two different responses…

now there are two different responses to an unexpected storm.  matthew 8.24-25 (niv), without warning a furious storm came up on the lake so that the waves swept over the boat.  but JESUS was sleeping.  the disciples went and woke him up saying, “LORD, save us!  we’re going to drown.”

this shows how serious the reaction was and how serious the storm was.  these disciples were not novices.  they were professional fishermen.  they grew up on this lake.  it wasn’t just a little choppy water.  if they thought they were going to die, this must have been a life-threatening storm because these guys were pros and the pros panicked.  that’s how serious it was. 

the greek word for storm here is the word we get seismograph from.  what does a seismograph do?  it rates earthquakes.  the word literally means “violent shaking”.  it says the waves swept over the boat.  if you’ve ever been in that kind of situation you know that’s scary.  so they panicked.

compare that to JESUS’ reaction to the storm.  HE was filled with peace.  it says a furious storm came up on the lake and the waves swept over the boat and in at the end of verse 24 it says, but JESUS was sleeping.  sleeping!  you talk about a heavy sleeper!  these guys are professionals but the water’s pouring in and JESUS is sawing logs! 

this tells me two things about JESUS:  one, HE’s human.  HE had just taught all day and HE was worn out.  HE was fatigued and HE needed HIS sleep.  JESUS understands when you get tired and fatigued.  HE understands.  HE’s been there. 

but it also tells us that HE wasn't worried.  HE knew the FATHER would take care of HIM.  this is a picture of complete trust in GOD.  HE’s not worried about the storm.  HE’s sleeping through it.  i think HE was giving a visual object lesson.  HE set an example for HIS disciples. 

did you know that sometimes sleeping can be a statement of faith? “i’m not going to worry about it.  i can’t do anything about it. i’m going to bed!  i trust GOD.”  sleeping can be a statement of faith.  it says i’m trusting GOD.  i’m not worried about it. 

isn’t this typical?  ironically, human reaction is the opposite. usually when a crisis occurs we lose sleep.  when a crisis happens, our mind goes into overdrive, we lay awake wide-eyed with our minds going a mile a minute, worrying.  americans spend over a half a billion dollars a year on sleeping aids.  why?  because we live in a very fearful society. 

but the point here is that JESUS could sleep anywhere.  HE’s not afraid.  the boat is crashing in the waves and HE’s sawing logs!

just a thought from the front porch…

reacting because they remind you…

there are three tests to see who we are to forgive.  we looked yesterday at the blame test and the bitterness test and here is the third one, the behavior test.

this one goes like this: do you ever find yourself reacting to someone because they remind you of somebody else?  “you’re just like my father/mother/ brother/sister.” 

what you’ve done is you’ve never done business with the original person and never settled that issue and you’ve never let it go so now what you’ve done is you’ve taken all that frustration and anger and resentment and you’ve turned it on this innocent party so that all of a sudden in a moment they remind you of somebody else and you explode.  and that’s not fair and you are killing the marriage. 

listen, you need to do business with the person you’re really angry at.  you need to let it go and then you can get on with your life and not let some other relationship destroy a current relationship.  maybe it’s a former spouse or whatever. 

job 5.2 (gnt) says, to worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do. 

in the story in matthew 18 that we have been looking at, when the man refused to be forgiving to other people the king says throw him into prison and let the torturers have him.

when you start being resentful GOD doesn’t have to throw you into prison you do it to yourself.  resentment is a self-imposed prison and every time you go over and over and over it in your mind you just hurt yourself again instead of getting on with your life and living a life of peace. 

listen, you cannot afford the luxury of a bitter heart no matter what happens in your life.  you cannot hold on to it.  it only makes it worse. 

i don’t know what you’ve gone through but you’ve got to let it go because god has forgiven you and because resentment doesn’t work.  it only makes you miserable.  it only prolongs the pain. 

just a thought from the front porch… 

life repeats itself...

joseph shared the dream, that was his reaction but jacob, his father, had a little bit different reaction. 

genesis 37.10-11 (niv), when he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said,  “what is this dream you had?  will your mother and i and your brothers actually come and bow down before you?”  his brothers are jealous of him but his father kept this matter in mind, kept thinking about it.

jacob rebuked the dream.  jacob, a man who had two dreams himself, hears about the two dreams his son joseph had had and asks, “what are you talking about?”  he couldn’t see in his own child’s life the very things that GOD had done in his life. 

it’s easy for us to miss that isn’t it, parents?  GOD’s doing in our children’s lives the very thing HE’s done in our lives and we miss it.  jacob certainly did.  but he didn’t entirely miss it.  the bible says he did keep the matter in mind.  he thought about it.

then there was a third reaction, the brothers.  joseph shared the dream, jacob rebuked the dream, and the brothers hated the dreamer.  they didn’t care about the dream; they just went straight for joseph.  they hated him.  they were jealous of him. 

it’s interesting how jacob had set up in his family the very thing that he’d experienced as a boy.  as a boy, he and his brother esau had been separated from each other because the parents favored one over the other.  here’s jacob repeating the pattern in his own family.  here’s jacob who was the younger of the brothers and who does he love the most?  the younger of the brothers.  he loves this one more than the others and it separates him from all the rest of the sons in the household.

joseph and jacob and the brothers, all had different reactions to this dream and i want to give you something to watch for as we continue in this study, a question to think about.  which of these three are going to be most used of GOD to accomplish, to begin the process of accomplishing this GOD given dream? 

is it going to be joseph and some decision he makes?  is jacob going to turn around and begin to see the light and do something that encourages joseph to begin to go in the right way?  who’s it going to be?

it’s going to be, believe it or not, the brothers.  the ones who hate him.  the ones who are furthest from GOD’s will in this thing are going to be the ones most used of GOD to begin the process of accomplishing this dream. 

GOD’s amazing that way.  HE can take the worst things that satan tries to throw at us and turn them around for HIS good.  notice as we go through this story how GOD uses the brothers to begin this process of making the dream come true.

just a thought from the front porch...

a dream to motivate our life…

we have been looking for awhile here on the front porch at a man named Jacob from the old testament but we are now going to look at one of his son’s whose name was joseph.

if you start to read in genesis 37 about joseph's life you’ll find out that he’s a very different man than his father jacob.  jacob was a schemer.  joseph was a dreamer.  that’s the difference.  they’re very different people.  

now we look at jacob and think, “that’s me.  those are the things i face in my life.  that’s the struggles i’ve been through.” but you’re not going to feel quite the same way about joseph.  we all relate to jacob but we can all be inspired by joseph. jacob is a person we look at and say, “that’s where i am.”  joseph is a person we look at and say, “that’s where i’d like to be.”

we all need a dream to motivate our life.  have you ever felt, “i know what’s right to do.  i know what i should be doing.  but i just don’t feel like doing it today.”?

some of you need to hear GOD speaking a dream into your heart beyond your present expectation of what HE can do in your life.  you need HIM to just explode the idea of what HE could do in your life.  others of you need to recognize the dream that’s right around you.  some of you parents, your GOD-given dream, believe it or not, is your kids.  what you do in their lives and what you give into their lives, GOD’s going to change the world through them.  you need to recognize the GOD given dream that’s right there.

joseph.  genesis 37.5-8 (msg), joseph had a dream. when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. he said, “listen to this dream i had. we were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. all of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine.”  his brothers said, “so! you’re going to rule us? you’re going to boss us around?” and they hated him more than ever because of his dreams and the way he talked.

there are some immediate reactions to the dream.  he has the dream and the first thing he does is shared the dream.  that’s a reaction.  that’s what many of us want to do.  as soon as we get a GOD given dream we want to share it with anyone and everyone, especially with somebody who was in the dream like joseph’s brothers. 

not a good idea!  but we often make this mistake.  we share the dream with the wrong people at the wrong time.  even when it’s a GOD-given dream. 

we’re so excited about it and we just want somebody to know.  we share the dream with the wrong people at the wrong time and all of a sudden they immediately start to try to quench the dream in our lives.  if it’s a GOD given dream, it’s going to last.  have you ever had that experience of somebody trying to quench your dream? 

just a thought from the front porch…