Untitled Sermon (3)

Prayer of Invitation

God’s invitation to follow Him at School of Ministry.

-five days in I was ready to go home.

-immaturity and a rejection of anything challenging.

-God preparing me for much higher callings, that would require more.

-God’s word to me in that season: You will be a leader of Leaders, and a father to many. You will go, sometimes like Gideon, with only the strength of the Lord to sustain you.

God’s invitation to follow Him to University

-Surely this was the time for God to initiate His word. I went with no resources and no break in between. THIS WAS IT! So I arrived at University as a freshman, ready to lead all the leaders. I worked so hard to lead everyone and everything, none of whom were wanting or accepting my leadership.

-two years in, I DID quit for a time, until Duncan Smith told me to go finish.

-While my calling didn’t have anything to do with Liberal Arts, my CHARACTER needed more developing, and having an “I Quit in the middle” hanging over my future development wasn’t going to serve me well.

God’s invitation to begin planting churches

-Central was comfy

-Raleigh was a challenge

-Greensboro has been both.

I know what it means to hear from the Lord, to hear from all the prophetic voices, and to wait and wait to see it happen. AND I know what it is like to try to make all the right moves to help speed it along.

So that is our preamble leading to our new sermon series on the life of Joseph, the one with the amazing technicolor dreamcoat.

introduction Today’s message is all about the wait.

The Story of Joseph is about a dreamer whose life is all about waiting, at least in the time between dreaming and realizing the dream. Joseph’s destiny was to save his family, and to make room for God’s calling on the descendants of Abraham to continue. Pretty lofty stuff.

You might assume that based on his importance to the people of God, that Joesph would receive some kind of special covering from God to keep him safe and free from difficulty, but actually we can learn from the life of Joseph that God’s purposes will be fulfilled, and sometimes that will mean challenging things for us to overcome. How we handle overcoming them, and the condition of our hearts when we are through is largely up to us, and a choice we all have to make as we walk with the Lord toward our callings.

Every one of us has a story, and a destiny, but literally right from the start we are unable to move toward it on our own. What can you do to even start the process on your own? I mean really start! What role did you play in your coming into being?

We need help from our parents to even get the story started. So we will start our sermon series on Joseph by looking at his parents, and the circumstances of his birth.

Jacob is in a domestic situation. His wife Rachel is unhappy about bearing no children. Her sister has already borne Reuben and Judah.

Ever been so frustrated that you were ready to quit?

30.2- Ever get resistance from the people who should be helping you?

30.3- Ever decide that it just wasn’t working to follow the plan, so you concoct a new plan, out of your fear, or discomfort?

30.4- What did it cost you?

30.5- What is it like for you to kinda get a little bit of what you are hoping for?

30.6- Dan is a strong name. What about when your new plan seems to be more fruitful than waiting?

30.7- so you keep going with the new plan.

30.8- wait a second, when did it become about beating your peers? But oh man, don’t we love to compare ourselves to others?

30.9- suddenly now there’s even more competition for Jacob’s attention, and also more bad fruit (leah had stopped conceiving)

30.10- when we lose our patience with God, others can be fruitful, and it feels like a slap in the face to us, instead of remaining patient and rejoicing for them.

30.11- when we are waiting for the dream to come true, other people seem to be God’s favorite.

30.12 -like really, everyone else is getting theirs, when do I get mine?

30.13- our own issues don’t seem to be dragging down everyone else, for some reason. How dare they be happy, don’t they know I am suffering?

30.14-humility has a way of working its way back into our hearts. Ever find yourself needing to lean on the fruitfulness of someone you’ve judged? OUCH!

30.15- we can give up our place within God’s purposes for so little! When we are uncomfortable with the waiting, we will be tempted by lesser and lesser things, until one day we trade our place for a meal. Yeesh.

30.16-don’t be surprised when that meal is unsatisfying.

30.17- what about when you have totally given up, and yet somehow others around you keep being blessed?

30.18- even when others have totally wrong theology, somehow they keep being fruitful, while you just have to wait!?

30.19- And wait!

30.20- Oh no, now it’s really got to be over right?

30.21- yup, totally done. What was I even dreaming about that for?

30.22- God has a really good memory, and His callings are irrevocable

30.23- when God comes through, we don’t even count the struggles as worthy of considering anymore

30.24- he wipes away every tear, and makes us hungry again.

How can we survive the wait?

Don’t blame others

Don’t blame God

Don’t blame yourself!

Don’t try to take control

Don’t consider the cost as too high

Don’t veer from the path in pursuit of false comforts, or half-way dreams

DO trust in the goodness of God

DO let the fruit of the Spirit (patience) grow in you

Forgive Forgive Forgive

When we DO veer, repent! Change our path and return to God.

Remain humble.

Serve others, and their dreams. (Joseph served Pharoah first)

Receiving the promises, the callings, the dreams, can be so exciting. But then God will give us a road to walk to begin to enter into that calling.

God is not teasing you with that waiting. He is building you and preparing you. And, believe it or not, he knows that it’s uncomfortable. Jesus waited. He was willing to engage with his calling at age 12 in the temple, but most of what we know of his 33 years is his two year infancy, and his adult years. in the middle he waited.

So we need grace, we need the Holy Spirit to comfort us, we need to celebrate each other and all the victories along the way.

Let’s pray.