrate really, or so it seems, and for many, there’s a sense that the business of last year isn’t finished yet. A lot of that has to do with the regrets of the past; the hurts of the past; the losses or the abuse or the rejection of the past, and the biggest one of all, the failures of the past.

So many people feel as though they’ve failed at their job, at their marriage, at bringing up their kids, at loving God, and the problem with those failures is that it’s often somewhere between very difficult and absolutely impossible to set things right. I suspect each one of us, if we’re a bit honest with ourselves today, we have some regrets from last year that are still hanging over us, and often, those regrets have a lot to do with our failures.

So we set off into this New Year with a sense of failure, and the sense that we’re a failure. I am a failure, and if we’re not careful, that sense of failure, that sense of doom and gloom, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The next year turns out just the same as the last one. If you’re anywhere near to being in that space at the moment (come on, be honest with yourself), then I have some great, great news for you today. Our God is a God of new beginnings and His mercies are new today, tomorrow, the next day – indeed every day and every morning.

As the writer of the book of Lamentations looked around at the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, after the Babylonians came as an instrument of God’s judgment and raised it to the ground, taking the Israelites captive as slaves into exile, he was devastated, but then somewhere inside, the Holy Spirit moved him to say and to write these words. Lamentations 3:19-26:

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall. My soul continuously thinks of it and is bowed down within me, but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: For the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him, and it is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

That is such an incredibly poignant passage of Scripture. This man who is devastated not just for himself, but for his homeland, for his people, for the destruction of God’s temple even and the loss of His presence, this guy is stirred and moved deep inside somewhere to declare that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases! His mercies never come to an end, for they are new every morning.

Let me take that and personalise it for you. God’s steadfast love towards you never ceases. His mercies for you are fresh and new for you each and every morning. Now if you’re at all human, you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh, Berni, that’s all fine, but if you knew how badly I blew things last year, how badly I behaved, how badly I failed other people and God, you’d know how hard it is for me to accept that.”

We often think we’re the only person thinking like that, when in fact this sense of guilt that flows out of failure is one of the most common things that people experience. It’s a natural response-mechanism that God’s put in each one of us to get us to realise that our only answer, our only refuge, our only future, our only hope, is in Him.

Do you remember the story of Moses going up to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God? And God writes those commandments on two tablets of stone, but whilst Moses and God are up there doing business on the mountain, God’s people have cast an idol for themselves. Led by Moses’ brother Aaron the high priest, they melt down all their gold and cast a golden calf that they bow down and worship.

Moses comes down the mountain; he’s so angry, so incensed at these faithless people that he smashes the stone tablets with the commandments on them. You’d think (wouldn’t you) at this point, it’d be over. It probably would have been, had you or I been God, but you see, God’s mercies are new every morning, so Exodus 34 starts off this way (verses 1 and 2):

The LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on-top of the mountain”.

And so he did. He went up to the mountain again and God gave him the commandments again. Why? Well, God explains Himself a few verses later. Exodus 34:6:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”.

That’s who God is. God is mercy; God is love, and that mercy and that love are for you, here and now, at the beginning of this year. If only you’ll turn your regrets and your failures over to God, what a fresh start this New Year could be for you.

 

New Strength

Even the strongest among us find ourselves feeling tired and weak sometimes. It’s not that you’re a loser, and it’s certainly not that you’re the only person on the planet that feels that way, but the daily grind has a way of … well … grinding you down, doesn’t it? Add to that the stresses and strains that life brings, especially if last year wasn’t all you wanted it to be, especially if last year had some hurts or some failures or some losses that you weren’t anticipating and you’re struggling to get over them.

You see, it’s easy to start the new year off feeling drained; not ready to face the challenges that lie ahead. We’re kicking this year off with a series of messages that I’ve called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’ because God is a God of new beginnings, and one of the things that He wants to do for you is to renew your strength.

Now, renew is a word that I love. It’s an amazing word, two parts: Re and new. We all know what the new means. Something that’s new is brand-new: A new experience, a new mercy, a new love, a new hope, a new life … Newness is fresh! It’s exciting! It’s a new start! But that re part of renew is about doing something new again. Most of the time in the English language, when a word starts with the syllable re it means again: Repeat, review, re-enter, reactivate, reaffirm and on it goes, so humour me, and think about this word renew for just a moment.

It means to do that new thing again. It means to enter into newness a second time, a third time, a fourth time, a thousandth time, and that’s the sense with which I’m asking you to understand this amazing passage of Scripture. Isaiah 40:27-41:1:

Why do you say, o Jacob, and speak, o Israel, ‘|My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn’t faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and He strengthens even the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Listen to me in silence, o coastlands. Let the peoples renew their strength; let them approach, then let them speak.

What’s God saying here to His people Israel through the prophet Isaiah? Well, this message comes at a time when they’re weak and exhausted. Almost seventy years earlier, the Babylonians as an instrument of God’s judgment came and destroyed Jerusalem and took God’s chosen people into captivity as slaves. They’ve been living out that slavery for almost three generations, as long as most of them can remember – a lifetime and then some, and they’re tired. They’ve had it, and they’ve lost sight of their God, so He speaks to them through Isaiah to remind them.

If you’re tired today, and if you’ve had it, and if you’ve perhaps lost sight of your God, He is also speaking today through His Word to remind you. Don’t you get what He’s saying? ‘I’m the God who created the whole universe. I haven’t run out of steam. I’m not tired or exhausted. In fact I have so much power, such a deep inexhaustible store of strength, that I’m going to give power to the faint and strengthen the powerless’.

Now are you feeling faint and powerless? Well, by His Spirit and His Word, God is giving you today power and strength. That’s what He’s saying, and just in case you’re feeling inadequate or guilty for feeling the way you do at the moment, remember: Even youths will faint and be weary. Even the young and the fit will fall exhausted. That happens to all of us. The daily grind grinds us down, and it drains us of our strength, and there you have it: The reality of life on this earth, right? But, and here comes the turning-point in what God’s saying to us today, here comes the kicker: But those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength.

There it is: That amazing little word, renew. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not grow faint. Why? How can that be? Because when we go to God and wait expectantly for Him to act, for Him to renew our strength, that’s exactly what He’ll do. And that’s the meaning, the sense of the original Hebrew word used here for wait: It is to wait expectantly; not grumbling, not losing your faith, not flapping around in despair … It’s a picture of going to God in prayer, of putting your trust in Him, of waiting at His feet with the expectation for good, the way a child does with its father.

What God’s saying here to you and to me today is that if we’ll do that, He will renew our strength, but not in the way that you and I might, should we take a break or have a rest, because in our own strength, time and time again, we will run out, just as the strong youth does. Now as Jesus said, He doesn’t give the way the world gives. When you and I wait expectantly (with a sense of anticipation) on God, He will renew our strength with His strength: A strength that takes us to heights we never thought possible. They shall mount up with wings like eagles! A strength that never, ever, ever runs out. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not grow faint.

Time and time again, I run out of my own strength, and it’s in my nature to be a strong person. It used to frustrate me that I’d hit a wall; that I’d run out of steam; that me, this naturally strong guy, would be left feeling drained and listless and ineffectual. And when you feel that way, you end up heading down a spiral. It’s easy to enter into depression. Look, I’m no shrink. I’m no physician. I have no expertise in dealing with clinical depression, except I know that a couple of times, I’ve been there in my life, and I know that when I took this passage of Scripture to heart, I started to experience a strength that I just can’t put into words.

Seriously, God’s taking me higher than I ever imagined in my walk with Him, and that’s despite the many low points that I’ve experienced. And each morning, as I take time to speak with Him, to hear from Him, to open His Word, to wait on Him, I end up receiving a strength from Him that I can’t put into words. It’s a strength that comes from His peace; from His joy. After all, His Word says that the joy of the LORD is our strength. It’s a strength that comes from experiencing God’s presence; from waiting silently with your heart and your mind open, your whole being focused on Him, and can I tell you? It’s absolutely true.

Those who wait expectantly on the LORD, those who wait quietly expecting Him to act, believing He will act, will renew their strength. They will rise up as on eagles’ wings. They will run and not grow weary and walk and not faint, and this is something that God wants to give you today, tomorrow, the next day, and for evermore: The renewing of your strength. Entering back into a new experience of freshness and strength, again and again, so that you can live your life in victory: The victory that Jesus died and rose again to give you.

When the nation of Israel faced the daunting task of heading into the promised land, knowing that they would have to take it battle after battle, God said to them through Moses (in Deuteronomy 31:6):

Be strong and bold and have no fear or dread of them, because it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.

When the apostle Paul was lying in a Roman dungeon on death row, chained to a guard, he wrote this to his friends at Philippi (Philippians 4:13):

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

God’s strength is for you. It’s ready and waiting, and He means for you to renew your strength; to drink deep from His well, as you wait quietly and expectantly on Him.

 

New Creation

This week, we’re kicking off the new year with a series of messages that I’ve called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’. After all, as I mentioned earlier, that’s what celebrating the new year is all about. Right now, as we see people for the first time in this new year, we’re greeting them with, “Happy new year.” Aren’t we? That kind of runs out sometime in the second half of January, I guess, but right now, today, tomorrow, this week and next, you and I will welcome people, greet people with, ‘A Happy New Year’ quite a few more times. The sad truth however is that many of those people, by far the majority, aren’t in fact looking forward to a happy new year.

They’re carrying around heavy burdens: The regrets of the past, the worries of tomorrow. It’s not just other people. Each one of us to some extent has doubts, uncertainties, about whether we’re up to it. Whether we have what it takes to face this new year. A lot of it comes back to who we think we are, and how we see ourselves.

Years ago in my late twenties, I became involved in an IT consulting firm. I was one of the partners, the owners, but we had another guy (Graham is his name) – the managing director, the boss, by virtue of the fact that he was twenty years my senior and much smarter and much more mature than me. And when we would go in to a potential client/organisation to listen to their needs so we could bid for some new consulting work, he would always ask them a series of questions about their recent experiences with technology.

Any recent projects; recent implementations; recent experiences. “How did it go? How was the project perceived? Was it a success? Was it a failure? What did you learn from your experience?” Those are the sort of questions that he asked. When I asked him about it, why he was asking those questions, he answered with this incredibly illuminating idea. He said it’s because people’s recent experience shapes their perception and their outlook of the future, and do you know what? He was absolutely right!

In each consulting proposal, we would include our understanding of those recent experiences and the perceptions and therefore the client’s felt need, and as a result, time and time again, because of that one thing, because we demonstrated we understood where they were at and what their needs were, we would win the consulting work.

But let’s come back to that piece of insight: People’s recent experience shapes their perception and their outlook of the future. That is so relevant today, as we stand on the threshold of yet another new year, because the unpleasant experiences from last year and the year before and maybe the year before that, seem to accumulate in our hearts and minds, and what those experiences often seem to be telling us is that we failed. “I failed; therefore I’m a failure.” It makes us insecure. It makes us fearful. It makes us unable to lay hold of the amazing new things that God has planned for the year ahead.

People who have a low sense of their own worth can’t enjoy their lives. They can’t love other people. They can’t be loved by other people. They certainly can’t carry joy and peace, and hope around in their hearts.

So what if I told you that this is one of the main reasons that God sent Jesus, His Son, to this earth? To save you and me from slavery. Way back in the Old Testament, when the Israelites were indeed slaves in Egypt, God said this to Moses. Exodus 3:7-8:

I have observed the misery of My people, who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them.

And years later … years later … when Jesus commenced His public ministry, quoting the prophet Isaiah, this is what He had to say about the reason that He came to this earth. Luke 4:18-19, He said:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favour.

And the way He does that, the way He sets us free, the way He removes this distorted view that so many people have of themselves, is that He renews who they are. Jesus used the term born-again when He was talking to Nicodemus one night, and Nicodemus just didn’t get it, so later in the New Testament, the apostle Paul explains it this way. 2 Corinthians 5:17, he says:

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

You and I, we’re not defined by our failures – the abuses, the sins, the regrets, the hurts and the losses of our past because the moment we believe in Jesus, we become a new creation. In God’s eyes, I am no longer the old sinner Berni; rebel Berni; failure Berni or hurt Berni, because I believe in Jesus. I’m a new creation, completely new, because God has made me so. And therefore everything … Did you get that word? Everything old has passed away; it’s gone; God has wiped it away. Psalm 103:12 says:

As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.

And so everything has become new. The past is no longer part of who I am; I’m not defined by the past anymore, but there’s a word in that verse (2 Corinthians 5:17) that I want you to notice; just three letters, so it’s easy to skip over … It’s the word see. See? Everything has become new. See? Because God wants you to see! That’s why He’s brought us together today. His Word has the power to set you free from your past. It’s a new year. It’s a fresh start, and that fresh start begins with a new you, so let me give it to you one more time – this powerful, life-changing Word of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17:

If any of you is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; and see, everything has become new.

Have you ever wondered how life begins? Science has come such a long way in helping us understand our bodies, even our minds, but the one thing it can’t explain is how a new life begins. How did that first person come to life? That’s something science simply cannot answer.

 

New Spirit

Last week on the program, we were talking about the amazing fact that the moment you and I believe in Jesus, we become a completely new creation. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; and see, everything has become new!

A new identity, a new start. And what an appropriate thing to be talking about as we set out on a new year in our lives. So many people, because of their failures, their losses, perhaps because of the abuse that’s been inflicted on them one way or another in the past, have come to the conclusion that they’re worthless.

And yet what the death of Jesus on the Cross tells me, is that God was prepared to pay the highest price possible – highest price in the universe – to give you and me a fresh start, the price of His Son’s life, Jesus. So no matter how you see yourself, you are worth so much, that’s the evidence. Look at what God was prepared to pay, to sacrifice to give you a new identity and a new life.

Jesus put it a little differently, He talked about being born again. He was chatting with one of the religious leaders, Nicodemus, who came to Him in secret one night. Let’s tune into that conversation, John chapter 3, verses 5 to 9:

Jesus said, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into their mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I say to you, ‘You must be born again.’ For the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not see where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

No wonder Nicodemus was confused. It’s a very strange concept to be born again, but that’s exactly what God wants to do – He wants to give you a new life. And the only way that can happen, is when the Holy Spirit enters you. After all, that’s how the first man was given life. Genesis chapter 2, verse 7:

The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

There are a few words used in the Old Testament for ‘breath’ – but they are generally synonymous, with Spirit. So the idea here is that God breathed His Spirit, the Holy Spirit into this man. That’s where life comes from. Matter itself can’t produce that. Energy itself can’t produce that. Only God can, by His Spirit.

The problem is for you and me that we have all gone astray and fallen short of God’s glory. We have all rebelled. And so although we were made in the image of God, male and female, we now have a problem. Our rebellion has corrupted us deep inside somewhere, and that’s why we need to be born again, as Jesus put it. We need a new life, a new start and, as things turn out, a fresh breath of the Spirit.

What an amazing thing to be talking about as we head into this new year, a fresh life, a fresh start and a fresh breath of the Spirit and that’s exactly what God promised us. Have a listen to this, Ezekiel chapter 11, verse 19:

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31:

Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.

Ezekiel chapter 26, verses 25 to 27:

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.

Three times God promises to deal with our hearts hardened through our rebellion by breathing new life into us – a new spirit, the very essence of God dwelling in you. That is mind–blowing. A new heart, a soft, tender heart of flesh, and a new spirit – the Spirit of God, whom Jesus also promised in John chapter 14, verses 15 to 17:

Jesus said to His disciples: If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

All He’s asking us to do here is to turn away from the things we know are wrong, to turn our lives back to Him and His Spirit will fill us full to overflowing. With new life, with a new identity, new power, the ability to live our lives for God rather than to continue in the old ways that hardened our hearts.

If anyone wants a fresh start this year, here it is:

Lord God please forgive me, please, I want Jesus. I want to put all of my faith and all of my trust in Him and I want to be filled with His new Spirit, to have the joy and the peace and the power to live for you. So today I want to accept Jesus into my heart, I know that’ll mean changes, I know that it’ll be hard, I know some people may laugh at me but from this day forward, I belong to you, through what Jesus did for me, and I know that right now, this moment you have filled me with your Holy Spirit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus name. Amen.

And that’s the truth. If you prayed that prayer with me you are forgiven, you belong to Jesus and you have received His Spirit.

And seriously, that right there is the beginning of your fresh new start for this year. I want to encourage you to go on being filled with the Spirit, which is exactly what Paul the Apostle encourages us to do. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20:

Do not get drunk with wine, because that is debauchery; instead be filled with the Holy Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There’s a clear choice here about how we live. We can keep in our old ways, keep rebelling, or we can be filled with the Spirit (and the tense of the verb that Paul uses there means literally: to go on being filled with the Spirit) as we live the life that God wants us to live – worshipping Jesus and living our lives for Him.

I don’t know how last year played out for you, but I’m certain that you’re looking forward to something better this year, something more, something that fills that hole inside of you that nothing else and nobody else seems to be able to fill.

If that’s where you’re at right now then with all my heart, I believe that this is what you have been looking for. The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, dwelling inside you, giving you the strength to be holy, filling you with joy unspeakable, and guiding you into what God has ready and waiting for you.

 

New Song

Many years ago, when I was a cadet at the Royal Military College Duntroon – the Australian Army’s officer training academy, I found the going really, really tough.

On top of your university degree, you had military training, room inspections, dress inspections, parades every morning, not to mention the bastardisation that went on. As a whole, it was mentally and physically punishing for four years of my life. On top of that, my body wasn’t made to run – walk with a pack and a machine gun for days, sure – but this unit, this body wasn’t made for running I can tell you.

So I’d often fall behind on the long and arduous runs that we had to endure, earning the scorn and ridicule of fellow cadets. In my final year I failed the cross country run by 22 seconds and then again 12 seconds and almost ended up being kicked out. It was a six day work week, with study heaped on top of that. And whilst I’m glad I did it, and I’m glad I survived to graduate to become a commissioned officer, I wouldn’t do it again for all the tea in China. Really, it was the most brutal four years of my life.

But there was one highlight in all of that, that I looked forward to every week. We had an Army Band stationed at the college, and the conductor, the leader of that band, Major Fischer, decided to form a cadet’s choir. Once a week on a Wednesday afternoon, we would have an hour and a half’s rehearsal, and that was about the only thing that kept me sane.

Just thirty or so of us getting together to make music. There was something so incredibly special about that – it lifted my soul, it brought some joy to my life – it’s kind of hard to explain. But if you’ve ever been in a choir or a band and made music with other people, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

For most of the other guys, they loved playing rugby or cricket or some other team sport that I loathed. For me it was choir rehearsal and going out from time to time to perform in public. Music is special in a way that you can’t explain in words. It’s just how God made us and that, I think, is why He wants to put a new song into your heart.

Here we are in the middle of the first teaching series for the year. It’s called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’; and I know there are a few people today who need a new song in their hearts. Before the break, we looked at this Scripture verse and I want to come back to it again because it is so powerful. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20:

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The bit about not getting drunk isn’t just about drinking too much. It’s symbolic of all those things out there, the things of this world that we can get involved in that distract us from God. What a stupid way to live – and yet it’s so easy to get caught up in all those distractions.

The clear alternative here is not to get drunk, but to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit. The question is … how do you do that? How do you experience God’s Presence in your life? Well, it goes on to tell us in that passage … by singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves … in other words with each other, as part of a faith community AND making melody to the Lord in your hearts AND giving thanks at all times for everything in Jesus’ name.

Three things. Here they are in case you missed them. Singing praise and worship songs together, having a melody in your heart for God on your own, and being thankful and grateful for everything all the time.

And by doing those things we are going to continually be filled and refilled with the Holy Spirit. Hey, you may have read or heard that verse before in your life but did you realise the power and the punch that it packs.

I love going to church. Not because the sermon is always brilliant, not because I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning and not because of the instant coffee we drink together afterwards. I love going to church because it is such an amazing opportunity to sing with my brothers and sisters in worshipping God.

Still to this day, it lifts my Spirits and I experience the powerful Presence of God in me and in our midst. Did you realise that’s what’s supposed to happen? Worship isn’t just about singing songs, it’s about bowing down to God and being filled by His Spirit.

And often in the morning when I’m praying alone in my study, just spending that one-on-one time with the Lord, I’ll listen to one or two worship songs on my iPad and those songs, those melodies are rattling around in my heart all day. I find myself humming them while I’m driving, or just feel them going round and round inside me.

And all day, I feel so much closer to God. All day, the power of God to resist temptation is so much stronger in me – because I am doing exactly what God’s Word says I should do, I’m getting on with the business of continually being filled with the Holy Spirit. Trials are much easier to cope with. Difficult people are so much easier to forgive. I’m a better husband, I’m a better teacher, I’m a better father when I’m living that way.

And finally, I have to tell you, the third point on my list is constantly thanking God. To be honest, there are many times when I don’t feel grateful. Gratitude is the last emotion that I experience when the going’s going tough. But what I’ve discovered is that if we do what God tells us to do, give thanks at all times for everything, the feeling of gratitude follows the act of obedience. It’s counterintuitive I know, but that’s how it works. Here it is again, Ephesians chapter 5, verses 18 to 20, listen to it carefully and let it sink into your heart:

Do not get drunk with wine, that is debauchery; but instead be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs amongst yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Look, try it, it actually works.

And as this New Year gets underway, I am believing that God wants to give you a fresh start. That’s why we’re talking about this stuff today – because being filled with the Spirit, having a melody in our hearts for God, giving thanks for everything all the time – no matter what it is – is so refreshing.

Listen up – God wants to put a song into your heart today. I know it mightn’t feel that way for you just at this moment. I know your circumstances might be pressing in on you and the idea of having a melody in your heart for God, well you know, it seems impossible. But have a listen to what King David wrote when men were trying to kill him. Psalm 40, verses 1 to 3:

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

We imagine that when the going is tough, singing a new song is impossible. But that’s precisely the time when God wants to put a new song in your mouth, in your heart. So, if you’re in a desolate pit or a miry bog right now, wait patiently for the Lord, He will incline His ear to you, He will hear your cry, He will draw you up out of that place and put your feet on solid ground and He will put a new song in your heart and on your lips.

He does all of those things, all we need to do is to wait patiently on Him, believing that His Word is true, expecting Him to act, crying out to Him … and in that place the Spirit of God will fall on you and fill you and put a new melody, a new song in your heart.

The simple how–to of going on being filled with the Holy Spirit, start singing some songs, start giving thanks for everything all the time and God will show up. Trust me. He will show up!

 

Entering into Freedom

It’s hard to imagine a new spirit being poured into you and a new song being put on your lips, when you know that you’ve done things to hurt God. When you know that you’ve sinned against Him. Sure you’ve asked for His forgiveness, but somehow guilt is still robbing you of the new beginnings that God has for you.

So I want you to imagine for a moment that you committed a horrendous crime, and you spent a long time in prison. So, you wore those orange overalls, you had a number, Prisoner Number 478653. You slept in a cell, you only came and went when the guards allowed you to. And as far as the guards and your fellow prisoners and indeed society as a whole was concerned, you were a criminal and a prisoner.

But today … today is the day of your release. You’ve done the crime, you served the time and right now, right this minute, you walk out of that prison. And the moment you step over the line between inside the prison and outside the prison, you cease to be a criminal and a prisoner, because your debt to society has been paid.

The reason that so many prisoners re-offend and end up back inside again, is because once they step over that line, they never come to grips with their new identity. They never lay hold of the new freedom they have because of how the law and how society now sees them.

And the problem for many people in life too, is exactly the same. They never lay hold of the powerful truth that we discover here in God’s Word – 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17, that the moment you believe in Jesus, the moment you step over that line from rebellion against God to faith in Jesus – you have a completely new identity:

For if anyone is in Christ Jesus, there is a new creation, all the old things have passed away and behold, everything is new!

See, you have a complete right – standing with God, so much so, that He declares you to be a new creation. Completely new.

That’s what’s on offer here: a new identity and a new life. Not because you or I paid the debt, but because Jesus did it for you. No matter what this year holds, there’s one thing for certain: wrap your heart around this truth, accept the new identity you have in Christ, and it’s going to be an awesome year.

Me – I’ve failed so many times. I have made so many mistakes in my life. If I kept carrying all those around with me every day, I’ve got to tell you, I’d be exhausted, I’d be depressed, I’d be completely without hope … in fact, I’m not sure I’d even still be alive.

So whatever you have going on at the moment, whatever loss or failure or regret that is robbing you of a sense of hope and anticipation of what this year ahead might hold … call to mind, and therefore have hope, real hope … God’s hope. This passage from Lamentations chapter 3:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; for great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

God can and will make everything new. Like the droplets of rain that glisten as the sun rises each morning, His mercies for you are new every morning and when God forgives and when God restores and when God shows up as He always does in His faithfulness, everything is new. His touch restores your soul. His voice banishes your fear. His presence puts strength and courage and resolve and purpose back into your heart.

So if last year wasn’t all that you wanted it to be, if this year isn’t shaping up as something to look forward to, then let me encourage you, implore you, to cast yourself on the mercies of God that are available to you right now through Jesus Christ, through what He did for you. Go and give it all to Him, go and pour your heart out to Him, this Jesus who wants to lighten your load and give you hope for tomorrow.

And watch, just watch what the Lord will do for you.

 

 

Most people on planet earth look at things and ask themselves, “So, what’s in it for me?” That’s the way we tend to evaluate our options. There’s just one small problem though with living life that way: It simply doesn’t work.

 

New Offering

It’s true, isn’t it? The world is full of options for us. I mean, I look at the career options that kids seem to have before them today. There are so many more of them. It just didn’t seem that way when I was making those decisions forty years ago. Look at the entertainment options that we have: The whole smartphone and tablet/computer revolution, the way the Internet has put everything in the palm of our hands.

So often when I’m out, say at a café, I see parents with young children. Now back in my day, keeping the kids entertained and quiet was a challenge. These days though, these tiny tots are sitting there playing their favourite game on Mum and Dad’s phone or tablet. There are travel options; options about where we live, how we live; where we work, how we work.

I’m trying to think of my grandfather, who was born in Romania back in 1889. He lived in a house that didn’t have glass in the windows but animal-skins, and I think back to his grandfather, who was born in the late 1700s, not long after Australia was first colonised.

I don’t know, but I’m imagining that they had far fewer options than we do today. They had far fewer choices to make than we have to make today, so here you and I are with all these options and choices and our primary measure, our primary assessment tool is, “What’s in it for me? Which one of these is best for me? Will we go to the movies this Saturday afternoon or will we go out for dinner, or both? Or would you rather stay at home and watch something on Netflix on the 55-inch, high-definition television in the living-room?” We don’t think about it, but that’s what’s going on day after day. Right?

In your life, in my life. And the more choices we’re given, the more focused we become on deciding which one is best for me, and so without even thinking about it, we’re on our way down a slippery slope. Matthew 7:13-14:

You can enter true life only through the narrow gate. The gate to hell is very wide, and there’s plenty of room on the road that leads there. Many people go that way, but the gate that opens the way to true life is narrow, and the road that leads there is hard to follow; only a few people find it.

It’s a wide road – it’s an apparently easy road – this road to self-gratification, and there are so many today who unwittingly find themselves on that road. The problem is that it leads to pain along the way, and destruction in the end. 1 Timothy 6:9-10:

People who want to be rich bring temptations to themselves. They’re caught in a trap. They begin to want many foolish things that’ll hurt them. These things ruin and destroy people. The love of money causes all kinds of evil; some people turn away from what they believe because they want to get more and more money, but they have caused themselves a lot of pain and sorrow.

It’s true. It ends up in a lot of pain and sorrow, and as we’ve stepped over this threshold of this new year, there are all too many people living in that pain and sorrow. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe someone close to you is one of them. The question is, what’s the answer? What’s the solution? How do we get a fresh start this year, and get our lives heading in the right direction? And one of the answers to those questions is to do a hundred and eighty-degree turn from being inward-focused to being outward-focused; so instead of asking, “Which option is going to be best for me?” We’re asking, “Which is the option that God wants me to choose?”

The Israelites found themselves in this very position: Something we read about in the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi 3:6-9:

I am the LORD, and I don’t change. You are Jacob’s people, and you have not been completely destroyed, but you never obeyed My laws; even your ancestors stopped following Me. Come back to Me, and I’ll come back to you. This is what the LORD, the all-powerful One, said: ‘You say, “How can we come back?” People should not steal things from God, but you stole things from Me. You say, “What did we steal from You?” You should have given Me one-tenth of your things. You should have given Me special gifts. In this way, your whole nation has stolen things from Me, so bad things are happening to you.’ This is what the LORD all-powerful said.

In other words, they’d stopped honouring God with their firstfruits; with the offering the LORD commanded them to make; their tithe; one-tenth of their income, and the other special offerings under the Law. Now you and I, we’re no longer under that Law, but nevertheless, God still calls us to give to Him first – of our best; of our very best: Not just our money, but of all that we have and all that we are.

Here God’s people had strayed away from putting Him first, and they were putting themselves first, and things weren’t going well for them. That’s what the whole book of Malachi is all about. Malachi 1:6:

The LORD, the all-powerful One, said: ‘Children honour their fathers; servants honour their masters. I am your Father, so why don’t you honour Me? I am your Master, so why don’t you respect Me? You priests don’t respect My name, but you say, “What have we done that shows that we don’t respect Your name?

So God is pouring out the truth to them: The truth that they’ve headed down that wide, easy road that leads to destruction. That’s why things aren’t going well for them. That’s why they’ve brought so much pain and sorrow on themselves. I wonder how much you relate to their story in your life right now.

So what was God’s answer? How did God provide a way back for them? Malachi 3:10-12:

The LORD, the all-powerful One, says: ‘Try this test. Bring one-tenth of your things to Me. Put them in the treasury; bring food to My house; test Me. If you do these things, I will surely bless you. Good things will come to you, like rain falling from the sky. You’ll have more than enough of everything. I won’t let pests destroy your crops; all your grapevines will produce grapes.’ This is what the LORD, the all-powerful One, said: ‘People from other nations will be good to you. You will have a wonderful country.’ This is what the LORD, the all-powerful One, said.

So He gave them a way back into His blessing by giving them a tangible way in which to put Him first in their lives: By going back to tithing their incomes, which is what was required under the Old Testament Law – a Law, by the way, that you and I are no longer under.

But let’s get back to your life: Are you looking for a fresh start in this new year? Are you looking to get rid of some of the pain and the sorrow that you’ve brought upon yourself by wandering down that wide road of, “What’s in it for me?” Then decide to put God first in your life.

Maybe you’ve made some lifestyle choices that you know don’t honour God. Perhaps you’re not married and you’re sleeping with someone. Perhaps you’ve buried yourself in your career and earning money and all that stuff, and there’s no room left for God. Perhaps you’re so busy juggling work and family, and running the kids here and running them there for this and for that, you’ve simply stopped praying and reading God’s Word. Perhaps you’ve taken some big decisions in life, maybe even small decisions, without involving God and asking Him what He wants for you. 2 Corinthians 9:7-8:

Each one of you should give what you have decided to give in your hearts. You should not give if it makes you unhappy or if you feel forced to give, for God loves those who are happy to give. And God can give you more blessings than you need, and you’ll always have plenty of everything; you will have enough to give to every good work.

There are so many different ways to honour God by making a new offering of your life to Him. Come on, give it over to Him! Give it all back to Him. Do it with all your heart. Put Him first in your life.

New Growth

According to Lindsey Mires on Brain-Blocker, the self-help/self-improvement industry helps itself to ten billion dollars of people’s money each year, and that’s just in the US. Worldwide, you’d have to imagine it’s somewhere between fifty and a hundred billion-dollar a year industry, perhaps even more. So how effective is this whole self-improvement thing? Well, have a listen to what Mires writes on his website:

In addition to high revenues, self-help also has a high recidivism rate, with the most likely purchasers of a self-help book being the same person who purchased one already in the last eighteen months. This begs the question of how much good these self-help books and seminars are doing for consumers. If they’re so effective at solving our problems, why do they usually result in a continuing stream of self-help purchases? Self-help books are frequently followed by a train of subsequent manuals for happiness, for weight loss, success, money or spirituality by the very same authors, fuelling the six point one percent average annual growth rate projected by Market Data Enterprises Inc.

Now most of us have tried some sort of self-help kit to make ourselves happy, and you know as well as I do it almost never lasts. People almost always fall back into their old ways, and those who get through the hype and actually lay hold of the promises that the self-help gurus are making are few and far between. I once read a quote; can’t remember whose it was, but it went something like this: The self-made man is simply demonstrating the horror of unskilled labour.

So, if you and I want to grow, if you and I want to live a better life this year than last year, if we want to master some of our inherent weaknesses and learn to develop some of our natural strengths, if we want to grow and mature as people, to be able to better cope with the conflicts and the trials and the temptations that are sure to come our way this year, what’s the answer? Where do we turn? Because let me tell you, self-help doesn’t help, and self-improvement doesn’t improve anything. In fact, they’re nothing but hard work, and they rarely if ever deliver a dividend that justified the sacrifice.

I’ve tried. Now look; I’m pretty intelligent, I’m a very hard worker, and I’ve a very strong and determined personality-type. Ok; maybe compassion and empathy aren’t my strong suit, but I guess you’d expect that from someone who has it in their makeup to be a strong and determined person: An achiever personality-type, and even with my personality-type, I still can’t make the self-help work, so how is someone who is gentler and more mellow than me going to find success? And in any case, if you’re going to tackle a large complex problem like transformation, surely you’ll want to involve someone with the love, the power, and the expertise to really make a difference and that … that is where God steps in.

With all my heart, I believe in God-help, not self-help. With all my heart, I believe in Holy Spirit-transformation, not self-improvement, and with all my heart, I believe that God wants to get involved in your life with His love and His power and His expertise to transform it every bit as much as He transforms that caterpillar into a stunning butterfly. Have a listen to what the apostle Paul writes to his friends at the church in Corinth, the second half of the first century AD. He goes back to when Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, and how his face glowed with the glory of God, and what that means for you and me here and now today. It’s beautiful stuff, so have a listen. 2 Corinthians 3, beginning at verse 7:

The old agreement” (or the old covenant) “between God and His people that brought death, written with words on stone, came with God’s glory and in fact, the face of Moses was so bright with glory – a glory that was ending – that the people of Israel could not continue looking at his face, so surely the new agreement” (or the new covenant) “that comes from the life-giving Spirit has even more glory. This is what I mean: That old agreement judged people guilty of sin but still had glory, so surely the new agreement that makes people right with God has much greater glory!

And that old agreement had glory, but it really loses its glory when it’s compared to the much greater glory of the new covenant. If the agreement that was brought to an end came with glory, then the agreement that never ends has much greater glory.

We are so sure of this hope that we can speak very openly. We are not like Moses, who put a covering over his face; he covered his face, so that the people of Israel wouldn’t see it. The glory was fading and disappearing, and Moses didn’t want them to see it end, for their minds were closed and even today, when those people read the writings of the old agreement, that same covering hides the meaning.

That covering hasn’t been removed for them. It is taken away only through Christ. Yes, even today when they read the Law of Moses, there’s like a covering over their minds, but when someone changes and follows the Lord, that covering is taken away. The Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And our faces are not covered; we all show the Lord’s glory and we’re being changed to be like Him. This change in us brings more and more glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

What Paul’s talking about here is that the old covenant (the Old Testament Law), whilst it came with glory clearly (I mean, Moses glowed with the radiance of God’s glory), that glory faded. But the new covenant (the new agreement, the new deal that you and I have with God, through the grace and the mercy that was poured out on that cross by Jesus), that brings a glory that’s never going to fade: A glory that never leaves us because Jesus when we believe in Him, the moment we believe in Him, puts His Holy Spirit in us, and so His glory changes us from the inside out, from glory to glory.

One of the reasons that superpowers like America and China and Russia put nuclear power plants in their ships and their submarines is that the power never runs out. They don’t have to stop to refuel because the on-going nuclear reaction gives more than enough power: Power that doesn’t run out, and that’s the picture here. You and I might be able to fire up a tiny engine within us – our will, our strength, our drive, our determination, and yeah, human beings are capable of some truly amazing feats of endurance, but compared to the nuclear power plant which is the Holy Spirit, our efforts are puny. They’re ineffectual and pretty soon, we run out of power.

What would you rather do: Pedal away on your own in your own strength burning needless energy, or let God provide the power? Here’s what I’ve discovered.

Transformation on my own is incredibly hard work, and nearly impossible to achieve in a sustained way, but when I draw close to God, when I spend time in prayer and in His presence, when I open the Bible and read it and receive and believe it, I have power to burn; more than enough power; power that comes from the joy of the LORD; power that comes from the presence of the LORD by His Holy Spirit in me; power that words simply cannot describe; power that brings real, lasting, loving change in me; power that helps me to deal with the many trials and temptations that life brings; power to go through the narrow gate; to walk the hard path with Jesus, the path that leads to life; power that changes me from the inside out, as God’s glory gets a hold of me and leaks out through me.Jesus said to His disciples:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth.

Holy Spirit-power.

 

Time to Decide

Just for the last few minutes that we have together today, I want to share something very, very important with you. It’s about a decision that each one of us needs to take, if we’re to lay hold of the fresh start that God has ready and waiting for us. God’s Word says (in Proverbs 16:9) that whilst we in our minds plan our way, the LORD orders or directs our steps. That’s an interesting symbiosis.

That’s God giving you and me a clear role in choosing the direction in which our life heads. You can choose today to make Jesus’ most important things your most important things, or you can choose today not to do that, but instead to make your most important things your most important things. Which one of those two do you think is going to work better for you in the long run? Just a few verses earlier, God says this (in Proverbs 16:7):

When the ways of people please the LORD, He causes even their enemies to be at peace with them.

Would you rather have peace or strife? Would you rather have the LORD ordering each step, or be tripping over yourself as you head in the wrong direction? This is why so many people’s lives are such a mess. We can’t go off and do it our way, and expect God to come along and dance to our tune and clean up the mess. No, God loves us much more than that. If we head off in our own direction, according to our own priorities, He’ll let us suffer the consequences of our mistakes to bring us back to our senses.

So, back to your choice: What’s it going to be? What decision will you make? What will be the guiding purpose of the things that you put in your diary, the things that you sacrifice your time for, the things that you’ll spend the rest of your life doing? Because make no mistake about it: Time is short. Time is running out. I don’t care how far you plan ahead. One day, as you lie in a box in a funeral home somewhere, the tasks that you put in your diary, the ones you thought were oh so important, will be gathering cobwebs.

It’s interesting that the original Greek word used most commonly for sin in the New Testament literally means to miss the mark. For example, James 4:17:

Anyone then who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits sin.

And you see, that’s why so many people end up heading in the wrong direction. That’s why so many people, through their non-decisions if you will, end up losing focus and missing the mark, and indeed that’s the easiest way I know of missing the mark: To lose focus. That’ll do it for you every time.

Let’s take this and apply it to your life right now. I know that you’re going through stuff: Some trial, some temptation, some opposition, some struggle, something that’s hurting right at the moment, something you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself. The truth is, we all are, so let me ask you: How are you going to make the right decision and then stay focused – today, tomorrow, the next day, as this thing plays itself out? Focused on the prize that lies ahead; on the calling that God has on your life; on the decision to put Him above all else. What are you actually going to do to decide and to get focused?

Well, in case you’re coming up short on answers, here’s what I do: Two very simple things. I pray, and I read my Bible. Every morning, sometimes it’s half an hour; sometimes a bit longer, but in a quiet, unhurried way, I spend time with the Lord. I hear Him speak. I experience His presence. I enjoy Him, and then talk about sharpening my focus. Talk about getting all that stuff out there in its right perspective. Yeah, it takes a bit of practice, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing, like time with God every morning; and His Word, hearing His powerful truth, sharing our hearts with Him in prayer, there’s nothing like it to help you stay focused.

In any case, what have you got to lose?

I’m not quite sure how many years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes or seconds you have left before you breathe your last breath here on this earth. But let’s assume that it’s a finite period (because actually it is!). So here’s a question for you today. How are you going to spend that finite time? What’s your purpose in being, for the rest of your days here on this earth?

 

New Purpose

It’s a sobering thought isn’t it? The time that you and I have left on planet earth is finite. It will come to an end one day, no doubt at a time that we least expect it.

Now, I run a busy diary in my life – I use an electronic one, that’s available on my computer, my tablet and my smartphone so that no matter where I am, I can check my diary, add in tasks and appointments and move things around. In fact, I really don’t know how I managed my life, before I had this diary that replicates itself instantly and automatically across all my devices.

This week and next week are pretty much all taken. You certainly wouldn’t get a meeting with me this week, and a couple of slots are left next week maybe for emergencies, and even the week after next is starting to fill up.

And there are diary entries for speaking engagements and all sorts of things that reach out over the next eighteen months. All in my diary. All colour coded – board stuff, broadcasting stuff, admin stuff, meetings, personal stuff, even the odd holiday – put in my diary way ahead of time so I don’t book anything else. All good stuff.

But think about this: the Lord could demand my life of me today, or maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. I mean, I don’t know. I’m planning and working as though I have a long time left on planet earth. I feel like I have … but really, none of us knows. I don’t know and you don’t know.

I remember once a few years back, with an equally busy diary, I fell quite ill and ended up in hospital, I was really very sick. Do you have any idea how irrelevant that diary became to me as I was lying there in that hospital with tubes sticking out of me?

All the things I thought were important became unimportant. All the things I thought I had to get done this week, next week, the week after, they were left undone as I recovered. And I know this is going to shock you – NO, the world didn’t come to an end, and there wasn’t a rupture in the space-time continuum because Berni didn’t get done the things he planned to do.

And I imagine that one day the Lord will take me home, and that diary with all its appointments and tasks that were oh, so important – well, they’ll just get deleted off the computer, off the tablet, off the mobile phone, out of the cloud. And that … will be that.

And it’s going to be exactly the same for you. All the things that you thought were so important … won’t get done, will be no more and will be forgotten.

So now I want you to think about … what really is important? In the time that you have left, what is your purpose for being here on this earth? What is your principal purpose?

Because it’s that purpose that will start to guide the things that you put into your diary. It’s your purpose that’ll tell you which tasks and meetings are important, and which ones really aren’t. It’s your purpose that will decide how exactly you spend your years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds … between now … and when you breathe your last.

Now it seems to me, if our purpose is just to get stuff done here and now that we need to get done, to make money, to put food on the table and enjoy life, then … well, that’s a pretty myopic, short-sighted view and it’s a recipe for a short-term life, a life that stops dead, when your heart stops.

When Jesus was asked, which of the commandments (all 613 of them in the Old Testament) was the most important, this is what He said. Mark chapter 12, verses 29 to 31:

The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second one is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.

Now let’s imagine for a moment that you were to take that to heart. Let’s imagine that you decided, if you haven’t already, that with every breath that you take between now and then, you decide to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, with every fibre of your being. And similarly to love others as you love yourself.

Might I ask you, if that were true, if that became your purpose for living, how would it change the things that you put in your diary? How would it change your priorities? How would it change what you spend your time on?

What I’ve always found in my life, and I’m pretty sure it’s true in your life as well, is that nothing changes in what I say or do, until something changes in my heart. The reason I know it to be true is not just that it’s true in my experience, but because it’s precisely what Jesus said. Luke chapter 6, verse 45:

The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

There are many people today whose life isn’t going in the right direction. Often we don’t know why, we just know it’s not right. There’s a lack of joy, there’s a lack of fulfilment. Or perhaps there’s the pain of regret. And often we don’t know what the right direction even looks like.

And if perhaps you sense that that’s what’s going on in your life today, and you’re looking for a fresh start in this new year, then I want to encourage you with all that I am, I want to implore you … to have a change of heart, to establish YOUR purpose based on what Jesus said was the most important thing. And that is:

…to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and to love your neighbour as yourself.

Because if that truly becomes your purpose in living, then God will set a new life before you. A life that, whilst hard some days, you’ll know is heading in the right direction.

 

New Focus

Back when I was in the Army, we used to use a 7.62mm SLR – now, that’s not a camera, it’s a rifle. A fairly large 7.62mm standard NATO round, in a self-loading rifle, which means you didn’t have to cock it each time you fired it. When you fired it, it had a mechanism in it that would harness the power of the gas in the muzzle as the bullet was flying out, as a back-force to automatically re-cock the rifle, putting the next round in the chamber, ready to fire it again.

Pretty clever stuff. We spent hours, and hours and hours in the hot sun out on the firing range, practicing hitting the target. Now the target was pretty big – it was one metre square, with obviously concentric circles and a bullseye in the centre. At the 25 metre mound, you couldn’t help but hit it dead centre. That became a bit harder at 50 metres and then 100 metres.

But let me tell you, once you got back to the 300 metre mound, it was the easiest thing in the world, to completely miss the square metre altogether. Just the slightest movement and you’d miss, which is not at all good, since you’re practicing to take out the other guy who, in a war situation, would be shooting back at you.

We didn’t have telescopic sights back then. So you practiced your breathing, you practiced shifting your focus from the target to the front-sight to the back-sight and back again, and then squeezing – not jerking – squeezing off the round. Mind you, when you squeezed the trigger, the percussion of the bullet firing would fair rip your shoulder off. A lot of that was to do with the physics around a large bullet, these days most armies use a smaller 5.56mm round so it’s not quite as bad.

Now, after hours of practice and firing on the range, we’d go back to the barracks with chafed and aching elbows from supporting the rifle on the hard ground, and a really bruised shoulder from the impact of the rifle’s recoil. The point is, we practiced and practiced and practiced. I wasn’t a brilliant shot, but I was good enough to cause the enemy more than a few problems.

One of the things I learned from that was the importance of focus. Keeping your eye focussed on the target, coming back and looking at the sight and back to the target, breathing properly. All those things made a huge difference to your success rate.

That’s something I’ve been blessed to learn and something that I’ve carried forward into my everyday life. Focus is so important. When other people are flapping around and running in ever decreasing circles under pressure, the person who maintains their focus is the one who hits the mark.

Before the break, we were chatting about the purpose of your life. So many people’s lives are a mess, because they’re living with the wrong purpose. Jesus was pretty clear about priorities and purpose. Mark chapter 12, verses 29 to 31:

The most important thing is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

Jesus is saying: the most important thing to be focussed on is putting God first and all of a sudden the things that you choose to do with your life, with your time, the things that you put in your diary, the things that you consider important are going to change. And when they change, your life starts to head in a new direction, a whole new direction. But once we decide on the right direction, we need to keep heading that way.

It’s amazing, I mean, it really is, the moment you decide to put God first, the moment you decide – enough is enough, I’m not living this mess anymore – stuff just seems to start happening. People come against us, the devil comes against us – and we get really disheartened, thinking  well maybe this Jesus thing isn’t really for me after all.

Hey, get a revelation today. That’s exactly why the devil is attacking you and doing what he’s doing. That’s exactly what he wants you to think, because he wants you to turn back to your old ways. He doesn’t want you to persevere, because, he knows, as Jesus said, those who persevere to the end are the ones who will be saved.

The Apostle Paul was a guy who had more than his fair share of trouble. It all started when he gave his life to Jesus – sound familiar? They tried to kill him, he was beaten, he was locked up, he was shipwrecked, he was mocked, you name it, it happened to him. And so far as I can see, it’s pretty much par for the course when you’re following hard after Jesus.

So, how does Paul react? Does he grumble, does he complain, does he cower and turn back? Have a listen to this guy – Philippians chapter 3, verses 10 to 14:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

So no matter what suffering he’s going through, Paul wants to stay focussed on the prize, on his calling to proclaim the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though for a time he has to share in the sufferings of Jesus.

You know, it takes time, it takes practice, just like being on that firing mound, to maintain your focus when you’re hurting, it really does. But as you choose to do that, you’ll be amazed, how stable and focused your life becomes, how much more reliably you’ll navigate your way through those difficult patches.

Look at the target, the prize, focus on that, focus on your calling and God will get you through.

 

Keep Your New Life

Over the last few weeks on the program, in this series called ‘New Year, Fresh Start’ we’ve been taking a bit of a look at the new life that God wants each one of us to live – it’s a new year so it’s time for a fresh start.

God is the God of new beginnings. God is the God who makes the past irrelevant, who forgives everything, who heals everything to give us a new life to walk in. He wants you to have a fresh start. That’s not some vague promise from some joker on the radio. That’s a promise from God that comes direct from His Word – Romans chapter 6, verse 4:

So when we were baptised, we were buried with Christ and took part in his death. And just as Christ was raised from death by the wonderful power of the Father, so we can now live a new life.

Did you hear that? A new life! But it’s not a life that comes on our terms. It’s not a life that we can conjure up out of nothing so that we can head back to the old life. That old life was all about pleasing ourselves. That old life was all about doing it my way, being healthy, wealthy, wise, being comfortable, being happy and that is not the new life that God is talking about here.

Too many people start the New Year off wanting some change. They’ll grab onto anything that’s on offer, go with it for a while, realise there’s sacrifice involved and then head back to their old life. Sound familiar? It’s a pattern that has repeated itself over and over again in countless people’s lives ever since time immemorial. In fact, the Israelites tried it too.

They’d been in slavery in Egypt for something like 450 years. Finally God hears the cry of His people. He raises up a leader, Moses, gives the man extraordinary powers, sends 10 plagues on the Egyptians and leads His people miraculously out of slavery. Woohoo! Have a listen to how the Israelites reacted at the first sign of trouble – Exodus chapter 14, verses 8 to 12:

The Israelites were leaving with their arms raised in victory. But the LORD caused Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to become brave. And Pharaoh chased the Israelites. The Egyptian army had many horse soldiers and chariots. They chased the Israelites and caught up with them while they were camped near the Red Sea at Pi Hahiroth, east of Baal Zephon.

When the Israelites saw Pharaoh and his army coming toward them, they were very frightened and cried to the LORD for help. They said to Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Did you bring us out here to die in the desert? We could have died peacefully in Egypt; there were plenty of graves in Egypt. We told you this would happen! In Egypt we said, ‘Please don’t bother us. Let us stay and serve the Egyptians.’ It would have been better for us to stay and to be slaves than to come out here and die in the desert.’

Go figure! God’s done all these amazing things, these powerful miracles, and plagues on Egypt and the moment the going gets tough, they want to run back to the safety of their old lives in slavery. And this isn’t the only time. After God takes them miraculously through the Red Sea, destroying Pharaoh’s army in the process, all of a sudden they realise there’s no food out here in the wilderness. Exodus chapter 16, verses 1 to 3:

Then the people left Elim and came to the desert of Zin, between Elim and Sinai. They arrived at that place on the 15th day of the second month after leaving Egypt. Then the whole community of Israelites began complaining again. They complained to Moses and Aaron in the desert. They said, ‘It would have been better if the LORD had just killed us in the land of Egypt. At least there we had plenty to eat. We had all the food we needed. But now you have brought us out here into this desert to make us all die from hunger.’

So, because they’re under pressure, because they’re uncomfortable and uncertain and outside the comfort zone, the comfort zone of their slavery – despite all the miracles to date, despite the whole parting of the Red Sea and the miraculous destruction of Pharaoh’s army, what, they figure God is not into this? Exodus chapter 16, verses 4 and 5:

Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will cause food to fall from the sky. This food will be for you to eat. Every day the people should go out and gather the food they need that day. I will do this to see if they will do what I tell them. Every day the people will gather only enough food for one day. But on Friday, when the people prepare their food, they will see that they have enough food for two days.’

And so it was, exactly as God had said. Do you see my point here? This is exactly how we want to behave. We want a new life. We want the power of the Holy Spirit in us. We want to see miracles and transformation in our lives. But the moment the going gets tough, we want to run back to Egypt. It’s a pattern that repeats itself millions of times over and over again as New Year’s resolutions are abandoned. And it’s a pattern that repeats itself millions of times as people realise that taking hold of this new life, battle by battle, isn’t going to be that easy.

My exhortation to you today is: don’t turn back. Don’t be like the Israelites here. Know that your purpose is to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and to love your neighbour as yourself. Know that God has a plan, He has the power, and He has the will to bring His plans for your life to fruition, no matter how daunting the opposition may appear. James chapter 1, verse 12:

Great blessings belong to those who are tempted and remain faithful! After they have proved their faith, God will give them the crown of eternal life. God promised this to all people who love him.

That right there is the Word of God for you today. That’s God speaking perseverance and hope and resolve into your heart today. They are not my words, this is God’s Word. In my heart I know that there are many listening in today, who had resolved to turn back, to give up. But God today has visited you by His Spirit and by His Word, to show you a way forward. And may you indeed be blessed as you receive His Word into your heart.

Right now in the couple of minutes that we have left together, it’s time to pray, because your enemy the devil wants to steal God’s Word away from you, just as Jesus said he would try to do. So let’s engage the power of God to protect you by praying:

Father God, what an amazing tragedy it is that so many people hear your Word, even receive your Word, and yet the enemy comes along and steals it away from them. We pray today for every person who is with us, every person around the globe who has received your Word through today’s program. Lord, we ask that by your divine grace and power you would protect us from evil, protect us from the devil. We pray that the seed that has been planted in our hearts by you today, would be protected by you, preserved by you, watered by you and through your grace would sprout forward, a new shoot, and a new life. For in Jesus’ mighty name we pray. Amen.

It is no coincidence that we’ve had this time together you and I. It’s no coincidence at all. God has a plan for you, a plan not to harm you, but a plan for good. A plan for the rest of your life here on earth and a plan for the rest of your eternity. If you believe in Jesus, if you have put all your trust in Jesus, that plan will unfold itself in your life, just as God’s amazing plans unfolded for Israel, after they were set free from slavery.

He was with His people back then, in power and in might and He is with you today, in the same way, with the same power, with the same might and with the same tender-hearted love. Don’t let go of that. And whatever you do, don’t let the devil plant his weeds around God’s seed – trying to convince you to turn back.

As the days, the weeks, the months and the years slip by, I know that you’ll be able to look back and see the mighty things that God has done for you.