No Regerts WK 2

Legacy Q: What Story Do You Want to Tell?

Intro:

Welcome everyone to week 2 of the series. Let people know if they are here every week they get a T shirt.

There is one thing we all have in common! We all love a good story. Would you agree?

We were all laughing at that story. Whether is a crazy story, a funny story, a movie, a tv show, a friend story. We all love a good story!

This is great, but also it gives us a lot of responsibility. Why? well because if you really think about it. We are all continuously writing our own story. Like we did with the mad lib, we are writing a story. In fact I would be willing to say that

We write the story of our lives one decision at a time.

Give examples. Emotional reaction, a bad score because we didn’t study, a good decision.

Remind people we are talking about book, and also we are in series No regerts and this series is really a series about Good question and good decisions.

Good questions set us up for good decisions.

Ask, Answer honestly, Act = Better decisions and few regrets.

Proverbs 27:12 “The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.”

This series and this verse remind you to look beyond the immediate.

Tension:

Today we are going to ask another one fo the five questions.

The Legacy Question: What Story Do I Want to Tell?

Anytime you make any decision of magnitude, every decision you make is writing a story. This questions helps you really think. What story am I going to tell?

Do you want to be the hero or the villain? Do you want this to be a story you want to be told, or a story that you hope no one ever tells?

Which option, which decision will make this story a story that you are proud of?

What decision will be the story you want to tell?

Here is the good news about all of this.

You get to decide one decision at a time.

Every decision you make has an outcome, a result, good or bad, a consequence. Every decision matters, and it becomes a permanent part of your story.

Give examples of stories.

When you make any decision you need to ask, what story do I want to tell?

The decision you are wrestling with right now, will just become a story you will tell some day.

The challenging part is this, we don’t think this way.

My girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with me, so I started dating around and spreading bad rumors about my ex, and making choices I shouldn’t and now I barely feel like I know myself. That’s not a good story.

I lost someone close to me and it hurt me so much so I began hurting other and becoming cold to my friends and shutting people out.

Listen. Both fo these stories suck, and I am so sorry if you are walking through something hard. Some of you are walking through times of life, that I can even begin to understand.

But the decisions you make in the valley, are the stories you’ll tell on the other side.

Something I think you’d like to be able to do is tell your entire story without skipping any parts or without skipping any chapters or having to lie about the details.

If you wanna live a life you can tell people someday in this way, you gotta look at decision-by decision and ask which of these options do I truly want apart of my story? Let’s dive more into this idea.

Truth:

One of the reasons it is so hard for us to make decisions is because the emotions or the pressure often shift our focus from the ultimate to the immediate.

You have to meet this deadline, do this thing you know you shouldn’t do with me or I am leaving you, cheat on the test or you’ll get a bad grade. Decisions aren’t easy, and the pressure of the moment can cause us to only think about the immediate.

Throwing a ball at Olen.

I definitely only thought about the immediate there. That decision is now apart of my permanent story. That story the immediate and the permanent kind of sucked.

Do you think I would have made that decision if I had asked myself, “Hey Joel, do you want this in your story?” Absolutely not. But the pressure and the anger, just made me not stop and be wise.

I would be willing to take a gamble and say that every person in this room. Your Worst decision was fueled by emotional appeal. Something happened that caused you to think in terms of options and not story, and you chose the wrong option. It was so appealing that you smoked it, that you ate it, that you dated him or her, that you cheated.

Target story. One of the worst things I could do is let someone leave without making a sale. Why because the emotional appeal begins to subside.

Our minds can be so similar. If we can just get out of the moment and the pressure we will a lot of times begin to actually think rationally. GET OUT OF THE TARGET OF YOUR HEAD. Psychologists actually call this Focalism. This is defined by the hype focus on one things, pretty much to the neglect of everything else.

Focalism.

If you have ever been in love you probably realize this can be proven. That first three months is like phew. All I want is you and that is it.

The point is this, whenever we are in an emotionally charged environment we think in terms of

Our options and not our story.

Anything with strong emotional appeal should trigger a red flag, not a green light.

Not because it’s not necessarily the right thing, but because even the right thing clouds our judgment.

It is smartest to press pause not play, take a step back and just think, what story do I want to tell? It may be the right decisions, but you gotta think before you make it. Get advice from someone wise.

Joseph story

Joseph was Jacobs favorite son, and he had a God given dream and all of this caused jealousy in the brothers. So the 10 brothers decided to kill Joseph, but at the end lost their nerve and sold him into slavery. Came back home and broke their fathers heart by lying and saying Joseph was killed by a wild animal.

The brothers don’t have a good story to tell. In fact, they are now liars for life.

Please do not make a decision that makes you a liar for life. Whatever you gain in the moment will never compare to the pain that will come in the moments that follow.

Jospeh get sold into slavery, and ends up being bought by Potiphar a military official, Joseph has a decision to make, do I run, do i do everything with a bad attitude. Or do I throw myself into this and do the best I can.

This story is so relatable, because so far none of this is Jospehs fault. Like seriously. A ton of his story has been hijacked, just like parts of your story too. So why care? Why try?

Somehow Joseph overcomes this temptation to just give up and he decides to serve Potiphars household as if it were his own. Potiphar ends up making Joseph in charge of his entire household. If you think about it, this starts to seem like a story worth telling.

Things change pretty quickly though when his story gets intersected with Potiphars wife.

Potiphars wife insists that he becomes her lover. Regardless of what decision he made here it seemed like a no win situation. He was only 19 or 20 years old. Once again though Joseph fights the temptation and opts to take the high road and a better story. It at this point when Joseph does something that is a POWERFUL Technique and we should all take this and learn it. Heres what he does.

I am going to paraphrase the first part of this story and then read the second part straight from the Bible.

Mrs. Potiphar I came to this land as a slave. I had no rights and no future. Your husband purchased me. I did my best to serve him and you. Through hard work and God’s help, I have gained the trust of your husband. He has put me in charge of the entire household.

In other words. The story keeps getting better and better.

Then he says this and I quote.

Genesis 39:8-9 “But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife.

Implication is he is actually telling Potiphars wife, Hey this is your story too. Do you really want an affair with a Hebrew slave to be apart of your story?

In light of everything Joseph steps back into the broadest context of all and he asks this question.

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

In other words, why would I want to add adultery to what is turning out to be a pretty good story? With an ending I didn't know was possible? In other words Joseph is literally out-loud REHEARSING his story out loud and saying Mrs. Potiphar why what story do I want to tell?

There are two stories to tell here.

Your Husband entrusted me and opportunity i didn’t know was possible. So I continued to be faithful to Him and the God who has always been watching over me.

Your Husband entrusted me and opportunity i didn’t know was possible. So I took advantage of his trust and had an affair with his wife.

Which story do I wanna tell?

Joseph did the right thing

Now Potiphars wife goes on and accuses Joseph of raping her because she was furious that he didn’t do it.

But Josephs story doesn’t end there. Jospeh ends up in a dungeon, but he continues to make good decisions and God gives him the ability to interpret dreams eventually the pharoah of Egypt like the big guy has a dream that no one else can interpret. So he hears of Joseph pulls him out of prison and ask him to interpret the dream. Jospeh says he can’t the whole room goes silent. But Jospeh then responds and says my God can. So he interprets the dreams.

He tells Pharoah that Egypt is about to have 7 years of record breaking grain intake, which was like a huge deal back then because without grain you and no bread and without bread those days, people would starve. After these 7 years there will be an awful famine that will wipe out everything. So he tells Pharoah some advice, which was not usually a good idea. I can imagine the room going silent again when Jospeh tells Pharoah that someone needs to be focused on this everyday and saving the grain for the famine. Someone needs to be in charge.

The pharoah responds and recognizes that God is with Jospeh and believes Joseph and he literally puts Jospeh in charge and gives him as much authority as even he himself had. Jospeh went from a prisoner to prime minister.

This story ends with what Jospeh predicted would happen. A famine hit so hard, but Egypt was prepared with enough grain that other parts of the world who were starving has to come buy some from egypt. Some of those people were Josephs brother that sold him out, and Jospeh immediately recognized them. He had another decision to make. He had so much authority he could have done anything to them. When Jospeh reveals it is him the brothers are terrified because they know what is about to come. But here is the whole point of this story.

Jospeh refused to react, and in refusing to react he avoided becoming the people he didn’t like. So he made the decision to not only save Egypt, but he saved his whole family and their families.

He decided against the temptation of bitterness, against the temptation of revenge. He showed mercy. Because Joseph decided to not give the power to evil, revenge, unforgiveness, he is free to write a better story.

Imagine:

I tell you Josephs story because his decisions made his story worth telling.

Imagine if your story is worth telling some day? Imagine if you make the right decisions. Even when life gets hard, even when your whole life seems interrupted and forced in a direction you couldn’t control. Will continue to be faithful? Will continue to refuse to react to emotions and feelings and ask yourself what story do I want to tell?

If you will do this you will live a story worth telling.

Close by talking about the potential in the room.