Have you ever made one too many mistakes. You know, you get to a point where you think, That’s it! God must be done with me? Well, Abraham was a man of faith who made plenty of mistakes along the way. Yet God seemed to overlook, even to compensate for them. Why was that?

Life Changing Moments

As we travel through life we all kind of experience these moments and often they are seemingly insignificant events that in fact, turn out to change the whole course of our lives. It’s amazing when you think about it! We all have a plan for our lives but there are things just around the next corner or just over the next rise that can change everything – good things and bad things, happy things and sad things.

Some people think, “Well, it’s all a matter of chance.” Well, I don’t believe in chance. I remember a brochure that changed my life. I was attending a little church – I had not long become a Christian and it was a Sunday service like every other Sunday.

At the end of the service I walked to the back of the little church and I saw a brochure for a particular Bible College, Tabor College in Sydney. It wasn’t a particularly attractive brochure or a well designed brochure – I picked it up and that was a defining moment – I took it home, I read about this ministry degree, I prayed and I felt this incredibly strong tug in my heart.

Now in my mind I am thinking, “There’s no way. You know Berni, you have been a Christian for five minutes” but in my heart I knew. So I rang them, I applied, I went to see the Principal, I felt like such a fraud. “They are never going to accept me.” They did! And there I learned so much but also, by chance again, I came into contact with my predecessor in this ministry; the former CEO of Christianityworks and one thing led to another.

And today I’m doing what I am doing because I picked up that little brochure at the back of the church. Now I had no idea that morning that something would happen that would change the course of my life.

This week we are starting a new series on Christianityworks, it’s called “Defining Moments”. It’s really exciting! I want to look at this from a different perspective; from God’s perspective. See when we look back on our lives most of us can pick three or four, maybe half a dozen defining moments – those little things that seemed to change the whole course of our lives.

Now, sure we can see them from our natural human perspective – after all, we are people; we’re human, but if we do that I think we miss the point. I want to look at some defining moments in the lives of four people in the Bible – Abraham, Joseph, David and Josiah over the next four weeks and we are starting today with Abraham.

I want to see if we can discover how God reaches into our lives with miracles – great and small to define the very course of our lives because God does have a plan. Psalm 139, verse 16, says:

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me when none of them as yet existed.

And when we at least expect it, and even despite what you and I do or fail to do, His plan is worked out through His grace for His glory. God brings those defining moments.

Let’s start with Abraham – the man with whom God’s engagement of His chosen people began. He was living comfortably in a place called Ur, east of Israel – of course Israel didn’t exist back then. Ur was the land of the Chaldeans, later it was called Babylon – it’s just south of modern day Baghdad. And he travelled with his father up to Haran and then God called him to leave his comfort and follow this really crazy, absolutely incredulous promise.

Let’s pick it up – if you have got a Bible, grab it; open it up at Genesis chapter 12. We are going to look at the story of Abraham – it’s too much to look at it all in one programme but we are going to have a look at part of his story. Genesis chapter 12, beginning at verse 1:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram when as the Lord had told him and Lot when with him. Abram was seventy five years old when he departed form Haran.” Seventy five years old! “He and Sarai his wife and they were childless.”

You see, you have to remember, in the Old Testament, blessing; God’s blessing, you knew you had it when you had lots of land and lots of children. They had neither, so they didn’t have God’s blessing on their lives. Now the word “Abram” means “exalted father”. So even his name was a joke, but still he went, off into the never never, based on what – some intangible, crazy call from God?

Remember Abram had no Bible; he had no Scriptures to reveal who God was. He had no church tradition, or Jewish tradition – nothing like that. All the other nations had their gods; idols – they worshipped them, they believed all sorts of weird and wonderful things but Abram put his faith; he put his whole life and all his possessions in this God who came up with this incredulous promise.

How did God say this to Abram – through an audible voice, a dream, a vision, a whisper of the Spirit in his heart? We don’t know but he just heard the call and he trusted in the promises of God and off he went, into the blue yonder. Now God’s plan A, remember, is to bless Abram with land and children – impossible of course! Oozes fantasy, not faith – could never happen. And then begins Abram’s comedy of errors – pretty tragic actually.

We don’t have time to look at them all today but we are going to look at some of them. It’s a journey where Abram and Sarai his wife, made plenty of mistakes along the way. Take Lot for instance, his nephew – if you look at Genesis chapter 12 again, did God tell Abram to take Lot with him? Not at all – it was Abram’s idea. No doubt, this was plan B for Abram. “Well, if God doesn’t come through on this promise of a son, at least I’ll have a relative to be my heir” and Lot…..Lot causes him all sorts of grief. Let’s have a look – Genesis chapter 13, verse 5:

Now Lot who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents so that the land couldn’t support both of them living together, for their possessions were so great that they could not live together. And there was strife between the herders of Abram’s stock and the herders of Lot’s stock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.

Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me – between your herders and my herders for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I’ll go to the right; of you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” Lot looked about him and saw the plain of the Jordan that was well watered everywhere like this garden of the Lord; like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar – this was before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan and Lot eastward thus he separated from Abram.

Gee, plan B worked really well for Abram didn’t it? Obviously God didn’t know what He was promising Abram and needed a back up! And look how it turned out! Strife, separation and then Abram gave away the best half of the Promised Land. And if you read on in chapter 14, Abram risks his life and God’s plan because he has to fight a battle to save Lot’s life.

Lot was not part of plan A and in chapter 19 of Genesis (we won’t go there for now for time reasons) but he ends up sleeping with his own daughters and fathers the Moabites and the Ammonites; both nations that became enemies of Israel. Huh – well done Abram! God obviously needed your help!!

Who Can Blame Him?

Well, who can blame Abram? He is in his late seventies now on a journey to nowhere and Sarai is no spring chicken either, I have to tell you. And God gives him this utterly incongruous, impossible promise and Abram is aching inside. “God, what are You doing?”  Can you relate to that? I can!
Let’s have a look at the defining moment in Abram’s journey. It begins in Genesis chapter 15, verse 1:

After these things the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me for I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer, son of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”

But the Word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir. No one but a son coming from your very own body shall be your heir.” God brought him outside and said, “Look toward the heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then the Lord said to him, “So shall your descendants be!” And Abram believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

I reckon this is one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. Is Abram a man of faith? Absolutely! But he is struggling – he has tried everything he can do in his own strength and he can’t make this promise from God happen and time is marching on. So through his doubt, he ends up with plan C or D or whatever he is up to. How does God respond – with rebuke, with punishment, with discipline?

God brought him outside and said, “Look toward the heaven and count the start, if you are able to count them.” Then God said “So will your descendants be!

Isn’t it beautiful? You know, the Milky Way when you get away from the smog and the lights of the city is just the most awesome thing – there are so many stars out there – it almost looks like clouds. Trillions of stars – this is the love of God!

And he believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Abram’s faith meant that God’s righteousness became part of who he was.

It’s a theme the Apostle Paul picks up in Romans chapter 4 and in Galatians chapter 3 in the New Testament, much later. See I struggle with the rose coloured glasses that Paul and others in the New Testament use to look back on Abraham. They paint him as this paragon of virtue; this great man of faith. Hebrews chapter 11, beginning at verse 8:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he didn’t know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country, for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father.

That’s great but what about all of Abraham blunders? What about his lack of faith? He goes to God and says to God, “What will You give me? What will You show me? I can’t see it – I’m losing hope.” See, Abraham was human – Abraham had human failures and he made mistakes just like you and me – but the answer is in what we just read in Genesis.

How is it that despite all of Abraham’s blunders and doubts, God’s plan still came to fruition? Because Abraham: “believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed – he didn’t do it perfectly – but he believed and this was counted by God as righteousness. The righteousness of God when we believe, He forgives our sins – He forgets them. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.”

You see, that’s why in the New Testament it doesn’t talk about Abraham’s mistakes because God has forgiven them and they are not relevant. That’s how God deals with Abraham’s human failings. This is the defining moment in Abraham’s journey: he believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness. This night that was like any other; he was in his tent; he was struggling; he was praying; he was saying, ‘God, what are you doing?’ And God just touches him and brings him outside and says, “Look up at the stars; as many as are there so numerous will be your descendants.”

It’s not about what Abraham did or didn’t do. The defining moment is about God’s grace! And come and look with me exactly how imperfectly Abraham believed. Come and see with me how human and frail his faith actually is. He is credited with righteousness – God speaks to him and right on the back of that, just two verses later, in Genesis chapter 15, verse 8, begins this:

But he said “O Lord, God, how am I to know I shall possess it?” And God said to him, “Bring Me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.” He brought God all those things and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other but he did not cut the birds in two. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abraham drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Know this for certain that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs and they shall be slaves there and they shall be oppressed there for four hundred years but I will bring judgement on the nation that they serve and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you yourself, you shall go with your ancestors in peace and you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, and a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day (listen to this) On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, “To your descendants I give this land – from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates and the land of the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Raphaim and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

See, in the face of further doubt from Abraham, God gives him this vision and he makes an unbreakable promise; a covenant; a promise from God Himself to Abraham.

The Last Laugh

Just as well, this covenant from God was an unbreakable promise because what happens next, after the stars thing and the vision and the promise, would have been the final straw for me if I had been God. Have a look at the next

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave girl whose name was Hagar and Sarai said to Abram, “You see the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go into my slave girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” Abram listened to the voice of his wife Sarai, so after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar the Egyptian; her slave girl and gave her to her husband Abraham as a wife.

He went into Hagar and she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my slave girl to you to embrace and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me.”

Ok, men had more than one wife in those days but people haven’t changed that much. Wives, how happy would you be with this outcome? Your husband sleeping with a slave girl and then all of a sudden the slave girl is pregnant. Can you see how perverted this is? And the son that Hagar bore was Ishmail and he became the father of the Arab world! Gee, that worked out brilliantly, didn’t it?

And so Abram, left to his own devices would have lurched from one blunder to the next but now the bit that really gets me about this story, is the ending. Both Abram and Sarai get to the point – I mean this has been going on for years now; decades where they just end up laughing at God’s promises. I mean they are so ridiculous; they are so impossible – have a look – Abram first in Genesis chapter 17, verse 15:

God said to Abram, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai anymore but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and she will give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah who is ninety years old bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmail might live in Your sight.” And God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.”

And then Sarah’s turn next! God appears to Abraham in the form of three men and those men said to him,

“Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you in due season and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance, behind them. Now Abraham and Sarah, they were old and advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, “After I have grown old and my husband is old, shall I have the pleasure?”

See, can you blame Abraham and Sarah for laughing at God? I mean if you don’t laugh you will cry. It has been twenty five years – they headed away on this fool’s errand into the blue yonder. Abraham is over a hundred – Sarah is over ninety – come on God, what do You think You are doing? But let’s see how it ends! Genesis chapter 21:

The Lord dealt with Sarah just as He had said and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah had borne.

Do you know what the word “Isaac” means? It means “he laughs” – you see God had the last laugh! They both laughed at God’s promises and God gives them a son called Isaac and God has the last laugh! It’s the laughter of God’s grace.

And when you look back on this journey, what was the defining moment? See, what you and I want to look at is say: “What do I have to do….what do I have to do? What do I have to do to get God’s favour?” Isn’t that what we are always thinking? And you look at all of Abraham’s blunders and you see all the mistakes he made but in his heart he believed and it was reckoned unto him by God as righteousness. His faith trumped his failures! Let me say that again … Abraham’s faith trumped his failures!

People came to Jesus years later and they said, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” And Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in the One whom He has sent.”

Do you get it? The defining moment for Abraham was God’s gracious, loving, powerful, impossible, unbreakable, ridiculous, only God could ever do it, take it forever….promise. And in his heart Abraham believed.

That’s the bit that God saw and took and used and blessed Abraham through. That’s why the New Testament writers can completely ignore the failures of Abraham because God….God had forgotten them a long time ago. God had decided to overlook them a long time ago.

Abraham was not a perfect man – Abraham was human just like you and me. You make blunders in your life; I make blunders in my life. What does God look at? He looks at whether we put our trust in Him through Jesus Christ.

God not only forgave Abraham and Sarah but He cleaned up their mess along the way so that His plan would be fulfilled and realised for His glory. Look again at the defining moment in Abraham’s life…Genesis chapter 15, verses 5 and 6:

God brought Abraham outside and said, “Look up toward the heaven. Count the stars if you are able to count them.” Then God said to him, “So shall your descendants be. And Abraham believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

What do I have to do to do the works of God? To believe in the One whom He sent; His Son, Jesus Christ!

If ever any one ever had an unfair life – it was Joseph back there in the old testament. One step forward, two steps back seems to be the story of so much of what he went through … sound familiar? Yet in the end, he came out in front. At the end of the day, what others meant for harm in his life, God meant for good in the lives of so many others. Hmm.

It’s Not Fair

One of my favourite sayings when I was a young lad growing up, was “It’s not fair!” I just hated things that weren’t fair. When my parents made a decision between my sister and me – whether I had to clean up or she had to clean up and the lot fell to me, I’d say, “It’s not fair!” I remember a soccer game in the park – with one of my teachers, Mr Moore, who I really liked and he made a bad decision against my team – “It’s not fair!”

Sometimes I was right, it wasn’t fair and other times it was just the way I saw things – my perception, maybe from my selfish position but one of the things I really, really hate in life is when it’s not fair. Although, well, I’d have to qualify that – I’m a human being after all – I hate “not fair” when I am on the losing end of an unfair transaction. You know, funny, but I don’t mind so much when I am on the winning side. That’s pretty natural. “Not fair” only really upsets us when we lose.

We are continuing our series today called “Defining Moments” Things that we do or things that happen to us in life that seem to change the course of our lives and last week we looked at Abraham – the defining moment for him was when he responded to God’s love and just believed the unbelievable promises of God. He just stepped out into the impossible promises of God and because of his simple child-like faith, imperfect as it was. I mean God overlooked, indeed, God compensated for all of Abraham’s blunders.

Today we are going to take a look at the life of a man called Joseph because if anyone ever lived a life where he was unfairly treated, it was definitely Joseph. So many things that happened to him were just so incredibly unfair. Really – we will look at that in a moment – and yet there was some real defining moments along the way for Joseph.

It’s really important to look at this story! We are going to discover something about ourselves and about God. It is so easy to look at defining moments from a human perspective but we need to look at them “top down”; from God’s perspective as well. I know we are going to be blessed as we go in search of some of the defining moments in Joseph’s life.

Now who was Joseph? Last week we talked about Abraham who was the father of the whole nation of Israel and he had this son he called Isaac. Isaac had a son called Jacob and Jacob was actually renamed by God and called Israel. And Jacob or Israel had twelve sons, one of whom was Joseph. Now he was the youngest at the time this story begins and he was pretty much dad’s favourite.

If you have got a Bible, grab it – open it up with me at Genesis chapter 37, verse 2:

Joseph being seventeen years old was shepherding the flock with his brothers. He was a helper to the son’s of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives and Joseph brought a bad report about them to their father. Now Israel who was Jacob, loved Joseph more than any of his other children because he was the son of his old age and he made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than all of the other brothers, they hated him and they couldn’t speak peaceably to him.

Once, Joseph had this dream and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said, “Listen to this dream that I just dreamed: there we were binding sheaves in the field, and suddenly my sheaf rose up and stood upright and your sheaves, they gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed going to reign over us? Are you indeed going to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words.

And he had another dream and he told this to his brothers as well saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon and the eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Well, you can question Joseph’s maturity at sharing those dreams with his brothers. As we can imagine, they were none too impressed – I wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t be. “Little brat – dad’s favourite – this kid needs to be taught a lesson.” So the brothers plotted against him – first they wanted to kill him – “Well”, they thought, “that’s a bit over the top”, so instead they threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery.

Have a look – Genesis chapter 37, beginning at verse 23:

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe; the long robe with the sleeves that he wore, and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it, then they sat down to eat and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels, carrying gum, balm and resin and they were on their way, carrying it down to Egypt.

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for his is our brother; our own flesh. So the other brothers agreed. When some of the Medianite traders passed by, they drew Joseph up, lifting him up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver and they took Joseph to Egypt.”

And these other brothers went back and told their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. How do you think Joseph felt? It’s not fair! I mean, his own brothers! Okay, maybe he did rub them the wrong way. Okay maybe he was dad’s favourite but his own brothers? I mean that is so unfair. Isn’t that so often the way – our own brothers and sisters; those who are closest to us; those who should love us the most; those whom we trusted – they are the ones who treat us unfairly?

It’s one thing to be treated unfairly by an associate or even an enemy; you almost expect that but by his own brothers – sold into slavery; into a completely uncertain future; completely lost his freedom – come on, let’s walk a mile in Joseph’s shoes right now.

He is a slave in that caravan, being taken down into a foreign land; into Egypt to be sold into goodness knows what; no future….. I don’t know about you, but I would have been tempted to react pretty badly to that. I would have been tempted to be bitter and to swear an oath that I would never, ever forgive my brothers. It would have been so easy for young Joseph to have bitterness and un-forgiveness in his heart – don’t you think?

Let’s bring this right close to home. People who have treated us badly and us unfairly, how have you and I responded? We seem to take their failure, their bad behaviour as our license to behave badly, don’t we? How many of us have got un-forgiveness in our hearts? How many of us are carrying a knot of anger in our hearts that’s robbing us of life?
We will look at Joseph’s life in a moment and we are going to look at the defining moment in his life, when life was just so unfair.

From Bad to Worse

Sometimes it seems that life is one step forward and two steps back. I mean, young Joseph was dad’s favourite; he had great dreams of success for the future, then he is sold into slavery and he is down in a slave market in Egypt, purchased by a man called Potiphar. Have a look at it: Genesis chapter 39, beginning at verse 1:

Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man. He was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favour in his sight and attended him.

Potiphar made Joseph the overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he had made him overseer in his house and all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. The blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge and with him there, he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate. Now Joseph was handsome and good looking.

WOW, things are on the up and up again. What could have been terrible instead … God puts Joseph in a place where He can use his gifts and his abilities and God blesses Joseph. The word “Joseph” means to be “a multiplier” and that is literally what Joseph’s gift was. We see that throughout the story of his life – it is one of the things that Joseph was really good at – being a multiplier.

Now you might be thinking, “Well, Berni, now things are going well for young Joe. All that temptation to behave badly, that’s all gone away”, but you would be wrong! Because one of the things that we love to do is to get some recompense out of life. When we have gone through bad times we can still have bitterness in our hearts.

It would have been easy for Joseph to have bitterness in his heart and then the good times start to flow and we decide “Well, it’s time to make hay while the sun shines. I am going to get something out of life; I’m going to get some recompense. I’ll show those rotten brothers – I’ll take whatever I can and have whatever I can have. I’ll show them!”

Ever experienced that in your heart? Sure you have, so have I and that can be the time of such a great fall. Sure enough, Joseph had exactly that opportunity now that he was on easy street. We are going to have a look at this because I think this is the defining moment of Joseph’s walk. Genesis chapter 39, beginning at verse 7:

And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Sleep with me”, but he refused and he said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here my master has no concern about anything in his house. He has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in his house that I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to sleep with her or to be with her. One day however, when he went into the house to do his work and while no one else was in the house, she caught hold of his garment saying, “Sleep with me,” but he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside. And when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, “See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us. He came in to sleep with me and I cried out with a loud voice and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”

Then she kept his garment by her until his master came home and she told him the same story, saying, “That Hebrew servant whom you have brought among us, came in to insult me but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.” When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, “This was the way your servant treated me,” he was enraged. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the King’s prisoners were confined and there he remained in prison.

Do you see what happened here? See, I think that this is one of the defining moments in Joseph’s life. Bad things happen and he had a chance to make amends; he had a chance to take whatever he wanted, in particular, to taste this forbidden fruit. Potiphar’s wife kept tempting him and he could easily have said, “Yea, go on, Joseph. Come on, you deserve this! After all, look at what you have been through. Come on!” You know what I am saying!

And in the defining moment Joseph said “No!’ He refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here my master has no concern about anything in the house. He has put everything in my hand. How then could I do this great wickedness?” Joseph said, “No” over and over again.

It’s a powerful thing to say, “No” to temptation when life has been unfair – to say, “No” to temptation when we can come up with every reason and every excuse to say, “Yes, come on!” And to make matters worse, Joseph’s right doing is rewarded by jail – that is sooo unfair! Do you get it?

Right, must be time to behave badly again! But no matter how badly people treated him or life treated him, Joseph remained true to himself. And here is the “top down” view; here is God’s view of this defining moment – God saw that and honoured it. Let’s pick it right up in Genesis 39, beginning at verse 21:

But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love. He gave him favour in the sight of the chief jailer. And the chief jailer committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in his prison and whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was is Joseph’s care because the Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper.” Do you get it?

Why do you think that these defining moments are hidden? We think that these temptation decisions are hidden from the world and when we have had a tough day or when people have been horrible to us, we are just so tempted to make amends by doing something wrong. The defining moment in Joseph’s walk is that Joseph said, “No” to that temptation.
Now I want you to hold that thought because we are going to have a look at what all this means to you and me, next.

Do Not Grow Weary

There is quite a bit more to Joseph’s story. He spent another two years in jail…..two years! I can’t begin to imagine that – it was so unfair. And finally, because he had a gift of interpreting dreams, he found favour with Pharaoh. And one thing led to another and Pharaoh made Joseph Prime Minister over all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself; over the whole nation.

And then famine hits the land and because of Joseph’s wisdom and insight from God, he, as the leader, caused Egypt to store up enough grain for the coming famine and so people from all around Egypt came for food – in fact, all round the known world. And all of a sudden Joseph’s brothers came down from the land of Canaan, down to find some food in Egypt as well and Joseph recognised them, although they didn’t recognise him.

Aw, he struggled with that! What a temptation! Finally, there was Joseph, just like in those dreams he had when he was a young man. There was his brothers bowing down to him; now he had them; now he could take revenge. You can read the whole story in Genesis chapters 40 to 44. It is really worth a read.

What would Joseph do? Well, let’s take a look – Genesis chapter 45, beginning at verse 1:

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him and he cried out, “Send everyone away from me!” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers and he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?” But his brothers couldn’t answer him and they were so dismayed that they were in his presence. (Wouldn’t you be?)

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me,” and they came closer and he said, “I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt and now don’t be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in this land for two years and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors, so it was not you who sent me here, but God; He has made me a father to Pharaoh and the lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”

What an amazing response? Grace, forgiveness and the knowledge that all along, through all the unfair things that happened to him; through all the bad things that happened to him, that what had happened to Joseph was part of God’s plan. Talk about defining moment! That defining moment happened for Joseph when he was sold as a slave, wrongly accused, thrown into jail, left there to rot and the temptation in all of that was for Joseph to shout, “It’s not fair!”

That’s the temptation; to turn to sin; to wallow in filth that we have been thrown in and I have no doubt that Joseph struggled with that. He was human after all but what defined him was not the unfairness that the world threw at him, but the decision just to get up every morning, to be Joseph, to honour God.

The Apostle Paul, centuries on, said it this way:

Do not be deceived. God is not mocked for you will reap whatever you sow – if you sow to your flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the spirit you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up.

Unfair things happen to us every day and sometimes what we want is, “God, just give me an easy ride.” In fact there is a great poem here that I want to share with you. It’s a poem by Adrian Plass – have a listen – it goes like this:

When I became a Christian I said, “Lord now fill me in.
Tell me what I will suffer in this world of shame and sin.”
Then God said, “Your body may be killed and left to rot and stink,
do you still want to follow Me?”I said, “Amen, I think!

I think, amen! Amen, I think, I think I say “amen”!
Look, I am not completely sure. Can we run through that again?
You said my body could be killed and left to rot and stink,
that sounds terrific, Lord. I’ll say “amen” I think!”

“But Lord, look there must be other ways to follow You,” I said,
“I really would prefer to end up dying in my bed.”
“Well, yes”, He said, “You could put up with sneers and scorn and spit,
do you still want to follow Me?” I said, “Amen, a bit.”

“A bit “amen” – “amen”, a bit. A bit, I say ‘amen’.
Look, I’m not entirely sure. Can we just run through that again?”
You said I could put up with sneers and scorn and spit
– oh, yea, I’ve made up my mind – I say “amen” a bit.”

Well, I sat back and thought a while. I tried a different ploy –
I said, “Now Lord, the Good Book says that Christians live in joy.”
“That’s true,” He said, “You are going to need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow,
so do you still want to follow Me?” I said, “Amen – tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow, Lord, I say it – that’s when I’ll say “amen”.
You see, I’ve got to get it clear. Let’s just run through that again.”
You said, I’ll need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow –
well, yea, I think I’ve got it straight. I’ll say “amen” tomorrow.

He said, “Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with Me,
a quick salvation sandwich or a cup of sanctity.
The cost is “you” not half of you but every single bit.
Now tell Me, will you follow Me? I said, “Amen! No, I quit!

“I’m sorry Lord, I’d like to follow You
but I don’t think religion is a very manly thing to do.”
So He said, “Forget about religion then and you think about My Son
and you tell me if you are man enough to do what He has done.

Are you man enough to see the need? Are you man enough to go?
Are you man enough to care for those who no one wants to know?
Are you man enough to say the things that people hate to hear
and battle through Gethsemane and loneliness and fear?

And listen, are you man enough to stand it at the end,
the moment of betrayal by the kisses of your friend?
Are you man enough to hold your tongue? Are you man enough to cry?
And when the nails break your body, are you man enough to die?

Are you man enough to take the pain and wear it like a crown?
Are you man enough to love this world and turn it upside down?
Are you man enough to follow Me – I’ll ask you once again?”
I said, “Oh Lord, I am so frightened but I also said, “amen”.

Amen, amen, amen! I said, “Lord, I am so frightened but I also said, ‘amen’.”

You know, as I look back on the story of the life of Joseph, my heart breaks for that man. He went through so much – the betrayal of his brothers; sold into slavery; thrown into jail for doing the right thing – left there to rot; he went through so much. And it would have been so easy and tempting just to act badly; just to respond; just to have anger; just to lash out. Come on, that’s what we want to do!

But do not be deceived. Because God is not mocked for whatever we reap, we sow! If we sow in the flesh, we will reap corruption in the flesh, but if we sow in the Spirit we will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”

Here’s the punch line.

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right for we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up. So whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for the family of faith.

Sometimes, we spend so much of our energies in believing that God will give us some breakthrough in our time of need, that we miss the fact that he’s already provided us with everything we need to get through those tough times.

So Easy to Miss

Sometimes we can be looking forward to something … something that God will do; some defining moment in life, without realising what He has already done for us in the past. Let me give you an example: you are going through a tough time, perhaps some difficulty at work or in bringing up our children or in our marriages – we all go through those times. In fact it seems that there is never a time in life when there isn’t some pressure or difficulty in some part of our lives.

And so we start praying feverishly for God to deliver us from those tough times. We start believing Him for a miracle and a breakthrough. Now that’s good; it’s a good thing to do but so many people do that at the expense of realising that the changes God has already made in us – deep within our hearts.

Those changes are meant to help us to travel through those difficult times. Those changes are meant to make us a blessing to others in those dark times. Those changes are meant to make His light; His glory to shine through us out into a lost and hurting world.

There is a saying “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” It’s absolutely right that we should pray about difficult situations but not at the expense of knowing and trusting in what God has already done; in what we already have in our hands.

This is the third programme in a series that I have called “Defining Moments”. It is so often the case that minor and even major miracles come through the smallest and seemingly, most insignificant event in our lives. It’s a great thing about God – He gets involved in the smallest things in our lives.

But sometimes … sometimes He’s not so much about wanting to do something fresh and new to deliver us out of a situation; sometimes He is calling us to rely on something that He has already done to get us through that situation.

Today we are going to look at a man who is pretty well known – King David of Israel. He is on the Biblical “A” list if you like and he is probably the greatest King that Israel ever had. Now, David had quite a few defining moments in his life; he had trials, he had victories, he had failures, he had repentance – turning back to God after making a mistake.

He was anointed as the King of Israel by God’s prophet, Samuel when he was just a lad. He slew Goliath; he fled from Saul in the wilderness, running for his life, on and on. He won so many battles; he was so successful!

David had so many defining moments that we could look at in his life but it was something … something that God did way back before all of those things, that I think was the defining moment in David’s life – the thing that carried him through all those trials; the very reason that God was able to use David so mightily in the history of Israel.

Here’s how it happened. Israel didn’t have a King – their system of government was a theocracy – that meant that God was their King. He would send leaders like Moses and Joshua to lead them and then finally, when they made it out of Egypt through the exodus for forty years, into the Promised Land, He had a series of Judges to judge over Israel – that’s all they needed – to judge whether the people had met God’s law or not. So these Judges presided over Israel.

When they needed specific revelation or guidance or instruction from God, God used men called prophets, to speak His specific will into the life of Israel. But eventually, people decided they wanted a King like all the other nations, so God gave them Saul. Saul was the first King of Israel and he was okay for a while, but pretty soon he turned out to be an abject failure.

So God removed His anointing from Saul; that divine appointment and empowerment and God said, “No more, that’s enough. Saul is no longer My anointed King, even though Saul continued on in the position of King.” That’s how it went – if you have got a Bible, grab it, open it at First Samuel chapter 13, verse 13:

Samuel the prophet said to Saul, “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over His people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

And therein lies, I think, the defining moment for David, even before David’s name is mentioned – the moment when God took the ordinary and turned him into the extraordinary. Later on we discover that this new King is to be David; the shepherd boy, that not even his father thought enough of to bring him before Samuel, the prophet, with his other brothers, to be anointed as King. This was just an ordinary, everyday little shepherd boy.

He was created in his mother’s womb to be a man after God’s own heart; equipped in his very DNA to be a man that God had planned for him to be. And in those lonely times, pasturing his sheep out there on his own, fighting bears and lions and protecting the flock; those seemingly ordinary shepherd things, all along God was growing and developing that heart in David; the shepherd who would be King.

Most of us will know the terrible times that David went through – times when Saul was hunting him down to kill him and yet David refused even to raise his hand against Saul. We are going to share in one particular time to see how this heart worked out in his life. Saul is in a cave; Saul is out there hunting David to kill him – why? Because he realises that people are starting to follow David and he is desperately wanting to cling onto power, so he decides to kill David.

So David, in this cave, has an opportunity to kill Saul but instead of killing him in the dark, he sneaks up and cuts part of Saul’s robe off in the dark. And then calls out to Saul and says,

See, this proves that I had the opportunity to kill you and I didn’t harm you. I am never going to harm you. I will not raise my hand against God’s anointed.

Let’s pick it up in First Samuel chapter 24, beginning at verse 12 – and so David says to Saul, look:

May the Lord judge between you and me. May the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you. As the ancient proverb says, ‘Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness,’ but my hand shall not be against you,” says David to King Saul. “Against whom shall the King of Israel come out? Whom do you pursue? A dead dog? A single flea? May the Lord therefore be judge and give sentence between you and me. May He see to it and plead my cause and vindicate me against you.”

When David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son, David?” Saul lifted up his voice and wept. He said to David, “You are more righteous than I for you have repaid me with good whereas I have repaid you evil. Today you have explained how you have dealt well with me and that you did not kill me when the Lord put me into your hands. For who has ever found an enemy and sent the enemy safely away?

So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me. Now I know that you shall surely be King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand. So swear to me therefore, by the Lord, that you will not cut off my descendants after me and that you will not wipe out my name from my father’s house.” So David swore this to Saul and then Saul went home but David and his men went up to a stronghold.

We are going to have a look how that promise worked its way out in David’s life next.

A Promise Fulfilled

Pretty amazing stuff for how David reacted to Saul and what an amazing promise that David makes to Saul, to bless his descendants when he becomes King and even more amazing, when Saul and his sons die, David mourns their death. I mean Saul hunted him down and tried to kill him. I don’t know, my hunch is, I would have been celebrating Saul’s death – “Finally now I’m safe, finally now I’m King” – but not David. You can read it in Second Samuel chapter 1, verse 12:

He mourned and wept and fasted for Saul and his son Jonathan when they died.

Right now we are going to look at how ordinary people become extraordinary. How the heart that God put into David shines forth the love and the glory of God in the most beautiful way as he fulfils his promise to Saul. And he does it in the life of a young man called Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son. So Saul had a son called Jonathan, Jonathan before he died, had a son called Mephibosheth.

Now most people have never heard of Mephibosheth – he is definitely not on the Biblical ‘A’ list. This is one of those stories we don’t hear that much. It’s not about some great victory of King David; it’s not about some spectacular battle or anything like that. Let’s have a look at it – we pick it up in Second Samuel chapter 9, beginning at verse 1:

David asked, “Is there anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba and he was summoned to David and the King said to him, “Are you Ziba?” and he answered, “Yes, at your service!” So the King said, “Is there anyone remaining in the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?”

And Ziba said to the King, “There remains a son of Jonathan. He is crippled in his feet.” The King said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the King, “He is in the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul came to David and fell on his face and did obeisance. David said, “Mephibosheth!” He answered, “I am your servant.”

David said to him, “Do not be afraid, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan; I will restore to you all the land of your grandfather Saul and you yourself shall eat at my table always.” He did obeisance and said, “What is your servant that you should look upon a dead dog like me?”

Then the King summoned Saul’s servant Ziba, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house, I have given to your master’s grandson. You and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, so that your master’s grandson may have food to eat; but your master’s grandson Mephibosheth shall always eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.

Then Ziba said to the King, “According to all that my lord the King commands his servant, your servant shall do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the King’s sons. Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he always ate at the King’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

See, so often there was a bloody transition of power from one King to another. You know, the new King would kill, not only the old King but all the descendants of the old King to make sure that there would be no challenge to the throne from the old King’s bloodline.

Mephibosheth was Saul’s grandson – he was crippled in his feet, living in obscurity in Lo-debar, hoping not to be noticed. And I use that term “crippled” which is politically incorrect these days – I use that word deliberately because there was no political correctness in those days. If you were disabled, you were at the bottom of the heap – almost an outcast.

And yet here for the sake of David’s covenant with Saul and his friendship with Jonathan, David elevates Mephibosheth to the King’s table and restores all the possessions of King Saul, his grandfather, to Mephibosheth, this young man. What an absolutely extraordinary act of grace! For Mephibosheth it was like … like winning the lottery – it was unbelievable.

In fact, it’s the accumulation of a pattern in the life of David. Saul twice tries to kill David and twice David has the opportunity to strike Saul down; to take the throne; to guarantee his safety. After all, hadn’t David already been anointed by the prophet Samuel as King? “Come on, David, just do it, get on with it. End this pain and misery and risk – believe in a breakthrough from God. Take things into your own hands.”

That’s what David’s followers were urging him to do but David’s response in First Samuel chapter 24, verse 6, is this:

He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to raise my hand against him; for he is the Lord’s anointed.”

Twice, at his own risk, refuses to kill Saul and then when David learns of Saul’s death, he goes into mourning and now … now to cap all this off, he pours his favour and his grace and his mercy and his possessions on the descendant; the grandson of the man who hunted him like an animal.

Do you see how David refused to take things into his own hands, to end his suffering, to ensure his own safety? And as utterly extraordinary as his behaviour was, it was like it was the most naturally, ordinary, obvious thing for him to do. Do you see that? Why? Because David … David was a man after God’s own heart.

David didn’t spend his time looking for a breakthrough; he lived through the trials with the heart of God in him. That’s why he blessed Mephibosheth – that’s why he was the perfect shepherd King for Israel – a man after God’s own heart.

Where it All Began

So what are we to learn from this story? Is today’s message as simple as “Well, be like David?” Um, no, I don’t think so – I don’t know about you but I’m no David. I think there is a much deeper; much more wonderful story for you and for me to discover here. It’s not just about ourselves; not just about David – it’s about God.

So what was this defining moment in David’s story; when did it happen? Well, it’s before David was anointed King, it’s before David had his battles and his trials and his victories and … and all that stuff. When was David’s defining moment; when did he receive a heart that was the same as God’s? Right back at the beginning – actually David knew that. He wrote a Psalm; he wrote Psalm 139. Let’s just listen to what he wrote here – Psalm 139 beginning at verse 13. This is David writing this. He is saying to God:

For it was You who formed my inward parts; it was You who knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works O God, that I know very well. My frame, it wasn’t hidden from You when I was being made in secret, intricately woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In Your book were written all the days that were formed for me when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them. I try and count them but they are more than the sand; I come to the end – and I am still with You.

That’s a Psalm of David! David realised what was going on here. He looks back and he realises that God handcrafted him in his mother’s womb. That heart of God that was in him was part of his very DNA blueprint. But not only that – all those days as a shepherd – protecting his flock – were part of God’s plan.

Listen how David talks about those days, when as a young man, he convinces Saul to let him go up against Goliath in that famous battle. First Samuel chapter 17, beginning at verse 33:

Saul said to David, “You are not able to go up against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are just a boy and he has been a warrior from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father and whenever a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went straight after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth. And if it turned against me I would catch it by the jaw and strike it down and kill it. Your servant has killed both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them to me, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”

See, David seemed to know that not only was the heart of God handcrafted in him but those very mundane days of being a shepherd boy and protecting a flock of sheep and going after the lost lamb – those seemingly mundane, everyday things in his life thus far, had prepared him for this battle against the giant Goliath. David knew that the way that God had made him, had prepared him to be the shepherd of Israel.

Do you see what God is saying to you and me today? Do you have any idea what God has done in handcrafting your DNA and mine, in putting His heart into you and to me? Do you have any idea how carefully He has prepared us through every moment of every day for a time just as this? Through all the boring and mundane and everyday things that we have travelled through – who we are and what we have been through are such a perfect fit, because they are part of God’s plan to prepare us to be who He has called us to be – to do what He has called us to do.

“But Berni”, I hear you say, “You don’t understand how mundane my life has been. You have no idea what a hash I have made of things. Maybe David is a man after God’s own heart, but me? No!” You and I were never meant to be David; you were always meant to be you – I was always meant to be me. Wake up! Stop comparing!

When we look at our lives they are so mundane! You know, ninety nine point nine percent of life is mundane but the miracle in it is that every moment is part of God’s plan. Every hair on our heads is known to God! What defines us is not the mundane – what defines us is God’s plan – for every strand of our DNA and for every moment of every day that we live and breathe on this earth.

When we are going through tough times, should we pray – should we ask God for a breakthrough? Absolutely, we should! But so often God’s plan is for us to live through those things, with what He has already put in us. The defining moment happened a long time ago.

Jesus spent forty days and nights in the wilderness, being tempted by the devil and starving. He didn’t spend five days, not ten, not twenty, not thirty or thirty five or thirty nine – God’s plan was for Him to spend forty days. And we don’t know how long our wilderness tour is going to last but this thing we do know, God … God has prepared us for times such as this.

God is preparing us right now for the future He has planned. There is such wonder in who He has made us to be. He has given us everything we need through Christ, to live out today with His joy in our hearts, for His glory. Who knows, maybe today or tomorrow or the next day, maybe He will bring a Mephibosheth into our lives for us to lavish His grace and His kindness and His mercy and His love upon that person.

Who knows what God has got planned? Who knows how long the trials are going to last? Sometimes God just wants us to rest on what He has already done and just live day by day by day through the things that He is calling us to travel through.

It’s easy to drift along, day after day – not ever realising that we’re on a gentle, downward slope, until it’s too late. But the beauty of God’s grace is that it’s never, ever too late to change things. It’s never, ever too late to turn your life around.

Same Old Same Old

The thing about life is that it, well, it seems to just crank along, day after day – get up, have a shower, have breakfast, hit the commute, go to work, come home, do the TV, go to bed, get up … isn’t that the routine? Ninety nine point nine percent of life seems to be everyday, mundane realities – punctuated, granted, with the odd high and low. And the more we live that same old same old, the more we become accustomed to that reality; we get used to it.

For many people there is a dull ache in their hearts; for others there is this sense that, there has to be something more. You know I work in God’s service, in full time ministry and every Sunday evening I talk with my mother on the phone – it’s our little routine – and she asks me “Berni, what’s been going on in your life?” And I’m your typical male, I say “Well, Mum, you know it was kind of the same as last week; nothing particularly new – same old same old.” And it’s true!

The problem is for so many, many people, this same old same old routine is about drifting away from God. It’s about living out a busy life and just struggling to get by and consuming mountains of drivel from the TV that … well, we forget what life is all about. And before we know it, God seems like … well, it seems like He is just a million miles away. Have you ever felt that in your life? You know, you can even be on holidays, having a great vacation somewhere, with time on your hands and yet, it still feels like God is a million miles away. There’s a reason for that – there is!

And today on the programme we are going to discover the reason and the remedy. This is the last in a series of four messages that I have called “Defining Moments”. We are going to have a look at a King in Israel’s history; a man named Josiah – to discover what is the reason and the remedy. But before we look at Josiah, we need to have a look at his grandfather and his father because his grandfather and father, Manasseh and Amon, those two guys are the reason.

And through Josiah’s life; through a defining moment in his life we discover the remedy. See, Manasseh and Amon – we can see through them how we can drift away from God – just through little compromises, it seems at first, until life itself is at stake. And through Josiah what we are going to see how easy it is to turn that around.

I just want to position where that story comes in Israel’s history. God first engaged with His chosen people through Abraham and Abraham and his son called Isaac and Isaac had a son called Jacob and Jacob had twelve sons, one of who was Joseph of “Technicoloured Dream Coat” fame. And these were the twelve tribes of Israel and they grew and they grew into this massive nation and for four hundred years they were keep in Egypt as slaves.

Then eventually God calls Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, “Let My people go” and that happens through a series of miracles. And then around about 1280BC, the exodus begins – you know, forty years in the desert, they end up in the Promised Land and then there is a period of Judges until Saul becomes King in around 1050BC, followed by King David and then King Solomon. But after Solomon’s reign, Israel splits in two – the ten Northern tribes are called ‘Israel’ and the two Southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin are referred to as ‘Judah’ – and that happens around 930BC.

All along Judah struggles with God and remember…..remember the first two commandments that God gives to His people. You can read them in Exodus chapter 20, beginning at verse 2:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt; out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing the children for the iniquity of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

See, God’s pretty clear – God is saying “I’m your God. I’m the one who took you out of slavery – I must be first in your life!’ And that’s what God’s people struggled with! They had some good Kings and they had some really bad Kings – they had their ups and had their downs. Fortunately, God is slow to anger but they were testing His patience.

We pick up this roller coaster ride of Israel with these two Kings, Manasseh and his son Amon. The name ‘Manasseh’ means ‘to cause forgetfulness’ and that was so apt because under his rule God’s people forgot to put God first. Pick it up – if you have got a Bible, open it at Second Chronicles chapter 33, beginning at verse 1:

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became King. He reigned fifty five years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. For He rebuilt the high places that his father, Hezekiah had pulled down and erected alters to the Baals and made sacred poles and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them.

He built alters in the House of the Lord of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem shall My name forever be.” He built alters for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the House of the Lord. He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery and dealt with mediums and wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking God to anger.

The carved image of the idol that he had made he set up in the House of God, of which God had said to David and to his son Solomon: “In this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever. I will never again remove the feet of Israel from the land that I appointed to your ancestors, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes and the ordinances given through Moses.

Manasseh misled Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they did more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the people of Israel.

The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to His people, but they gave no heed.

And it was exactly the same with his son, Amon – Second Chronicles chapter 33, beginning at verse 22:

Amon too, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images his father Manasseh had made, and served them. He did not humble himself before the Lord as his father Manasseh had humbled himself, by this Amon incurred more and more guilt.

Can I tell you, this in not just Israel’s problem, it’s our problem? Things just creep in, don’t they? We all! “Well dad did it that way. Everybody else is doing it that way. Let’s just go with the flow.” And so Manasseh was defeated by the Babylonians in battle and Amon was murdered by his servants. See, going with the flow; with popular public opinion seems really easy. It’s so acceptable to everyone around us, isn’t it? But going with the flow … well, going with the flow has consequences.

Through the Eyes of Babes

As you and I can plainly see, Manasseh and Amon made a hash of things and they kindled God’s wrath. You know, one of the things we see a bit of in the Old Testament is God’s wrath but it always comes after He has tried talking sense into His people first and it always … always involves redemption. God’s wrath always involves bring His people back to Him. It’s about bringing them to their senses and calling them back to Himself.

So these two Kings of Judah, Manasseh and Amon, they blew it! Now what comes next? Well, what comes next is a young boy with a right heart. Join me as we take a look – if you have got your Bible, get it open at Second Chronicles, in the Old Testament, chapter 34, beginning at verse 1:

Josiah, (Amon’s son, Manasseh’s grandson) Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign – he reigned for thirty one years in Jerusalem. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his ancestor David; he didn’t turn aside to the right or to the left.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a boy, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of all those high places and sacred poles and carved and cast images. In his presence they pulled down the altars of the Baals; he demolished the incense alters that stood above them. He broke down the sacred poles and the carved and the cast images; he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and purged Judah and Jerusalem. In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around, he broke down the altars, beat the sacred poles and the images into powder and demolished all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.

Now get this … Josiah is eight years old when he becomes King! Do you remember how mature you were when you were eight years old? Right! And in just another eight years, when he was sixteen years old, at a time when most of us were being precocious, painful, petulant teenagers, this child King decided that it was time to turn things around.

Now it mustn’t have been easy – sure he was a King, but look what happened to his old man – Amon was murdered by his own courtiers. Now, in this country everyone was worshipping idols – everybody – it was the culture; it was the way of life – powerful people, rich people, poor people – they were all worshipping idols and offering up to other gods.

And this young sixteen year old, Josiah, didn’t just say to his people, “No, no, it’s wrong, don’t do it” – he had his army destroy their places of worship. He travelled through the land; he executed the priests of these false gods and he made it clear that the King was not going to tolerate God’s chosen people doing exactly the thing that God had told them not to do. And he even takes the sacred poles and the images and the idols and he reduces them; he pounds them into powder.

See, Josiah is swimming against the tide – he is going against the flow and that always takes courage. Perhaps life has been drifting along for you and you have been going the easy road; just the way everyone else is going. Not in every area of your life ‘I still go to church; I still believe in God. No, those things are still there’ but in those hidden areas of life – how you spend your money or where you place your priorities – that’s what this is about. Who or what comes first in our hearts and our lives – God or someone or something else?

Listen to Jesus’ own words in Matthew chapter 7, beginning at verse 12:

In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take that. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life and there are few who find it.

It’s so easy, isn’t it, to just go with the flow, on that gentle downward slope? Doing what Josiah did takes a bundle of courage and resolve and I believe there are a few people today who need that courage and resolve and that’s something we can’t do for ourselves – that’s something that comes by the power of God’s Spirit, when we take in His Word. So Josiah prepared to go against the flow – it was risky; it was dangerous – he wouldn’t have endeared himself to the people but he did it anyway.

Now have a look at what happens next. This is the defining moment – it’s a moment from God. Second Chronicles 34, verse 8:

In the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shephan the son of Azaliah and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God. They came to the high priest, Hilkiah and delivered the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all of Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

They delivered the money to the workers who had oversight of the house of the Lord and the workers who were working in the house of the Lord gave it for repairing and restoring the house.” They gave it to carpenters and builders and quarriers and timber for binding and all sorts of stuff. “The people did the work faithfully.”

“Now while they were bringing the money out that had been brought into the house of the Lord, the priest Hilkiah found the Book of the Law of the Lord, given to Moses and Hilkiah said to the secretary Shaphan, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord,” and Hilkiah gave the Book to Shaphan and Shaphan brought the Book to the King and further reported to the King,

“All that was committed to your servants they are doing. They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the Lord and have delivered it into the hand of the overseers and the workers. And the secretary Shaphan, informed the King, “The priest Hilkiah has given me this Book,” and Shaphan then read it out aloud to the King.

And when the King heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes. Then the King commanded Hilkiah and Ahikam son of Shaphan and Abdon the son of Micah, the secretary Shaphan and the King’s servant Asaiah: “Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and Judah, concerning the words of the Book that has been found; for the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us is great, because our ancestors did not keep the Word of the Lord, to act in accordance with all that is written in that Book.”

Now, we are going to look at what all that means next.

The Word that Saves

Isn’t that amazing – Josiah, while he is going about God’s business, stumbles across the Word of God? It’s hidden – God’s people had even forgotten about God’s Word. No wonder things were such a mighty mess. I liken this to the person today who has a Bible but it’s kind of stuffed up somewhere in the top level of their wardrobe in the bedroom, gathering dust.

The living Word of God – God’s love letter to you and me – gathering dust; lost, forgotten and we wonder … we wonder why our lives are in a mess! Can you believe this – the chief priest has lost God’s Word? There are plenty of people who claim to be Christians – so many of them have lost God’s Word. I mean, how do we expect to live in God’s blessing and God’s abundance of life if when He is trying to speak to us, we leave Him up on the shelf. Come on, wake up!

Josiah defining moment is his reaction. When he discovers that God’s Word has come out of the temple, he is distraught; he tears at his clothes, despite all the great things this young King has been doing, he is beside himself, that he has been missing out on God’s Word.

See, it’s only now he is hearing from God when his secretary started reading out of God’s Word. He is realising for the first twenty six years of his life he hasn’t really known what God’s will is. So he takes some action. He sends his people to one of God’s prophets to enquire of God, “God, what does all this mean? What do we do now? Where do I go from here?”

Let’s take a look – Second Chronicles chapter 34, verse 20:

Then the King commanded Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan and Abdon son of Micah and the secretary Shaphan, and the King’s servant Asaiah: “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the Book that has been found, for the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us is great, because our ancestors did not keep the Word of the Lord, to act in accordance with all that is written in that Book.”

So Hilkiah and those whom the King had sent went to the prophet Huldah, the wife of Shallum son of Tokhath son of Hasrah, (boy, a mouthful, huh?) keeper of the wardrobe (who lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter) and spoke to her to that effect. She declared to them, she said, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you to me: Thus says the Lord: I will indeed bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the curses that are written in the Book that was read before the King of Judah. Because they have forsaken Me and have made offerings to other gods, so that they have provoked Me to anger with all the works of their hands, My wrath will be poured out on this place and it will not be quenched.

But as to the King of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus you shall say to him: Thus says the Lord your God, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His Words against this place and its inhabitants, and you have humbled yourself before Me and you have torn your clothes and you have wept before Me, I also have heard you, says the Lord. I will gather you to your ancestors and you will be gathered to your grave in peace; your eyes shall not see the disaster that I will bring on this place and its inhabitants.” They took that message back to the King.

And that disaster is exactly what happened – we haven’t got time to go there now but that’s what happened. You can read it for yourself, that Josiah caused God’s people to celebrate the Passover and to honour their God and he was spared. He died and then a few generations on, the Babylonians came and overran Judah – they destroyed the temple, Jerusalem was raised to the ground and they took all the people; God’s people, out of the Promised Land to Babylon, into seventy years of slavery and captivity.

But Josiah … Josiah didn’t suffer those consequences because he heard the Word of God and what? – He repented! All those great things beforehand that he did; they were truly wonderful; they showed his heart. But when he heard the tough things in the Word of God, he sought out God and he set his nation on a different course – despite the mixed blessings that the prophet spoke of.

God’s Word is God speaking! God’s Word speaks of life; abundant life into our hearts. God speaks the truth – He speaks love and grace and mercy through His Word and yet, sometimes … sometimes God’s Word is God speaking some tough things into our lives – calling us to completely turn around. God’s Word completely turns our world upside down because God’s Word is about putting God first in our lives, not ourselves. God is calling us to die in order that we might live. And none of us … none of us wants to die.

None of us want to give up this rubbish that we are clinging onto for dear life but God is calling us….calling us to open His Word the Bible and hear Him speak. And the defining moment in the life of Josiah was when he discovered the Word of God and he tore his clothes because he realised that he had lived the first twenty six years of his life not hearing from God and he turned back to God and he turned his whole nation back to God.

And no matter how far you and I have drifted away, if you are hearing this message today and you feel God’s Spirit putting His finger on a place in your heart and you sense His conviction – if you are reacting right now, the way Josiah was reacting – deep distress – listen again with me to God’s Word about this place you are in right now:

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, regarding the words that you have heard because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before God as you hear My Words and you have humbled yourself before Me now and are tearing your clothes and weeping in your heart before Me – I also have heard you,” says the Lord.

This is a powerful thing because God is a God who restores. God is a God who calls us back and when we turn back to Him, having drifted away; having taken the easy road; having just doddled along with public opinion and done it easy.

When we finally come to our senses; when we hear the Word of God as you and I have heard it today, and we turn our lives back to Him – that’s the defining moment – that’s when God changes everything.