CHAPTER 13: JOSEPH
(WHEN CRICKETS MAKE YOU CRANKY)
{Gen. 37:18-24,28; 50:15-20}
1. Anger. This morning it’s easy to define: the noise of the soul. Anger. The unseen irritant of the heart. Anger. The relentless invader of silence. Just like the cricket, anger irritates. Just like the cricket, anger isn’t easily silenced. Just like the cricket, anger has a way of increasing in volume until it’s the only sound we hear. The louder it gets the more desperate we become.
2. When we are mistreated, our animalistic response is to go on the hunt. Instinctively, we double up our fists. Getting even is only natural. Which, incidentally, is precisely the problem. Revenge is natural, not spiritual. Getting even is the rule of the jungle. Giving grace is the rule of the kingdom.
Yesterday you can’t alter, but your reaction to yesterday you can. The past you cannot change, but your response to your past you can.
Revenge is within Joseph’s power. And there is power in revenge. Intoxicating power. Haven’t we tasted it? Haven’t we been tempted to get even?
3. For you, I have this question: Who made you God? I don’t mean to be cocky, but why are you doing His work for Him?
“Vengeance is Mine,” God declared. “I will repay” (Heb. 10:30 NKJV).
“Don’t say, ‘I’ll pay you back for the wrong you did.’ Wait for the Lord, and He will make things right” (Prov. 20:22).
Judgment is God’s job. To assume otherwise is to assume God can’t do it.
4. “You meant to hurt me, but God turned your evil into good to save the lives of many people, which is being done” (v. 20). Forgiveness comes easier with a wide-angle lens. Joseph uses one to get the whole picture. He refuses to focus on the betrayal of his brothers without also seeing the loyalty of his God. It always helps to see the big picture.
5. To forgive someone is to admit our limitations. We’ve been given only one piece of life’s jigsaw puzzle. Only God has the cover of the box. To forgive someone is to display reverence. Forgiveness is not saying the one who hurt you was right. Forgiveness is stating that God is fair and He will do what is right. After all, don’t we have enough things to do without trying to do God’s work too?
CHAPTER 14: DAVID
(FACING YOUR GIANTS)
{1 Sam 17:20-24, 45-50, NIV}
1. Your Goliath doesn’t carry sword or shield; he brandishes blades of unemployment, abandonment, sexual abuse, or depression. Your giant doesn’t parade up and down the hills of Elah; he prances through your office, your bedroom, your classroom. He brings bills you can’t pay, grades you can’t make, people you can’t please, whiskey you can’t resist, pornography you can’t refuse, a career you can’t escape, a past you can’t shake, and a future you can’t face. You know well the roar of Goliath.
2. “David asked the men standing near him, ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’” (17:26 NIV). David shows up discussing God. The soldiers mentioned nothing about Him, the brothers never spoke His name, but David takes one step onto the stage and raises the subject of the living God. He does the same with king Saul: no chitchat about the battle or questions about the odds. Just a God-birthed announcement: “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (17:37 NKJV).
3. No one else discusses God. David discusses no one else but God. A subplot appears in the story. More than “David versus Goliath,” this is “God-focus versus giant-focus”. David majors in God. He sees the giant, mind you; he just sees God more so. Look carefully at David’s battle cry: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (17:45 NKJV).
4. Try a different tack. Rush your giant with a God-saturated soul. How long since you loaded your sling and took a swing at your giant? Too long, you say? Then David is your model. God called him “a man after My own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV). A man after God’s own heart? That God saw him as such gives hope to us all. David’s life has little to offer the unstained saint. Straight-A souls find David’s story disappointing. The rest of us find it reassuring. We ride the same roller coaster. We alternate between swan dives and belly flops, soufflés and burnt toast. In David’s good moments, no one was better. In his bad moments, could one be worse?The heart God loved was a checkered one.
Giants. We must face them. Yet we need not face them alone. Focus first, and most, on God. The times David did, giants fell. The days he didn’t, David did.
5. I count nine references. God-thoughts outnumber Goliath-thoughts nine to two. How does this ratio compare with yours? Do you ponder God’s grace four times as much as you ponder your guilt? Is your list of blessings four times as long as your list of complaints? Is your mental file of hope four times as thick as your mental file of dread? Are you four times as likely to describe the strength of God as you are the demands of your day? No? Then David is your man.
Focus on giants—you stumble.
Focus on God—your giants tumble.
Lift your eyes, giant-slayer. The God who made a miracle out of David stands ready to make one out of you.
CHAPTER 15: ESTHER
(TOUCHING THE KING'S HEART)
{Esther 4:13-16; 7:2-3}
1. God is moved by our sincerity. The “earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power” (James 5:16 TLB). Because we are His children, God hears ours. The King of creation gives special heed to the voice of His family. He is not only willing to hear us, He loves to hear us. He even tells us what to ask Him. “Thy kingdom come”.
2. Jesus tells how to begin. “When you pray, pray like this. ‘Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come’”. When you say, “Thy kingdom come,” you are inviting the Messiah Himself to walk into your world. “Come, my King! Take Your throne in our land. Be present in my heart. Be present in my office. Come into my marriage. Be Lord of my family, my fears, and my doubts”. This is no feeble request; it’s a bold appeal for God to occupy every corner of your life.
“So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need” (Heb. 4:16).
3. Esther, Mordecai’s adopted daughter, became queen by winning a Miss Persia contest. In one day she went from obscurity to royalty, and in more ways than one she reminds you of you. Both of you are residents of the palace: Esther, the bride of Xerxes and you, the bride of Christ. Both of you have access to the throne of the king, and you both have a counselor to guide and teach you. Your counselor is the Holy Spirit. Esther’s counselor was Mordecai.
4. Haman gets Mordecai’s rope. Mordecai gets Haman’s job. Esther gets a good night’s sleep. The Jews live to see another day. And we get a dramatic reminder of what happens when we approach our King. Like Esther, we have been plucked out of obscurity and given a place in the palace.
Like Esther, we have royal robes; she was dressed in cloth, we are dressed in righteousness.
Like Esther, we have the privilege of making our request.
CHAPTER 16: JOB
(WHEN MAN COVERS HIS MOUTH)
{Job 1:1-3, 2:6-8, 40:1-4}
1. There are times when to speak is to violate the moment . . . when silence represents the highest respect. The word for such times is reverence. The prayer for such times is “Hallowed be thy name”. Only you and God are here, and you can surmise who occupies the throne. Don’t worry about having the right words; worry more about having the right heart. It’s not eloquence He seeks, just honesty.
2. God floods the sky with queries, and Job cannot help but get the point: Only God defines God. You’ve got to know the alphabet before you can read, and God tells Job, “You don’t even know the ABC’s of heaven, much less the vocabulary”. For the first time, Job is quiet. Silenced by a torrent of questions. Does Job get the message? I think so. Listen to his response. “I am not worthy; I cannot answer you anything, so I will put my hand over my mouth” (40:4).
Notice the change. Before he heard God, Job couldn’t speak enough. After he heard God, he couldn’t speak at all.The word for such moments is reverence: “Hallowed be Thy name”.
3. This phrase is a petition, not a proclamation. A request, not an announcement. Hallowed be your name. Do whatever it takes to be holy in my life. Take Your rightful place on the throne. Exalt Yourself. Magnify Yourself. Glorify Yourself. You be Lord, and I’ll be quiet. The word hallowed comes from the word holy, and the word holy means “to separate”. The ancestry of the term can be traced back to an ancient word which means “to cut”. To be holy, then, is to be a cut above the norm, superior, extraordinary. The Holy One dwells on a different level from the rest of us. What frightens us does not frighten Him. What troubles us does not trouble Him.
When you set your sights on our God, you focus on one “a cut above” any storm life may bring.Like Job, you find peace in the pain.Like Job, you cover your mouth and sit still.“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). This verse contains a command with a promise.The command?Be still.Cover your mouth.Bend your knees.The promise? You will know that I am God.
CHAPTER 17: NICODEMUS
(THE MOST FAMOUS CONVERSATION IN THE BIBLE)
{John 3:1-17, NKJV}
1. Nicodemus inhabits a land of good efforts, sincere gestures, and hard work. Give God your best, his philosophy says, and God does the rest. Jesus’ response? Your best won’t do. Your works don’t work. Your finest efforts don’t mean squat. Unless you are born again, you can’t even see what God is up to.
2. Jesus doesn’t crack a smile. “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (v. 5 NKJV). About this time a gust of wind blows a few leaves through the still-open door. Jesus picks one off the floor and holds it up. God’s power works like that wind, Jesus explains. Newborn hearts are born of heaven. You can’t wish, earn, or create one. New birth? Inconceivable. God handles the task, start to finish.
3. He who did it first must do it again. The original creator recreates his creation. This is the act that Jesus describes.
Born: God exerts the effort.
Again: God restores the beauty.
We don’t try again. We need, not the muscle of self, but a miracle of God.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life".
4. A twenty-six-word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same. Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions. If you know nothing of the Bible, start here. If you know everything in the Bible, return here. We all need the reminder. The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human. And God’s treatment is prescribed in John 3:16.
CHAPTER 18: JAIRUS
(THE SPARKLE FROM ETERNITY)
{Luke 8:41-56}
1. Peace where there should be pain. Confidence in the midst of crisis. Hope defying despair. That’s what that look says. It is a look that knows the answer to the question asked by every mortal, “Does death have the last word?” I can see Jesus wink as He gives the answer. “Not on your
life”.
CHAPTER 19: RICH YOUNG RULER
(THE AFFLUENT POOR)
{Matt 19:16-26 NIV}
1. Jesus gets to the point. “If you want to be perfect, then go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven”. The statement leaves the young man distraught and the disciples bewildered. Their question could be ours: “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ answer shell-shocks the listeners, “With man this is impossible“.
2. Does that strike you as cold? All your life you’ve been rewarded according to your performance. You get grades according to your study. You get commendations according to your success. You get money in response to your work. That’s why the rich young ruler thought heaven was just a payment away. It only made sense. You work hard, you pay your dues, and “zap”— your account is credited as paid in full. Jesus says, “No way”. What you want costs far more than what you can pay. You don’t need a system, you need a Savior. You don’t need a resume, you need a Redeemer. For “what is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27 NIV).
3. Mark it down. God does not save us because of what we’ve done. Only a puny god could be bought with tithes. Only an egotistical god would be impressed with our pain. Only a temperamental god could be satisfied by sacrifices. Only a heartless god would sell salvation to the highest bidders. And only a great God does for his children what they can’t do for themselves. That is the message of Paul: “For what the law was powerless to do...God did” (Rom 8:3 NIV). And that is the message of the first beatitude from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
4. The jewel of joy is given to the impoverished spirits, not the affluent. God’s delight is received upon surrender, not awarded upon conquest. The first step to joy is a plea for help, an acknowledgment of moral destitution, an admission of inward paucity. Those who taste God’s presence have declared spiritual bankruptcy and are aware of their spiritual crisis. Their cupboards are bare. Their pockets are empty. Their options are gone. They have long since stopped demanding justice; they are pleading for mercy. They don’t brag; they beg.
5. It’s a different path, a path we’re not accustomed to taking. We don’t often declare our impotence. Admission of failure is not usually admission into joy. Complete confession is not commonly followed by total pardon. But then again, God has never been governed by what is common.
CHAPTER 20: SARAH, PETER, AND PAUL
(THE KINGDOM OF THE ABSURD)
{Genesis 18:10-12 NIV, Luke 4:5-7 NIV, Acts 9:1-6 NIV}
1. Sarai is just as amused. When she hears the news, a cackle escapes before she can contain it. She mumbles something about her husband’s needing a lot more than what he’s got and then laughs again. They laugh because that is what you do when someone says he can do the impossible. They laugh a little at God, and a lot with God—for God is laughing, too. Then, with the smile still on his face, he gets busy doing what he does best—the unbelievable. He changes a few things—beginning with their names. Abram, the father of one, will now be Abraham, the father of a multitude. Sarai, the barren one, will now be Sarah, the mother.
2. But their names aren’t the only things God changes. He changes their minds. He changes their faith. He changes the way they define the word impossible. But most of all, he changes Sarah’s attitude about trusting God. Were she to hear Jesus’ statement about being poor in spirit, she could give a testimony: “He’s right. I do things my way, I get a headache. I let God take over, I get a son. You try to figure that out“.
3. “It was quite a scene: four fishermen in two boats, knee-deep in fish, and one carpenter seated on our bow, relishing the pandemonium. “That’s when I realized who He was. And that’s when I realized who I was: I was the one who told God what He couldn’t do! “‘Go away from me, Lord; I’m a sinful man’. There wasn’t anything else I could say. “I don’t know what He saw in me, but He didn’t leave. Maybe He thought if I would let Him tell me how to fish, I would let Him tell me how to live. “It was a scene I would see many times over the next couple of years—in cemeteries with the dead, on hillsides with the hungry, in storms with the frightened, on roadsides with the sick. The characters would change, but the theme wouldn’t. When we would say, ‘No way,’ He would say, ‘My way’. Then the ones who doubted would scramble to salvage the blessing. And the One who gave it would savor the surprise”.
“My power shows up best in weak people” (2 Cor. 12:9 TLB).
4. Paul ended up bewildered and befuddled in a borrowed bedroom. God left him there a few days with scales on his eyes so thick that the only direction he could look was inside himself. And he didn’t like what he saw. He saw himself for what he really was—to use his own words, the worst of sinners (1 Tim.1:15 NIV). A legalist. A killjoy. A bumptious braggart who claimed to have mastered God’s code. A dispenser of justice who weighed salvation on a panscale. That’s when Ananias found him. He wasn’t much to look at—haggard and groggy after three days of turmoil. Sarai wasn’t much to look at either, nor was Peter. But what the three have in common says more than a volume of systematic theology. For when they gave up, God stepped in, and the result was a roller-coaster ride straight into the kingdom.
5. The message is gripping: Show a man his failures without Jesus, and the result will be found in the roadside gutter. Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three-piece suit. But get the two in the same heart—get sin to meet Savior and Savior to meet sin—and the result just might be another Pharisee turned preacher who sets the world on fire. Four people: the rich young ruler, Sarah, Peter, Paul. A curious thread strings the four together—their names. The final three had their names changed—Sarai to Sarah, Simon to Peter, Saul to Paul. But the first one, the young yuppie, is never mentioned by name.
Perhaps that’s the clearest explanation of the first beatitude. The one who made a name for himself is nameless. But the ones who called on Jesus’ name—and his name only—got new names and, even more, new life.
CHAPTER 21: LAZARUS
(THE FINAL WITNESS)
{John 11:1-3, 17-23, 33-35, 38-44}
1. John doesn’t tell us everything Jesus did. But he tells us those acts that will lead us to faith. John selects seven miracles. He begins softly with the quiet miracle of water to wine and then crescendos to the public resurrection of Lazarus. Seven miracles are offered, and seven witnesses are examined, each one building on the testimony of the previous.
2. Six testimonies have been given. Six miracles have been verified. John gestures toward the table where sit the articles of evidence: The water jugs that held the wine. The signed affidavit of the doctor who’d treated the sick son. The cot of the cripple, the basket of the boy. Peter had brought a broken oar to show the strength of the storm. And the blind man had left his cup and cane. He didn’t need to beg anymore. “And now,” John says, turning to the judge, “we have one final witness to call and one more piece of evidence to submit”. He goes to his table and returns with a white linen sheet. You lean forward, unsure of what he is holding. “This is a burial shroud,” he explains. Placing the clothing on the table he requests, “Your honor permitting, I call our final witness to the chair, Lazarus of Bethany”.
3. Jesus’ voice fills the courtroom. “I represent an orphan who is the sum of all you have seen. Like the party that had no wine, this one has no cause for celebration. Like the dignitary’s son, this child is spiritually ill. Like the cripple and the beggar, he can’t walk and is blind. He is starving, but earth has no food to fill him. He faces storms as severe as the one on Galilee, but earth has no compass to guide him. And most of all, he is dead. Just like Lazarus. Dead. Spiritually dead”. “I will do for him what I did for them. I’ll give him joy, strength, healing, sight, safety, nourishment, new life. All are his. If you will permit”.
4. The judge speaks his answer. “You are my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with You” (Luke 3:22). God looks at you. “I will permit it,” He says, “on one condition. That the orphan request it”.
John has presented the witnesses.
The witnesses have told their stories.
The Master has offered to do for you what He did for them. He will bring wine to your table, sight to your eyes, strength for your step and, most of all, power over your grave. He will do for you what He did for them.
The Judge has given his blessing. The rest is up to you.
Now the choice is yours.
CHAPTER 22: PETER
(THE GOSPEL OF THE SECOND CHANCE)
{Mark 16:1-7 NIV}
“But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee”.
1. If I might paraphrase the words, “Don’t stay here, go tell the disciples,” a pause, then a smile, “and especially tell Peter, that he is going before you to Galilee”. What a line. It’s as if all of heaven had watched Peter fall—and it’s as if all of heaven wanted to help him back up again. “Be sure and tell Peter that he’s not left out. Tell him that one failure doesn’t make a flop”. Whew! No wonder they call it the gospel of the second chance.
2. Not many second chances exist in the world today. Nowadays it’s more like, “It’s now or never”. “Around here we don’t tolerate incompetence”. “Gotta get tough to get along”. “Not much room at the top”. “Three strikes and you’re out”. Sure you can have a second chance. Just ask Peter.
3. It’s not every day that you get a second chance. Peter must have known that. The next time he saw Jesus, he got so excited that he barely got his britches on before he jumped into the cold water of the Sea of Galilee. It was also enough, so they say, to cause this backwoods Galilean to carry the gospel of the second chance all the way to Rome where they killed him. If you’ve ever wondered what would cause a man to be willing to be crucified upside down, maybe now you know.
It’s not every day that you find someone who will give you a second chance—much less someone who will give you a second chance every day.But in Jesus, Peter found both.
CONCLUSION
1. In fact, some of their antics and attitudes would make you think of the Saturday night crowd at the county jail. What few halos there are among this cast of characters could probably use a bit of straightening and polishing. Yet, strange as it may seem, it is this very humanness that makes them refreshing. So refreshing that should you ever need a reminder of God’s tolerance, you’d find it in these people. If you ever wonder how in the world God could use you to change the world, look at these people:
• Remember Abraham, the father of a nation who wasn’t without his weaknesses. He had a fibbing tongue that wouldn’t stop.
• Let’s not fail to mention Jonah. God’s ambassador to Nineveh. God put him in a whale’s belly to bring him back to his senses.
• And on and on the stories go: Elijah, the prophet who pouted; Solomon, the king who knew too much; Jacob, the wheeler-dealer; Gomer, the prostitute.
One story after another of God using man’s best and overcoming man’s worst.
2. The reassuring lesson is clear. God used (and uses!) people to change the world. People! Not saints or superhumans or geniuses, but people. Crooks, creeps, lovers, and liars—he uses them all. And what they may lack in perfection, God makes up for in love.
3. Jesus later summarized God’s stubborn love with a parable. He told about a teenager who decided that life at the farm was too slow for his tastes. So with pockets full of inheritance money, he set out to find the big time. When he had had just about as much of the pig’s life as he could take, he swallowed his pride, dug his hands deep into his empty pockets, and began the long walk home; all the while rehearsing a speech that he planned to give to his father. Just when he got to the top of the hill, his father, who’d been waiting at the gate, saw him. And the boy’s weary body fell into his father’s opened arms.
4. The same open arms welcomed him that had welcomed Abraham, Moses, David, and Jonah. No wagging fingers. No clenched fists. No “I told you so!” slaps or “Where have you been?” interrogations. No crossed arms. No black eyes or fat lips. No. Only sweet, open arms. If you ever wonder how God can use you to make a difference in your world, just look at those He has already used and take heart. Look at the forgiveness found in those open arms and take courage.
5. And, by the way, never were those arms opened so wide as they were on the Roman cross. One arm extending back into history and the other reaching into the future. An embrace of forgiveness offered for anyone who’ll come. A hen gathering her chicks. A Father receiving His own. A Redeemer redeeming the world. “I am here,” He assures, “and with Me are the children God has given Me” (Heb. 2:13).
MAX LUCADO
CAST OF CHARACTERS
