Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Sermon Notes on February 4th, 2007
When Life Is In the Pits
There is the story about a bunch of fellows in the Korean War. They had a houseboy that they hired to take care of their things. They took advantage of him. They would put Vaseline on the stove so when he went to turn it on in the morning there would be grease all over his fingers. They'd put little water buckets over the door so that when he opened the door water would go all over him.
They would nail his shoes to the floor so that when he got up in the morning he couldn't move. Finally it grew where one of them couldn't live with the guilt of what they were doing, and one Christmas time they called him in and said, "Look we're sorry. We're never going to do that again."
The houseboy said, "Oh, no more sticky on stove?"
“No, no more sticky on stove.”
"No, more water on door?"
No . . . no more water on door.
"No more nail shoes to floor?"
"No. . . . more nail shoes to floor."
"Okay, no more spit in soup.”
In a passive mood, you can just spit in soup."
But today we are going to see the tale of nine brothers who took anger to the next step. They plotted to kill their brother, but—as it would turn out—Joseph spent some time in a dark and dry place, a place that became like a door opening upon a new world, a foreign place miles from the lonely hill country. And tonight our story starts on that lonely hill outside Dothan where the brothers were keeping watch over their father’s flock.
Genesis 37:18
18 When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance. As he approached, they made plans to kill him. 19 “Here comes the dreamer!” they said. 20 “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns. We can tell our father, ‘A wild animal has eaten him.’ Then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams!”
21 But when Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph’s rescue. “Let’s not kill him,” he said. 22 “Why should we shed any blood? Let’s just throw him into this empty cistern here in the wilderness. Then he’ll die without our laying a hand on him.” Reuben was secretly planning to rescue Joseph and return him to his father.
23 So when Joseph arrived, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing. 24 Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it. 25 Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain by killing our brother? His blood would just give us a guilty conscience. 27 Instead of hurting him, let’s sell him to those Ishmaelite traders. After all, he is our brother—our own flesh and blood!” And his brothers agreed. 28 So when the Ishmaelites, who were Midianite traders, came by, Joseph’s brothers pulled him out of the cistern and sold him to them for twenty pieces[c] of silver. And the traders took him to Egypt.
29 Some time later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern. When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief. 30 Then he went back to his brothers and lamented, “The boy is gone! What will I do now?”
Anger is an emotional response to being unjustly humiliated. It involves a loss of self-esteem. The angry person feels outraged at what has been done to him/her and seeks to punish the perpetrator of the injustice.
Vengeance, rather than justice is sought. The angry person is carried away by the emotion and usually behaves in ways which can only be considered excessive.
But before we get into this thing called anger, I want to give you a pop quiz to see how much know.
Okay? All right. I'm going to start with some nicknames and work our way toward this thing called anger.
Just some warm up questions first, so let's see how do.
When someone is bright, quick, or energetic, we nickname that person - pistol. We say, "She's a pistol."
When someone does crazy, zany things, we say, "He's a mess," we say.
When someone can't be believed, we say, "He's a blow-hard."
When someone is eccentric or odd, we say, "He’s a Jim Waller."
Okay now that I've warmed you, here is the final exam.
When someone has a temper, we say, “He's a hothead. He’s a Jeff Gordon.”
Well, all nine of Joseph’s brothers seemed to be hotheads. They made decisions based on their emotions. Was Joseph’s dreams that awful? Did he deserve a pit?
There is a bad side to anger, and one writer puts it like this:
If you stop and think about this for a moment, we don’t think like this about other emotions. Nobody says. “I’ve been holding joy in for years.”
I hear funny stories and I’ve been repressing laughter and joy has been building up inside of me and the joy dam is about to burst and it’s going to spew all over the place.
Therapist don’t say to their clients, “Your not in touch with your gratitude.
You’ve been bottling up the gratitude inside you and it’s just not healthy. It’s going to just come spilling out. You’re going to be just thanking people you don’t even know.”
Therapist don't say this.
And all anger is not alike. There is:
1. Passive-aggressive anger - anger that works its vengeance on the sly.
It spits in other people's soup. It gets back in ways that aren't visible to the person its anger is directed toward.
2. Temper - it is a natural disposition toward anger.
This type of anger becomes a curse in the home because this is where it is mostly played out.
3. Ventilators - people who cannot hold in anger. They blow it out.
The problem with ventilating is that it feels good, and what they have found is that when people ventilate by screaming things, or hitting things, it feels powerful to them.
Thus it reinforces that need to express power. For you see expressing anger a lot of times is just another way to express our lack of power over our lives.
Why should he have a better future? This made them mad enough to conspire to kill him.
This began a series of suddens that kept adding twists to the death plot.
1. They suddenly thought about killing Joseph.
2. Then the sudden idea to throw him in a pit instead of shedding his blood.
3. Then the sudden absence of Reuben.
4. The sudden appearance of the Ishmaelite traveling salesman who were on their way to Egypt to sell their wares.
5. Then the sudden idea of another brother named Judah to sell Joseph to this band of salesmen.
We have all of these twists and turns. So let’s slow the story down and see what is in the white spaces. Because between verse 24 and 25 there’s a lot that happened.
So let me give you three things to do if you fall into a pit:
1. When you fall into a pit, you need to accept the initial fall.
Genesis 37:24-25
24 Then they grabbed him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it. 25 Then, just as they were sitting down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of camels in the distance coming toward them. It was a group of Ishmaelite traders taking a load of gum, balm, and aromatic resin from Gilead down to Egypt.”
Whenever something bad happens to us, we tend to spend a lot of energy, not correcting the problem, but ruminating why we fell into the pit in the first place. It’s good to have an understanding about the initial fall into a pit. But don’t waste a lot of time regretting, ruminating, or beating yourself up over it.
We can bet that Joseph didn’t think about his dreams when he fell into that pit. He didn’t say, “Okay, my dreams are over.” It’s easy to get disillusioned. The first thing we think about is revenge. Then maybe indifference.
2. When you fall into a pit, you need to decide what you are going to believe about your adversity.
Genesis 42:2121 Speaking among themselves, they said, “Clearly we are being punished because of what we did to Joseph long ago. We saw his anguish when he pleaded for his life, but we wouldn’t listen. That’s why we’re in this trouble.”
Adversity—Belief—Consequence—Determination
What you believe about your pit is what will determine the future. And only you can determine what that belief will be. You don’t have control over your adversities, but you do have control over what you believe about your adversity.
Take a deck of cards and deal two hands to two people. See who wins. Then ask the loser how it feels to be the loser. Then give the loser a second chance by giving them extra cards until they get the winning hand. Then see what the previous winner does about this.
At the point of adversity, you have to go ahead and accept adversity once there’s nothing else you can do about it. Divorce. Job loss. Whatever. Put it behind you. If you don’t, then you spend so much time in the past that the future starts snowballing you. Because when you fall into a pit, the suddens began to hit you. New twists in your story began to appear.
And one thing that kid said was, “I’m out of control.” I said, “You’re out of control because you are trying to abandon yourself.”
This was his negative solution to his life that was being hit with the snowball of suddens. It will make you feel out of control. It’s the negative solution.
Think about Legion.
The positive solution is to be proactive. Anticipate the future. They say people who live in the past will struggle with what to do with their future. They get stuck. People who live in the future are the ones who struggle with the past. They are always deny, covering up, moving forward to keep with dealing with the past. This is what that kid is doing. He is running from past by living in the moment that carries him to the next step.
3. When you fall into a pit, you need to decide what you are going to do in the future. What are the consequences?
Genesis 50:20
But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. 21 Now therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Set up some kind of consequence. Make a contract. Let both parties know what is expected. I use this with my girls when they get in trouble. I make them sign a contract with me that lists the actions or behavior they should abstain from, and then the consequences if they break the contract. This is way they bear the burden of the consequences. They can’t tell us parents that we are ridged or cruel. They knew. They disobeyed. They suffer the consequences.
