Big Dreams, Big God: Week 2

Today is our second weekend the Life of Joseph. And

so you know what do we do here. We go

through lives, we go through books, and today's message will

be a little bit unique. And I just want to

remind you that we are starting our joke series here

in a couple of weeks. We're excited about that. That

will be our summer series. And again, Happy Mother's Day.

We love you, We love our mothers at this church.

We know how hard of a job it is and

how tough of a role it is, and we just

appreciate you so much. Can we pray as we prepare

for God's word? God, we just thank you so much

today for the opportunity to laugh, to worship, to dig

into your word. And God, I just pray that today's

message it's pretty challenging and could ruffle some feathers and

it does require us to look deep into our soul

one to be honest with ourselves. And so God, I

just or that your Holy Spirit is at work and

your people today are open to the work of your

Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, Amen. Several years back, I

went back to a funeral in the Cincinnati area. It

was a true saint of God, and I wanted to

honor her life. And it was at the old church

that I served at for about ten years in my

first ministry in Middletown, Ohio. And I sat down and

I don't know if you guys know this about me,

but you know, when I need to be an extrovert.

But my kind of fallback normal person is an introvert,

and so when I go to crowds, I get around people,

it could be tough for me, especially if I'm not

in my own home place. And so I went there

and what did I do. I go down to like

the second or third row, and I just sit. I

don't talk to anybody, I don't look at anybody. And

then I hear somebody say, is that James Roberts and

all embarrassed me so much. And then I turn around

and it was some people from my old church, and

it was some dear friends that I had not seen

for over a decade, and I got so excited. We

sit up and we're chatting, and soon enough there was

probably about ten or fifteen people in the Saintuary all

together around and we're all just catching up. And then

I saw Pastor David Sebastian coming down the center aisle,

so that meant all right, the funerals about ready to start,

and so we all took our seat, and when I

sat down, I was just filled with so much joy

in no stylgia and I would look around the room

and be like, okay, oh, I see them. I haven't

seen them in years. I can't wait to talk to

them after service. And so it was just a god

on our day for that lady, but also just a

beautiful day to reconnect with old friends. Well, after service

was over, I walked out into the lobby and I

heard someone say again, is that you, James Roberts and

I so I turned around and it was this older

lady and she looked at me and she says, you.

Know what, I kept looking at you and wondering if

that was you, because you know, you got so big.

I couldn't tell if that was you. And then she

like got close to me. She goes, my lord, you've

really blown up. You're not skinny James anymore, and she.

Said, you've gotten so fat, and then she touched my belly.

Do not touch my belly.

Okay, So she touched my belly and the worst part

was like we weren't off in a corner.

We're like in the middle of the lobby. So people

are walking by as she's talking about how fat I am,

and it was pretty embarrassing. I didn't know what to

do other than like call my counselor. And so I'm like,

all right, I got to close this up and be nice,

you know, And so I just hugged her and said,

you know, it was really nice to see you again,

and it was good to catch up. And then I

asked her when does she think possibly her funeral was

going to because I don't. I want to make sure

they do it all right, get her down in the ground.

Well everything's true about that last part. Okay, that's what

was going on in my head. And so I walk

away and I feel all this relief, and then I'm

about ten feet away and I hear her say to

another church member, did you see how big passer Robbers got?

It was the worst, Like it just felt like something

heavy jump on my back and it was not a

great experience. The world can be rough. You know this,

You've experienced this. People's words have crushed you. And there

are people out there who's mean for no apparent reason.

And there are going to be people in your life

is going to be more harsh to you than you deserve, Okay,

And we do not live in a culture of carefully measured,

graceful words. Fact, if you turn on our television or

you jump on social media, you'll find that we have

become a very harsh society, and we say things that

we would not have said ten years, fifteen years ago.

And again another thing you understand, there's not always There's

gonna be people out there who are just not your

biggest fan. There's gonna be people out there who just

don't like you. And as we dive into the story

of one of the most amazing men who ever lived

on this earth, I was struck by this simple phrase

that opens up the story of a man named Joseph.

The line simply reads this, they hated him and they

what could not They could not speak a kind word

to him. And so today, as we begin to look

at the life of Joseph, this remark, well, man, it

makes sense for us to ask this question at the

very beginning today, what do you do when someone hates you?

What do you do? What do we do when people

don't like us? What do we do when people are

mean to us? What do you do when someone hates you?

So let's go ahead and jump into this account of

the life of Joseph. Let's go and says, this is

the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph a young man

of seventeen. So remember, we're gonna cut him a lost

slack today because he's seventeen, was tending to the flocks

with his brothers. Now, pay attention to this. You're gonna

know some problems right away. His brothers were the sons

of bill Ha and the sons of Zilpah. Okay, so

what does that mean? They don't have the same moms,

all right, his father's wives, and he brought their father

a bad report about them. Okay. Now Israel, now, when

you see Israel at a certain point in the Book

of Genesis, that's just Jacob. Okay. They just used Israel

sometimes and they would interchange up. Says now Jacob or

Israel loved Joseph. And here's an issue more than any

of his other sons, because he had been born to

him in his old age, and then he made an

ornate robe for him. Okay, it takes only two verses

at the beginning of this chapter for us to understand

all the family dynamics and all the problems in this family. Okay,

so we see that there's a family situation here. Brothers

hate brothers. And let me give you three reasons why

we see this hate happening. Number one, the younger brother.

The first thing we noticed is that he's tattletelling. And

who'd hear had a sibling who tattletelled? Okay, any of

your parents you have a child who regularly tattle tells. Yeah,

they're the ones that we get all the information to

good stuff from. Well, listen, tattle telling didn't go well

several thousand years ago, it doesn't go well today. And

so let's not put a halo on Joseph's head because remember,

he's a little tattleteller. Okay. I reached out to my

brother years ago when I was doing a message and

it talked a little bit about sibling rivalry, and I said, hey,

do you ever remember those times where I might have

tattletaled on you? And suffice it to say, he did,

and I can't repeat back to you what he wrote

to me on the text, But even thirty some years

later he still remembers the times that I got him

in trouble, and so you can understand how that causes enmity,

that causes problems among siblings. Now let's lean a little

bit more into this because we see this phrase in

Hebrew bad report. Now, this is very much argued about

amongst commentators. Some commentators say it just means it's a

bad report, like they weren't doing their job. He totaled them.

Other commentators will say bad report means maybe there's a

little bit of exaggeration. Maybe he was making his brothers

look a little less good while making himself look a

little bit better. Parents. Does that ever happen? Does that

sound insane? Like that's not a thing?

Right?

Yeah, we're you know, there's exaggeration, and so maybe just

maybe when he gives us bad report about his brothers,

there's a little bit of exaggeration, and there's also a

little bit of making them look really bad so that

he looks even better. So we see there just in

between the brothers. There's some issues here. Okay, a title

telling is not good in any century. The second issue

we see in the opening verses is that his father

gave him a special outfit you guys remember growing up

in sunny school and we had like the little flannel graphs.

I'm that old. And Joseph had a coat of many callers.

And so what we have done through Christendom is we

focused on the coat, what didn't look like it was ornate.

But here's the thing. The rider doesn't want us to

focus on what the coat looked like. The rider wants

us to understand what the coat meant. Okay, here's what

you have to understand about that coat, the coat that

his father gave him. The sleeves would have went all

the way down to the wrist. The robe part would

have went all the way down to the ankles. Now

that doesn't seem like a big deal, does it. Here's

what you have to understand. When you wore a robe

down to your wrist and you or excuse me, down

to your ankles and then the sleeve went all the

way down to your wrist, that was a non labor outfit.

When he went out into the fields with his brothers,

his brothers would have been wearing short sleeve shirts and.

Robes that did not go down to their knees. Why,

because they would have been working. They would have been

a sweating they would have been out in the heat.

And here's Joseph in a supervisor's outfit.

He's seventeen years old. He's younger than all the rest

of them. So Joseph is in not only this outfit

that his father gave him, this much nicer than theirs.

But his outfit meant that I don't work, I don't sweat,

you sweat, and then I report on you again. That's

not gonna go good at any home right where you

put one child in charge of the other child. But

you know, hey, that works sometimes, But go put the

younger child in charge of the older child and see

how that works. It's not gonna work. And so they

would look at their brother and their hatred would grow

because they could see, they could fit see the favoritism

that he had. It's the hard thing when you have

children not to show favoritism. And to be honest, Jacob

just felled as a father. Jacob set his family up

to be rivals. You got to be very careful when

you have multiple children not to set them up to

be rivals. A few years ago, we had what they

called the Kelsey Bowl. Do you guys remember the Super Bowl?

A couple of years ago where we had two Kelsey

brothers playing, one for Philadelphia and one for Kansas City,

And all of a sudden, everybody's like, oh, this is

pretty cool. Two brothers playing in the Super Bowl against

each other. But then the focus all of a sudden

shifted to the parents, because everybody was like, all right, mom, dad,

how do you handle this? And the mom and dad

were so wise they would say, hey, we want both

of them to win. We don't care who wins. We

were cheering for both of them. And the mother on

one day during the playoffs, actually flew twelve hundred miles

so she could be of both of her sons games

during the Super Bowl. And I don't know if you

remember this, but she famously wore a jersey that was

half Kansas City and half Philadelphia. But here's how that

worked out in their family. Because the parents did a

good job of loving on both of their children well,

and because they encouraged both their children, they had to

have conversations about this rivalry. They had to talk about

how do we live as a family in the midst

of this, how do we love well? Well? When Kansas

City won, you had one brother whose heart was broken,

and the other brother who was elated. But what did

they do on the field. They hugged each other, They

loved on each other, and then the parents came out

there and joined them. Why because family mattered first. And

so we see this beautiful example of a parent who

who knows how to treat their children in such a

way that it calls the children to grow closer instead

of be become enemies. Jacob did the exact opposite. Jacob

set them up for the rivalry. Now, then you might

be asking, okay, James, why on earth did Jacob show

so much favoritism to Joseph. Well, I'm glad you asked

that question. All right. Let me tell you, all right,

Joseph was the son of the wife that Jacob truly loved. Okay,

let me share with you what happened here. Jacob fell

in love with a girl named Rachel. That's Joseph's mom, okay.

And her father was Laban, And Laban was a deceitful man.

And so Joseph said, all right, what do I got

to do to marry Rachel? She's a love my life?

And Laban said, just work for me in the field

for seven years, that's love, oh girls, Just so you know,

like three months in a field is major love. Seven

years this man is a knight and shining armor, okay,

and he works for seven years. Seven years. Then it

comes wedding day and the text says that Laban tricked,

tricked Jacob, and so Jacob the next morning looks over

and goes, you're not Rachel. It was the other sister, Leah. Okay,

And according to the Bible, Leah was a less attractive sister.

And so how did that happen? Well, I think there's

a good chance that she wore a vel during the

wedding ceremony. But also, do you guys remember John chapter

two and what happened at in John chapter two at

the wedding they ran out of what, They ran out

of wine. So let's just take a leap here. Okay.

The weddings back in the day, they would last a week.

There was a lot of drinking, and I'm pretty sure

that Jacob got to the point where he had had

enough libations and he you know, maybe the veil tricked him,

but he had a whole night to realize you're not her.

Why did he not realize it? I believe that Jacob

was just drunk, very simple. And you're saying, James, where

do you get that in the text. I don't let

me tell you. It comes from counseling, where I've heard

many people say and then I woke up and I

didn't even know who that person was. But I've never

had somebody say, oops, married the wrong sister on that day.

And so more likely Jacob drunk so much that Laban switch.

Now think about how much Jacob loved Rachel, because immediately

he makes another deal. He says, Okay, okay, okay, you

married me to Leah. But here's what I'll do. If

you give me Rachel as my second wife, I will

work another seven years for you. That's fourteen years of

employment just to marry this woman he loved, all right.

And then she had a son, and his name was Joseph.

So you know that the other wives Zillpah and all

those other wives, as those little boys were growing up,

they would be like, you know, Joseph can do no wrong.

You know, Joseph's gonna be able to do whatever he wants.

Joseph his daddy's favorite. And so we have the situation

that has arisen where these brothers hate each other because

of the situation that the parents have set up. It

says this, Let's look at this text again. When his

brother Saul that their father loved him more than any

of the others than they hated him and could not

speak a kind word to him. In other words, it

went past feelings. They actually started to accost him with words.

Now here's what's interesting when we look at this word

hate in the Hebrew. It's the type of hate that

is not just in your brain or in your heart.

It's the type of hate that shifts into an action

oriented hate. Let me explain how this works, because there's

again there's two different types of hate. There's a hate

where I don't like you and I can feel that

I don't like you, and then there's a hate where

I want to harm you. Okay, And let me explain

how the difference between these two Years ago, I read

the biography of Lenin. Vladimir Lenin was the guy who

led the Bolshevik Revolution at the end of World War One.

And at the end of World War one, they threw

out the royal family, the Romanovs, who have been ruling

for three hundred years, and they installed their form of government,

and they called it the Bolshevik Revolution, and they ushered

in a long season of communism. Do you guys remember communism? Yeah,

eventually one third of the world. Do you guys remember

how many of you remember? You know, I grew up

in the Cold War the eighties, and we would have

nuclear bomb drills in school and we would hide under

our desk because that desk was gonna protect me from

radiation and a nuclear bomb. But that was the reality

of this communism and this Cold War. Well, Lennon is

the guy who ushered this in, but he did this

at the behest of the people. You have to understand

that the Romanov family for three hundred years ruled Russia,

and guess what, people didn't like them. People hated that family.

But they only hated them to the point where they

just ran their mouth about them or joked about them,

said bad things about them. But then in the midst

of World War One, it got so bad where millions

of people had died and the price of a loaf

of bread had become because of inflation, a luxury. So

the people are suffering. And then for some crazy reason,

Czar Nicholas roaming off, who was a part of this

family of kings for generations, decided it would be a

good idea, even though he had no military experience to

run the Russian army. So what he didn't realize that

he did was that each time they lost a battle,

people are like, you're killing our boys. You're killing our boys.

And their hate moved from a hate that was from

their head and their hearts to an actionable hate where

they wanted to do him harm. And what do we

see happen? One night, they take his family, they ushered

them to another part of the country. Then they're on

house arrest for a long time, and then eventually they

ended up murdering the whole family. And he was opposed

of his throne and they killed the whole family. And

that's where you guys get the famous story of Anastasia.

And she's still around? Is she not? All those things?

And then again it ushered in the Bolshevik Revolution, it

ushered in communism. Why why did the world change for

one hundred years? Because their hate went from their head

in her heart to an actionable hate. Joseph's brothers hated

him in their heart and in their mind for many

many years, and then they start saying stuff about him,

and it kept growing and growing. And I want you

to understand this today, and this is very very very simple. Okay,

this quote right here, I want you to understand that

unaddressed bitterness and hatred does not fade away. It grows

with time. It grew with timement and said got to

the point where they hated him and cannot speak a

kind word to him. And then we know that how

this part of the story is, this part of the

story is by they shift from this mental hate to

doing what putting him in a pit and selling him

into slavery. All Right, we'll get through the rest of

that in the next few weeks. Here's what I want

to do for the rest of time today, what I

want to do now is focus on you, okay. And

what we're gonna do for the next few moments as

we close out today is we are gonna focus on

number one, We're gonna do a self inventory and we're

gonna talk about what should you be doing if you're

starting to dislike people, if you have some bitterness towards somebody,

And then we're gonna talk about what do you do

if somebody hates you? Okay, So let's dive in together.

So the very first thing we want to ask today

is how to protect our hearts from hate? Okay, and

so number one, you gotta read the warning signs. You

gotta read the warning signs.

And so you gotta start asking yourself these questions because

it'll check.

Your heart to see if you're starting to hate someone.

So let me tell you. You might be hating someone

or or might be getting close to hating someone if

you ignore this person or you avoid them all the time. Okay,

you might be getting close to hating someone if you're

easily aggravated just by looking at them, anybody like that, Like,

oh my gosh, I just can't even seem to look

that person.

You might be getting close to hate if you get.

Agitated when you think about them, Or you might be getting.

Close to hate if you become rude or combative with them.

You might be getting close to hate. Is there anyone

in your life that you play the scenarios in your

head of you telling them off? Oh I knew that

would hit the button. I knew that you don't have

to raise your hands because I heard everyone go. That's

probably the closest sign that you're growing in your bitterness

and hatred towards someone. Okay, number two, all right, you

launch an internal investigation, and this is not this is

a not so fun part of why Why why am

I growing in bitterness? Why am I going growing and

resentment towards this person? Why do I have such a

problem with this person? Why do I loath this person?

Why do I feel this pain and this rejection by

this person? And it might be stuff simply is this

they've wronged you and you can't forgive or forget, or

are they attacked your reputation, or maybe they pointed out

your failures, or maybe they've betrayed your trust at some time,

and so there's just a short list. But you've got

to figure out why do I dislike this person? And then,

second or thirdly, today you got to confess your feelings

and your thoughts. If you keep this bottled up and

you're just hating them and thinking about them and growing bitter,

it's going to grow and grow and grow until it

sucks all the joy out of your life. You've got

to go confess this to somebody. Confess this to the Lord,

and maybe a strong spiritual mentor or a counselor and

this is where you begin that mental shift of saying,

all right, I am dealing with this and I need

to move forward. And then you take the next bollstep.

You pray for your enemies and those who hurt you.

You pray for your enemies and those who hurt you. Now,

I can't take credit for this. This is from Jesus. Okay,

Jesus came up with this one. And it's more than

a lofty idea. It's pretty direct.

And what Jesus is saying simply this, all right. You

might feel like they're getting away with something. You might

feel like they've done something that's horrible.

To you and they don't deserve forgiveness. But then Jesus says, listen,

he says, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

And so Jesus says that once you realize, all right,

all right, I am having issues with this person. I

don't like this person. I have resentment towards this person.

I can't stand this person, and maybe it's grown towards hey,

Jesus says, if you're my follower, if you belong to me,

if you call yourself.

A Christian, here's what you will do you will make

a conscious decision to you love your enemy and begin

to pray for them.

And here's what I want everyone to know. Look me

in the eyes. Jesus was not kidding. It's not a suggestion,

it's a command. Why does he have to command it?

Because he knows we will not follow this suggestion. So

when someone's hurt you, you don't like them, you love them,

you forgive them, and then you pray for them. Now,

I have a caveat that I usually say when I

talk about this. If someone has abused you, Okay, I

understand this. Forgiveness does not equal reconciliation. Okay. I don't

expect anybody to hang out with their abuser. Okay, I'm

just simply telling you that Jesus says, love your enemy,

forgive them, pray for them. He does not say, go

put yourself back in harm's way, Go put yourself in

a situation where you have to relive that abuse over

and over again. And also, forgiveness does not equal reconciliation.

If you have somebody that ripped you off and stole

from you, or did some really bad things to you,

you don't forgive them and then say, you know what,

you should run the books at my company. No, no,

you still use some common sense. What I'm talking about

is not allowing bitterness and hate to rule your life.

Because let me tell you something.

If you allow bitterness and hate to rule your life,

I want to tell you who you are punishing.

You're punishing yourself. Okay, they are living rent free in

your life. And let me tell you another thing. They're

not thinking about it. If they're the type of person

who can just casually hurt you and then move on

with their life, they're not thinking about it. So you

got to release it, to release it, because you will

not receive healing until you release this pain. All right, now,

as we close up today, let me ask another question.

What do you do when someone hates you? Now, you

might be shocked by this, because you know, if you

know me, I'm so likable that I have had quite

a few people who did not like me. And a

lot of times it's because of our theology. A lot

of times it's just because my personality. Some people don't

like a quick witted, highly intelligent, lovable, funny person. Some

people that just irritates them. I'm so sorry that's not

in my notes and that's just some people just don't

like you, okay. And so what do you do when

people don't like you? Well, you reach out instead of

acting out. Okay. Now, pay attention to this. When someone

doesn't like you, we usually do two things. Number One,

the most common thing we do when we find out

that someone doesn't like us, we decide to not like

them back, because that's what a four year old does, right,

And we're like, that feels good. Oh you don't like me, Well,

you're allows a human too. I don't like you or

some of us like me. I have made the mistake

in the pass of trying to get people who don't

like me to like me. Just so you know, that's

about the biggest waste of your time you'll ever do

in your life. Because I want to remind you that

hate is a powerful emotion and reaching out. When I

say reaching out, i'm talking about reach out to God.

Reach out to God, because let me tell you something.

You can argue with somebody, you can try to convince somebody,

But there's something you cannot do in life. You cannot

change someone else's mind. That's impossible. You cannot change someone

else's mind. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can

change someone's heart and change someone his mind. There's a

over a decade ago a guy named Chris Simpson. He

actually led a White Pride march. About eight years ago,

he actually abandoned the white supremacist movement. Here's this thirty

eight year old former marine who had tattooed on his

hands pure hate, and he was consumed with hate. And

he says this. He says, hey, we'll blind you do

so many things. It will stop you from having so

many things that consumes you. His young child died unexpectedly.

He had this anger, in this hate, he didn't know

where to put it. So he decided, for some reason,

illogical reason, to put it towards African Americans and black people.

And so he joins this movement. And one day he's

on a family trip to Walmart and his little three

year old stops him, says, Daddy, we can't go down

this aisle because there is a And then the little

child used the word that we all know that we

can never say about a person of the opposite race

to us or anyone. It's a word that's bad, okay.

And when his child said that, he knew that something

was messed up. The next week he went to church.

A little bit after that, he got baptized, and then

his life changed. He ended up getting the tattoos taken

off of his fingers and start going around speaking about

how crazy it is to hate people, especially people of

a different color. But let me tell you something. You

could have sit there with Chris Simpson and given him

five hundred reasons not to hate. If it was not

for the Holy Spirit change in him, it was not

going to change. So you can't change someone's mind. You

need to understand that. Number two, some of y'all just

need to accept reality. Not everyone's gonna like you. Do you

know that not everyone is gonna like you. You just

have to accept that for your own mental health because

this power they have over you will take away your joy.

And remember that Jesus actually said he was a person

who was hated without calls. So if someone hates you

without calls, you're in good company of Jesus. Number three,

be open towards forgiveness and mediation if possible. Okay, be

open to it. If they want to ask for forgiveness,

or if someone says, hey, let's sit down and talk.

Have an open, humble heart. A guy named Bill tells

his story, and he says, a friend of his name Greg,

actually a true story. They had a class reunion here

in Indiana, and everybody went to this class reunion and

everybody had a great time. They were allowed catch it

up with all their stories and what have you been

up to the last seventeen years and so on. And

then at the end of the class reunion, he looks

over and he sees Debbie, and Debbie's real emotional, and

he says, Debbie, what's going on? And Debbie said, you know,

in second grade, twenty seven years ago, a girl named

ker she started the Debbie Haters Club. This is in

elementary school. And she says, I've never gotten over that,

and I've been hurt. I've disliked her all these years.

And the sky Gregy knows Karen, and he knows that

she's a good woman, and so he says, you know,

you guys should talk and figure this out. She says, no,

wa way, no way, no way, no, no, really should talk.

You should talk. And then finally he encouraged her and

he had her go to a room, and then he

caught up with Karen and at the co check and

then He had her going to a room, and then

he stood outside the room just in case of chairs

started flying. And they talked for quite a while, and

he says when they came out, they had faces, faces

that only forgiveness and reconciliation can have. They were changed

because of forgiveness. Now here's the thing. I don't know

the ins and outs of your personal network, but I

do know this. There's a constant battle that we have

of other people. We're around a lot. So here's what

I want you to do today. I want to lead

you in a prayer and I would love for you

to walk away today with a clean, pure heart, a

heart that loves other people for the glory of Jesus Christ.

So let's bow our heads and I want to just

lead you through a time of prayer. Holy Spirit. We

asked now that you enter into this room, and we

ask that you work in our souls at this moment.

So let me ask you. Are you having issues and

bitterness and resentment or maybe even more, maybe it's even

at the point of hate with a former spouse, a parent,

a sibling, a child, a former co worker, a current coworker,

a former friend, someone from school. I want you to

think through this relational network that you build up over

the years, and I want you to ask Jesus.

Today to help to give you the ability to let

go of that resentment, to let go of that bitterness.

And to forgive. Let's take some time to do that

right where we're at today