You know one of the really bad things about Christmas Ð I’m sorry to talk about bad things the day before Christmas but there are not many places we don’t go on this program Ð so, here’s one of the really bad things about Christmas. Having to spend time with family or relatives that you haven’t seen all year.

And there’s a reason you haven’t seen them all year. It’s because you don’t really get on with them. But for some reason families insist on getting together at Christmas. And so, maybe there’s a sister or a brother-in-law or a mother-in-law or someone that you just don’t get on with that you’re going to have to put up with this Christmas day. For lunch or for dinner or maybe they’re even coming to stay at your house or you’re going to stay at theirs.

Now we may not want to admit that that’s how we feel but you know exactly what I’m talking about. There are some people in our lives who, frankly, we’d rather not invite to Christmas. We just don’t get on with them. And maybe that’s actually why, in most cultures, domestic violence is at its absolute highest at Christmas time. Sad but true.

So here’s the question, what are you going to do with those people tomorrow? It’s Christmas day. You’re going to have to put up with them and somehow, just putting up with them doesn’t seem very Christmassy does it? It’s kind of a niggling, uncomfortable feeling even to think about how we feel about these people, especially at Christmas.

It’s hard isn’t it? We want to be godly and friendly and nice to people but some people just rub us up the wrong way. They’re so opinionated they drive us nuts. Or maybe there’s a past hurt there, a fractured relationship with issues that have never been resolved. It’s hard if you believe in Jesus and you hear His words about forgiveness ringing in your ears. He says:

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others neither will your Father forgive you.”

That comes from Matthew chapter 6, verses 14 and 15.

What am I going to do with that person this Christmas? If I had my way there’s no way I would ever have invited them.

Why are we talking about this the day before Christmas? Because honestly this is an issue in more homes than we would care to admit. And it’s going to becoming to a head again in just a few short hours when Christmas happens for yet another year.

Now, I don’t know but my hunch is that Gods looking down on all this strife and unforgiveness and discontent as we celebrate the coming of His Son. My hunch is He’s looking at this stuff going on and He’s not at all well pleased with it. And when we’re doing stuff or involved in stuff or even contributing to stuff that He’s not pleased with, that’s called sin and we shouldn’t expect to have any joy in our hearts. And isn’t joy what this amazing celebration of the coming of Gods own Son should be all about?

So, a few of us have a few issues to resolve in our hearts before we sit down for Christmas lunch with our family and friends tomorrow. That’s why we’re talking about this and actually GodÕs Word has something specific, something very specific to say into this situation.

It comes through some men that I seem to talk about just about every Christmas. I can’t help myself. These are the wise men from the east. We think of these as the three wise men because that’s what we sing about in the Christmas carol but actually we don’t know how many of them there were.

But they’re an interesting bunch for one reason. Because they’re not the sorts of people that you and I would have wanted to invite along to Christmas. Let’s have a listen. Matthew chapter 2, verses 1 to 12:

“In the same time of King Herod after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem asking, ‘where is the child who has been born King of the Jews for we observed His star at it’s rising and have come to pay Him homage?”

“When King Herod heard this he was frightened and all of Jerusalem with him. And calling together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people he enquired of them where the messiah was to be born.Ó

ÒAnd they told him in Bethlehem of Judea for so it has been written by the prophet, “And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people, Israel.”

“Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem saying, “Go, search diligently for the child and when you’ve found him bring me word so that I also may go and pay him homage.”

“When they had heard the king they set out and there ahead of them went the star that they had seen at its rising until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped they were overwhelmed with joy.”

“On entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then opening their treasure chest they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod they left for their own country by another road.”

A familiar story perhaps but do you realise how radical it is? These weren’t Jews these wise men, they were gentiles. Well, so what? Well Israel was GodÕs chosen people. They believed God was only for them. They called the gentiles dogs back then. They looked down on the gentiles. That’s the first thing, God called gentiles to worship His Son.

And secondly they were wise men, Magi. The word Magi means they were astrologers and soothsayers. They dabbled in what we would today call the occult. In the Old Testament God makes it clear, this is a despicable sin. Imagine if a witch or a wizard or an astrologer, professing who they are, came to your Church. How welcomed would they be even today?

And the third thing, the third thing is, not only were they gentiles, not only were they sinners and astrologers but they were from the east. What’s east of Jerusalem back in those days? Babylon. This is the place of great evil and oppression where in 587 BC the Babylonians came and destroyed Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple and took Israel into captivity for 70 years of slavery. They may as well have come from HitlerÕs Third Reich, no less.

So it’s absolutely astounding that God invited them at all. If I were God there is no way I would have invited them to Christmas. A bit like those rellies we don’t want to get on with. But He did. But what’s even more astounding is how He brought them to His Son.

Did God send them a prophet? Did He give them a prophecy? Did He send them a Bible or a scripture or did He send them an evangelist? No. He sent them a star. Do you get it? A symbol of their deep and awful sin of astrology but a symbol that they could read and understand and follow because while God hated their sin, His love for them was so much greater than His hate for their sin.

He wanted them to know His Son. He wanted them to worship His Son. So He called them and led them and brought them using the only thing they’d understand. A star.

I wonder if you and I approach Christmas that way, with a heart of God to invite people to worship His Son. People who are rude and obnoxious and who rub us the wrong way. I wonder if we approach them with Gods heart what a difference that would make in their lives.

We want to go on with our list of ‘buts’ but my hunch is that GodÕs response would be something like this. ÒBut nothing! Go there and be my star. You’re the one I’ve sent to them. Go there and bring them to My Son. Do this for Me.Ó

And if that offends our egos or our sensibilities then lets remember how offensive the coming of those Magi must have seemed to GodÕs people. GodÕs having a party; it’s open to everyone. What He needs this Christmas are some stars.

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I think we all remember being left out of a birthday party or two when we were kids. You know one of our friends at school was having a birthday party and their parents set a limit of no more than ten friends at the party and we just happened to be number eleven on their list.

So all our other friends in the group that we hang around with at the playground, all those are there having fun at the party and we’re left at home. It hurts doesn’t it? This sense that we’re not invited to the party. There you are sitting at home alone in your backyard on Saturday afternoon imagining all the fun the other kids are having at the party.

I remember that happening once. I sat in the backyard behind the garage and cried. And then on Monday morning you get to school and they’re all laughing and joking about the fun they had. You feel like, well, you feel like a leper. And the mere fact that I can even remember that happening and share this story with you Ð I mean this was over forty years ago now, it’s amazing isn’t it Ð tells you what sort of an impact those seemingly little things have on a person.

And of course today, today is a birthday party too. Christmas is Jesus birthday. Question is, is it for you and me? Are we invited? Well, are we?

I had some interesting impressions of Christmas when I was growing up. You know, churches and cathedrals and cardinals and crimson clad clergy and important religious people doing churchy things. That must be what GodÕs looking for at Christmas time Ðministers and priests praying big prayers and preaching lofty sermons.

They didn’t mean much to me as a kid but it sure sounded impressive. That must be what Gods looking for because when we got home from all that and tucked into the business of doing ‘Christmas’ Ð you know, the family thing, presents and the food and all that stuff Ð well all that seemed like a million miles away from the lofty religious celebrating and all that stuff that was going on in Churches.

Okay, for many people Church doesn’t feel like that anymore. But whether we have a faith in Jesus or not many of us are left wondering: ‘What’s this party all about? What should it be like and am I invited?’

I know a man who’s married to a woman who all her life has had this strong and mighty faith in Jesus. And he finds that faith incredibly daunting. I mean he’d like to believe in Jesus I think but he knows he doesn’t have that sort of strong and exuberant faith that his wife does. So he finds it all very daunting.

Let me ask you, is he invited to this birthday party of the Son of God that we call Christmas? See, even today at Christmas time on the TV news, they send in a interview with the Catholic Archbishop and the Anglican Archbishop, these old and very respectable looking, very impressive sounding men in front of a backdrop of soaring stained glass windows in their Cathedral.

Well they’re certainly invited. The question is, am I invited? Are you invited? Do you see what I’m saying? There are all these religious heavy weights on the one hand and then there’s you and me over here on the other. We’re just bog ordinary people with no position in the religious hierarchy.

And so it’s easy for us to want to believe that God wants us at this party but to imagine somehow that, no GodÕs too high, He’s too mighty and that’s an exclusive party for super Christians, this Christmas thing. To imagine somehow that we don’t make the cut when it comes to the list of Gods friends whom He invites to the party.

Is that true? LetÕs take a look at the very first Christmas. Who was invited? Was Caesar, the most powerful man in the world? No, because he thought he was God. Was the local governor, Herod, invited? No, ’cause he wanted to kill God, at least the Son of God. Were the members of the Sanhedrin, the religious heavy weights of the day, were they invited to that stable in Bethlehem?

No, and if they had been they probably wouldn’t have come because their God only lived in a temple.

Who was invited? Well there were some farm animals there. It was after all their stable. And yesterday we met the relatives from out of town, the magi, the wise men; they were invited. Whoever was advising God that day surely should have been shot. I mean a bunch of astrologers from Babylon for goodness sake. These magi, well they were invited. And there was one other group that was invited. LetÕs have a listen. It comes from Luke chapter 2, verses 8 to 20:

“In that region there were shepherds living in a field keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified but the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid for see I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people. To you is born this day in the city of David a saviour who is the messiah, the Lord.”

“This will be the sign for you. You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace among all those whom He favours.”

“When the angels left them and gone into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child, the child lying in a manger.”

“When they saw this they made known what had been told to them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

“The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them.”

So, here we have a bunch of lowly shepherds, humble shepherds; the lowest of the low. Not Caesar. Not the governor. Not the religious leaders. Not even the owner of the inn who gave Mary and Joseph the stable that night. Just a bunch of lowly shepherds out in a field somewhere on a night that, for them, was like any other night; just another day at the office, answering emails and shoving paper around their desk. And then this amazing light show Ð the glory of God breaks forth in the heavens before them.

Angels. Can you imagine? And they go and they were gobsmacked at having seen GodÕs own Son. And they went back to their fields glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

Do you see what’s going on here? GodÕs telling us something. He’s issuing His invitation to His Son’s birthday party. All along, all along it’s been for ordinary everyday people like you and me. Not just for the super spiritual.

God humbled Himself by becoming a man and being born into a humble place as a humble carpenter’s son so that He could be one of us. It doesn’t matter what our lives look like at the moment. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done wrong. It doesn’t matter how far we’ve strayed from God. It doesn’t matter how inadequate or hopeless or dejected we may feel.

God’s having a party and we’re all invited. God’s having a party and it’s come as you are. And as the glory of God breaks out across this world through the coming of His Son there’s something He’s trying to tell us. He’s saying, ‘You’re invited. Yeah, you. You’re invited. Come and meet my Son.’

May you have a blessed and wondrous Christmas this year.

©

Christians can become intensely nervous when they hear someone like me say something like ‘life is there to be enjoyed’. Why? Well because it smacks of a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What it smacks of is turning things round so that GodÕs serving us instead of us serving Him.

A statement like ‘life is there to be enjoyed’ sounds much more like something out of an advertisement for a luxury holiday or a new car than it does something that God would say. And there’s a reason we become a little twitchy at this idea that God may want us to enjoy our lives. It’s because it seems to contradict things that Jesus said. Things like this:

“If anyone were to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

“For those who want to save their lives will lose them and those who will lose their lives for my sake will save them.”

“What does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?”

And the reason it seems to contradict Jesus is that we equate joy with the luxury holidays that this world has to offer. We equate joy with holidays and nice clothes and good food and a new car and a big house and all that stuff. We think joy comes when we indulge ourselves.

Now we kind of know really that’s not true but we live it out hoping that, ultimately, these trinkets in the world will bring us joy anyway. And the one thing that we never imagine is that the place, the only place that true lasting abiding joy is to be found is in taking up our cross and following Jesus. Surely that can’t be enjoyable can it? But Jesus said, Matthew chapter 13, verse 44:

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

See the word ‘kingdom’ in those days meant totalitarian rule and authority. That’s what people heard when Jesus said “The Kingdom of heaven”. And Jesus tells this story of a man who discovers a hidden treasure and the joy of that discovery means he gives up his money to have this treasure. And that treasure is the rule of God in our lives. It is like a hidden treasure. It’s hidden and if we want to hang onto our old life and our old values, we can never have the treasure. But if we give up the old life, if we turn away from the old ways, then we can have the treasure, which is the rule and the Kingdom of God in our lives.

That’s where joy is to be found. And that word that Jesus uses there for joy is the same word from which we get the English charisma and charismatic. It’s a wonderful thing this joy, a free gift from God. And we’re meant to enjoy our lives. In fact joy is an essential part of the normative Christian life. Not some optional extra. Not something we’re meant to have every now and then when the going gets good, but a deep, abiding thing that stays with us every moment of every day. Even when we’re weeping, even when we’re experiencing pain, deep down inside somewhere God wants us to know Him and experience His deep and abiding joy.

There was an interesting time in Israel’s history. They’d been in the Promised Land for about 500 years and they’d sinned against God and so He punished them by exiling them as slaves in Babylon for 70 years. Eventually God relents and brings them back to the Promised Land, quite miraculously.

So they set about rebuilding Jerusalem, the Temple, the buildings and the protective wall around the city. And while they’re building the wall Ezra the prophet gathers the nation of Israel together, the returned exiles, the remnant of what once was. And he leads them through and explains to them their sin, the sin of the nation, their disobedience of God as a nation and the people’s hearts are torn apart, I mean they ache because they understand the impact of their sin.

Turning back to God, repenting, that’s what it’s like. We know that we’ve taken our rebellion and our sin to heart, we know that we’re truly sorry when we ache over the wrong that we’ve done before God. Anyhow, have a listen to how the people reacted to what Ezra had to say to them and then what God had to say to His people through this man, the prophet. Nehemiah chapter 8 beginning at verse 9:

“Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra, the priests and scribes and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, ‘this day is sacred to the Lord. Do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Lord.”

“Nehemiah said, ‘go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks and send some to those who have nothing prepared for this day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ The Levites calmed all the people saying, ‘be still for this day is a sacred day. Do not grieve.”

“Then all the people went away to eat and drink and send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy because they now understood the words that had been made known to them.”

See this day when GodÕs people dedicated their lives back to Him. For them it was a day of great sadness and regret. But God wanted them to know His joy, His joy at having led His people back to Him, His joy at having them back. And, in fact, joy had an important role to play in their lives, in healing them. Did you pick it in the words that Nehemiah spoke? He said:

“Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The joy that we receive from God is what makes us strong. When we’re grieving and down and dejected and regretting, that’s when we’re weak. Now, of course, there are times when we have to go through those things. Certainly there are. Being a Christian is not about living in some permanent state of happiness. We don’t live permanently on Cloud 9. But neither are we meant to stay in a place of mourning and regret and pain forever.

Think of grief for a moment. A loved one dies, we grieve their loss and that’s natural Ð the initial shock and then the funeral and the quiet house when everyone else is getting on with their lives. But those weeks and months following the loss, they’re a time of grief.

However, if we live the rest of our lives in that grief it’s not natural. Eventually you have to pick up, keep going with life and make the best of what you’ve been given. Some people though live in a constant, almost lifelong state of weakness because they don’t know the joy of the Lord. They race around looking for medicines and pills and therapies and all sorts of things. Things that they think will make them happy.

But happiness is a passing thing. It’s fleeting. Joy on the other hand is deep and abiding. The joy of the Lord, the joy that comes from a close tender relationship with Him, the joy of knowing Him personally in our actual experience. That sort of joy lasts forever. That joy is what makes us strong.

If there is something now not quite right in your life and you’ve been looking everywhere for a solution, you’ve tried everything then let me put your spirit to rest. You can stop looking. You can stop searching. You’ve arrived. You’ve found the solution that you’re looking for:

“Be still for this is a day which is sacred to the Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

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

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I remember once a few years ago when our house was broken into. I was away overseas. Had a phone call from my wife Jacqui saying she’d just arrived home and the front door was wide open and some of our things were missing and stolen. It was a horrible feeling.

Not only were some of our things that we owned missing but along with that came the sense of violation. The thought that our home had been broken into and people were wandering around inside our home when we weren’t there. It was terrible; a horrible feeling that someone would come into your home and do that to you.

And if you want a picture of what the devil does in our lives, there’s the picture. He’s like a thief. Jesus said:

“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.” (John chapter 10, verse 10)

In fact literally He means super-abundantly. It’s just that it’s a really over the top kind of word. We just don’t have that word in the English language. But it’s a sense of a life that’s completely overflowing with God’s abundance and God’s goodness. That’s His plan for our lives but the devil comes along like a thief in the night and he wants to rob that goodness out of our lives. He wants to rob us of Gods best so that we can’t enjoy the super- abundant life that God has planned for us.

The question is, what does that actually look like in our lives and what can we do about it?

The deception of the devil uses with sin is truly clever. Because the deception is that what he has to offer is better than what God has to offer. He uses the allure and the excitement of the unknown to trap us, like a swindler. Have a listen, Genesis chapter 3:

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

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘you will not die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to her eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.”

Do you see what the devil did here? He created doubt in Eve’s mind by twisting the truth. He said to the woman, “Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” And then, then he dresses up evil and makes it look like something good. The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die for God knows that when you eat off it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

You’ll be like God. That was the promise. ‘That’s why God doesn’t want you to have this’ is what the devil was saying. But look at what happens the moment they’ve both eaten from the tree. Genesis chapter 3, verse 7:

“Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made loin clothes for themselves.”

See, they discovered the difference between good and evil okay. They discovered it by experiencing evil, having done it and knowing what they’d done. They knew at the instant it happened and then they had to live out the consequences of their sin by being booted out of this garden. And nothings changed. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8:

“Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour.”

And Jesus tells us exactly the way it is and in fact, He’s unmasking the deception when He says, ‘Listen, this thief, he’s coming only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life and have it super-abundantly’. He’s telling things the way they truly are. There are things in each person’s life that are calling with the deception and the seduction that is the unmistakable trademark of the devil. For some it’s pornography, for others its greed or selfishness or pride or anger.

In fact I would like to challenge you right now to think of at least one part of your life where the devil’s deception is leading you into sin, time and time again, which is robbing you of the super abundance of life that Jesus is talking about here. What’s one part of your life that’s a bit of mess at the moment? It’s not working well.

It could be your finances. Could be a particular relationship, some tension, some other person behaving badly and causing conflict and strife. Could be diabetes or high blood pressure. Now ask yourself, ‘What are the things that I’ve been doing to contribute to those situations?’

With pornography, I mean that’s a huge, huge problem. What are you doing if you’re caught up in that that leads you into that place over and over again? With your finances, what are you doing with your spending and saving habits? With your health, what are you doing about diet and exercise? With that relationship, what are you doing to bring Gods love into that situation? Or conversely, what are you doing to fan the flames of conflict.

You see we each have something in our lives where the devil is tricking us into thinking that his solution, what he has to offer, is so much better than God. That difficult person, just go and be angry with them; just go and bip them over the head. Just go and fight them. You’ll win. That’s what the devil wants you to do. And Jesus says:

“Turn the other cheek.”

If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek and get them to slap you there as well. Do you see my point? This sin isn’t some esoteric theological discussion. It’s life. It’s robbing us of life. And all the while the devil is plundering the riches of our inheritance in Christ because instead of calling his deception what it is, a lie. We get suckered in time and time and time again.

Here we are on the threshold of a new year. Let me ask you something, do you want to live life like that? Do you want to keep labouring under the consequences of sin? Do you want to continue having that awful feeling of violation as the devil gets the better of you and plunders what God has given you? Well, do you?

It is time to wake up and live differently and put a few locks on the doors and the windows so this thief can’t break in. And the best way I know of doing that is not only to pray every day which is such a blessing, but to be aware of the particular area of your life where you are weak.

Perhaps it’s your temper or your wallet or whatever it is and be aware of how the enemy comes in to deceive you and what to do when he does. God has a solution here, have a listen. James chapter 1, verses 14 and 15:

“One is tempted by ones own desire, lured and enticed by it. Then when that desire has conceived it gives birth to sin and that sin, when it’s fully grown, gives birth to death.”

The cycle of desire, being lured, enticed. Giving birth to sin and then experiencing the consequences of that sin is a terrible cycle and it’s one we’re each familiar with. So here’s the way to attack it; to deal with the devil once and for all. Sit down, pray, ask God to show you the common ways that the devil comes to tempt you.

What are the delusions of deceptions that he dangles under your nose the way he did with Adam and Eve? And then, pray some more once you have that wisdom and ask God to show you how to identify those at an early stage and what to do when you see them.

It maybe that He gives you a single scripture verse with which to fight back. It maybe that He shows you how you can behave differently at the point of luring and enticing so you can change where you are and what you’re doing so it has no power over you.

Whatever it is, God has the answers because He wants the best for you.

©

I want to share with you one of the most awesome and utterly terrifying things that I have ever seen. It’s a well-known tourist spot but you just can’t imagine it until you’ve been there. That place … that place is Niagara Falls on the border between the USA and Canada.

Every minute over 6 million cubic feet of water falls over the crest of the falls. And when you stand there on the edge behind the fence you’re literally only a few feet away from the falls themselves. With the water so powerfully and mightily rushing by you. The force, the power is so amazing that all you can do is picture yourself falling into the water and being swept away. It’s completely mind blowing.

Now, a man called William Leonard Hunt was also known as the Great Farini. His most famous tightrope performances were at Niagara Falls during 1860, starting on the 15th August. His feats included crossing a high wire with a man on his back or with a sack over his entire body, turning somersaults while on the rope, hanging from his feet and other seemingly impossible manoeuvres. Unbelievable.

But the key, the key to all that he did can be summarised in one word. And that word is balance. Just a small fault in his sense of balance and a hair’s breathe either way and he would have lost his life. Balance, it turns out, was everything for the Great Farini.

When you think about it navigating our way through our lives may not be as immediately scary as standing out there above Niagara Falls or walking on a tightrope with a man on your back. But it is no mean feat. Life, life is a tricky business, a complex business.

Look at the things we do. We’re born. We make it through our childhood hopefully with the love and the protection and guidance of our parents. We grow up into young adults. We play sport. We work. Some people end up fighting wars. A good friend of mine in Africa is a young teenager who spent months running and hiding in the jungle so that he wouldn’t be conscripted into rebel armies that were fighting one another.

We do so many, many things and they’re not one after the other either. We do so many things at once. Learning. Studying. Working. Having a family. They’re all things competing for our time and they create pressure. That’s life. And in many respects it’s no less tricky or challenging or dangerous than the Great Farini out there on that tightrope above Niagara Falls.

And balance … balance as it turns out is everything. There’s a reason for that. I mean, look at our lives, yours, mine. Look at all the things that are going on. We work. Some people work too much and that’s not good. We sacrifice our family and our health and that’s not good. And then there’s rest and play, it’s the same thing.

If you do too much rest and play you get lazy and demotivated. Not enough and you’re overworked and exhausted. Our family lives, they’re also a matter of life balance. You spend too much time with your family you get in each other’s way, you get on each other’s nerves. Not enough and the family becomes quite dysfunctional.

Eating: you eat too much you put on weight, you have disease; there are consequences. I mean there are many diseases of affluence – heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, all of those sorts of things. And if you don’t get enough you end up with diseases of poverty – malnutrition, sickness.

Money and possessions: you have too much you get greedy and your life’s out of balance. Not enough and you have nowhere to live.

Everywhere you look, every part of our lives it’s a question of balance. Too much one way or the other way and we’re off balance. And there is many a life today, many a person listening to this program today, whose life is out of balance. Some have too much others have too little. Some work too much others work too little. You know what I’m saying. And when our lives are out of balance things end up in a mess. If one leg is shorter than the other we end up hobbling instead of running. And that’s not what God wants for us.

There was a time when the Apostle Paul was doing some fundraising. There was a famine in Jerusalem and the Christians there were going hungry. So Paul being Paul laid it on some of the richer Churches that he’d planted and ministered to, to give to the needs of their fellow Christians in Jerusalem. And it’s in this context that he brings up the question of a fair balance. Let’s have a listen to what he writes to the rather wealthy Christians in Corinth. 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 13 and 14. He says:

“I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need. So that one day, their abundance may be there for your need and in order that there may be a fair balance.”

See, God is a God of balance, of fair balance. When you look at every part of our lives, including our financial capacity, there are extremes at either ends and somewhere there in the middle there’s a fair balance.

What Paul’s saying here in this passage is that at the moment you Christians in Corinth are very well off and the Christians in Jerusalem are starving. I’m not asking you to give me all of your possessions; I’m simply saying that things are out of balance and that by giving to this cause you can restore some balance in the world. Balance in your lives. Balance between your wealth and their poverty.

This concept of a fair balance is an incredibly important concept. Take it back to the tightrope, this man carrying people on his back and sacks of heavy things. It was balance that stopped him from falling to his death and being swept over the falls.

I wonder what things are out of balance in your life at the moment? A very common one is work and family particularly with so many mothers these days working. And the expectations of people in terms of their material possessions always going up and going up. We can find ourselves working longer and harder and missing out on loving our children.

I was talking with a young man – generation Y, 29 years old – part of the first generation to come home to an empty house after school because both parents were at work. He said he had good and loving parents but that in his generation and amongst his friends there was a real sense of fatherlessness, something that he still feels today.

It’s interesting the impact of a lack of balance in people’s lives. We’re about to embark on a new year. Brand new year with all it’s challenges and competing things pulling us this way and that and for most of us this time of the year is a bit of a quieter time to sit and reflect.

Let me ask you, as you reflect on the year that’s just been and on the year that lies ahead, what are the things that are out of balance? What are the parts of your life crying out for a fair balance, because a life out of balance is an uncomfortable one? Too much work you’re always tired. Too much spending on ourselves and not giving to others you end up in consumerism and it’s empty and valueless. Sometimes we just have to make some small adjustments, other times radical surgery’s required.

I’m not sure what it is in your case but I know when we take the time to think through the different parts of our lives, spiritual, financial, relationships, work, health, diet, exercise. All those different things, there are going to be some parts of our lives that, frankly, are out of balance.

And let me take you back to the picture of the Great Farini on that tightrope walking over Niagara Falls, it’s pretty obvious that we don’t have to be too far out of balance for it to have devastating effects. When you listen to Jesus preaching and teaching, He was so incredibly practical. Maybe it’s time to take the theory and to do something practical with it; to get our lives back into balance.

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