What To Do While You Wait - Ray Pritchard

good morning I woke up when you preach you'll understand this I woke up this morning thinking about my message happens to pastors on Sunday morning and happens on Thursdays Nathan Mayer week I was pondering thinking about this whole whole series and this where I want to begin this morning with an observation that whenever you preach a story from the Bible like the story of the life of Joseph preacher faces two problems number one everybody already knows the story they may not know all the details but they know about what Joseph's brothers did and about the pit and everybody not in church people a lot of them know about Potiphar's wife I talked about that yesterday and Joseph being thrown into prison and standing before Pharaoh and becoming the prime minister and then there's a little confusing part there about the money in the silver cup and people don't know that went so well but they get the end of the story all the brothers show up and the family shows up and it's a really good happy ending and so one part of the preachers problem is you're talking about stuff everybody already let's say sort of knows but that's not the biggest problem when you come to the story of Joseph the real biggest problem for all of us I think is that we know how the story ends we know there's a real happy ending way down the road and everybody who's ever preached has quoted it as I'm going to when I preach tomorrow you minute for evil but God meant it for good we all know that one of our problems is then we we come to read the early part of the story almost unconsciously as if Joseph himself knows what's going to happen as if he's totally cool during all this because he knows in the end he's going to be Prime Minister and he knows in the end you know he's all going to be reconciled and everything's gonna it's all going to be good in the end well he didn't know any such thing from the very beginning he didn't know any more about what was going to happen tomorrow than you and I know for sure what's gonna happen tomorrow I think that's a very salient fact to remember when we come to Genesis chapter 40 Genesis chapter 40 because um when this story opens our hero is in prison not because he did wrong but because he did right Joseph didn't sin in any way and what he did with Potiphar's wife more particularly what he didn't do what he refused to do he didn't sin he obeyed God and he ended up in trouble because of it now I'm only going to talk this morning about Genesis 40 and in the interest of making myself clear which is always good let me tell you what I think to be the single most important fact about Genesis 40 at the beginning Joseph is in prison at the end he is still in prison there's nothing I can say that's gonna get him out of prison okay he's in prison at the beginning then some stuff happens and you get to the end of the chapter he is still in prison that's not fair but there it is Joseph is waiting there's nothing else to do he can't get out no way to appeal certainly no way to escape he's stuck in prison he's far from home where they think he's dead anyway he's been falsely accused of rape and you don't have too many friends when you're in that situation so he waits ok whole chapter right here he's in jail two men show up they have two dreams Joseph gives two interpretations one man dies one man lives the guy who lives forgets and Joseph ends up exactly where he started in jail whole chapter right there Joseph in the beginning in the middle and the ending is waiting waiting which is perhaps the hardest discipline of the Christian life most of us hate to wait I know that I do truth be told most of life is waiting waiting for your grades waiting to graduate waiting for a church to call you waiting to see if the bank will give you a loan waiting for the right time to start a family waiting for the lab results to come back from the doctor waiting for your loved ones to come to Christ waiting to meet the right guy right girl waiting to be married waiting to find out what God wants you to do waiting for someone to buy your home waiting for your prayers to be answered waiting for your husband to come home from a business trip waiting for your oldest daughter to come back to the Lord we all have to wait whether we like it or not not already said most of life is waiting did you realize that when you watch a football game most of it is not football football game 60 minutes right average NFL game on TV last three hours according to an article in The Wall Street Journal the actual amount of time in which football is being played in that three-hour period is 11 minutes out of that three hours 60 minutes of commercials 75 minutes of players standing around 17 minutes of replays cheerleaders a few other things 11 minutes of actual football it is a parable of life the action of life is small the waiting is large when worn wears be talked about this chapter he said this quote God permitted Joseph to be treated unjustly and put in prison to help build his character and prepare him for the task that lay ahead the prison would be a school where Joseph would learn to wait on the Lord he would learn that God's delays are not God's denials if you're taking notes that's dr. Weir's be write that down God's delays are not God's denials so the question this morning is what do you do when you wait what do you do while you wait let me suggest for you three answers from Joseph's prison time number one be faithful be faithful reading from the text now some time after this Joseph's been in prison when everybody argues nobody knows how long he was in prison even before the cut Barre and the Baker show up but he's in prison for a while then suddenly here comes the cut bear the butler of the king of Egypt and his Baker they committed some kind of offense against their Lord the king of Egypt and Pharaoh was angry with his two officers the cut bear and the chief Baker and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the prison where Joseph was confined in the captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them and he attended them they continued for some time in custody and I remarked about this that it's like in the movie shall shank redemption prison time is hard time when that cell door shuts you've got all the time in the world to sit and think and day after day and week after week and for this day it's just another day for Joseph and it's true the Lord was with him and it's through the hand of God was upon him he was still in a pit he was still in a kind of dungeon he was still being held against his will and the most important fact about this is don't read this story from the end read it from the beginning when these two guys show up Joseph doesn't have a clue he doesn't know anything about any dreams in the interpretation these two guys show up and they are assigned to him inside the prison he could not see the future the cupbearer was his ticket out but Joseph didn't know it and would not know it for two long years so I asked some questions what do you do when you're unjustly accused what do you do when your friends turn against you what do you do when your dreams turn to ashes and what do you do if you're a righteous man who has done the right thing for the right reason in the right way and you end up in jail for it well the answer is it depends on how big your God is if you got a small God that's gonna be okay when the sun is shining and you got money in the paint and your wife is happy with you and the elders still love you everything is going well at the church and the ministry is great how small God's gonna be okay but what are you gonna do when when the doctor says I am sorry it's cancer what are you gonna do when your marriage begins to break up what are you gonna do when your kids get in trouble what are you going to do when you get the late-night call one of your kids has been arrested what are you gonna do a small God will never be enough you know one of the big points one of the big points of Joseph's story is and not just this text but all the story of Joseph Joseph wasn't a small God er Joseph was a big goner he believed in a big God so when when when it all begins to fall around you how you respond is going to pin on how big your God is so I ran across this statement the other day I thought this was pretty good the secret of your future is found in your daily routine when all God's people said whom yeah that's worth pondering that's worth pondering that's good the secret of your future is found in your daily routine Cleese est says whatever your hand finds to do right whatever whatever it is what do it of what all your might all your might Eugene Peterson when he gave us the message said that's kind of like this whatever turns up grab it and do it that's good because life is unpredictable something is always going to turn up so it's so easy listen it's so easy for all of us and I think maybe even maybe even especially if you're in seminary because you're by definition looking to the future you're here for preparation for something that's going to be down the road it's so easy to live in a never Neverland dreaming about what maybe someday we dream about starting a diet or getting a new job or meeting someone who will sweep us off our feeder somehow finishing that term paper painting the living room and learning French or calling on a new client or applying for a grant or going back to school of a thousand other worthwhile ideas one of her books Elizabeth Elliott talks about this whole thing and Elizabeth Elliott talks about what do you do when you get stuck in life because everybody gets stuck every once in a while and she said well I get stuck sometimes and she said I find what helps me is I just get up and do the next thing quote quote because there is always a next thing that needs to be done you may be small or trivial there's always something that needs to be done washing or cleaning or writing a note or making a phone call or paying bills or cleaning the shelves or filling an order or putting gas in the car picking up the kids or taking your pills or saying your prayers or weeding the flowers or feeding your dog or or reviewing your Hebrew there's always something that needs to be done Martin Luther King jr. said it this way quote whatever your life's work is do it well a man should do his job so well that the living the dead and the unborn could do it no better if it follows your lot to be a streetsweeper sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures like Shakespeare wrote poetry like Beethoven composed music sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well it's a good question for you this morning will you be faithful when nothing makes sense in your life will you be faithful when nothing makes sense in your life so number one be faithful number two be ready so the guys are all there in the prison baker and the cup baron joseph and whoever else was there and well some time passes one night verse five they both dream cut bearing the baker the king of egypt in prison each his own dream each frame with his own interpretation when Joseph came to them in the morning he saw that they were troubled so he asked Pharaoh's officers who were with him in custody in his master's house why are your faces downcast today they said to him we have had dreams and there is no one to interpret them and uh before I read that next part I just comment to you Joseph had no idea so remember there's no idea it's just get up it's another miserable day in prison this is one more day one more hopeless forgotten day behind bars just one more rotten miserable day these guys have dreams and Joseph being a compassionate man says why are you so downcast and they say we've had dreams and and there's no one to interpret them and I find Joseph's response tremendously insightful he says do not interpretations belong to God please tell them to me I mean it's not as if not as if Joseph now it's the big head you're really not in a position to have the big head at this point it's not as if he can say you know I got dreams I had these dreams and I told my brothers and yeah I'm a dream expert tell me your dreams and I can give you the answer he didn't say anything like that he says interpretations belong to God tell me the dreams I'll go to God if it's his will he'll give me the answer and I'll come back and tell him do you know their dreams all the way through Joseph's story that's another whole side of it I mean first he has them that's in chapter 37 and now Baker and cut bare have them and then in the next chapter they were I was gonna have him that's gonna open the door for Joseph Jim Fixx will become the prime minister but we're not there yet when Joseph doesn't know he doesn't have any more of the big picture that any of us have about what the future holds I'm saying he was ready to serve and he was ready to point people to God he saw God's hand everywhere everywhere he was in prison unjustly not for doing wrong but for doing right no human hope of getting out he saw God's hand everywhere you know what this means this is something one of the commentators 100 years ago pointed out that the fact that Joseph was willing to even talk to them about their dreams it meant that Joseph still believed in God he still believed that somehow those early dreams that have been given to him somehow someway someday somewhere somehow God was going to bring it all to pass and he doesn't have any idea of the connection he's not only faithful he's ready to serve and ready to point to God by the way just a side note you do understand don't you God does some of his best work in prison John Bunyan goes to prison out comes pilgrims progress Dietrich Bonhoeffer goes into a Nazi prison outcomes cost of discipleship Chuck Colson goes to prison out comes the worldwide ministry of Prison Fellowship so I was I was talking about this one of those conferences this summer and about a week later got this email Pastor Prichard I agree with you God does his best work in jails you see my 21 year old son has been running from God for many years but he had got in trouble with pot and running from the law and while in jail for three weeks he heard the gospel from preachers there and put his faith and trust in Christ God has his people in the right place at the right time that's good theology right there God has his people even in prison behind bars in the right place at the right time a place he says talking about his son a place I thought he should never go but God reached him there and his last sentence is my son has come home again ladies and gentlemen God is at work in prisons across America around the world and let us understand there is no place there is no place on earth where the Holy Spirit is not already there boom taught us there is no pit so deep that the love of God is not deeper still so just understand there are no coincidences in life you already know that I'm just reinforcing it there are no coincidences in life so number one be faithful number two be ready you're ready to speak for God whenever he gives you the opportunity what do you do while you wait beep hold this to me what I'm going to quote to you here this to me is a single most interesting part of this chapter it's some you know cut bear has his dream Baker has his dream we're in the good-news bad-news business you're gonna live you're going die he's gonna lift up your head and you're gonna be restored he's gonna lift up your head and keep on lifting all the way off your body huh hate it when that happens so Joseph gives the good news to the cut bear right and there's a little statement dropped in in verse 14 often overlooked to me it's really crucial he tells the cut bear you're going to get out of here fagor was gonna lift your head up you're gonna be restored to your position you're gonna be right by the most powerful man in the world and he says in verse 14 only that is Joseph to the cupbearer only remember me when you get out of here when you get your freedom back remember me when it is well with you please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh and to get me out of this house and he goes on to say I was betrayed and I'm unfairly he's talking about his family and I'm unfairly in prison he's talking about false accusation by Potter first wife I love it so get me out of this house now last night I was up reading over I was reading over some stuff the technical term there I was reading over some stuff and I and I came to a certain Bible commentator Bible teacher who's written on the life of Joseph and he's a really good guy and he said this is one of the times in Joseph's life where his faith failed him completely I don't see that at all I do not see that at all in fact it seems to me that the only way a person could ever say that is a person who's never been in prison or never been around prisoners because if you are in prison and you are unjustly imprisoned there is nothing wrong with saying to somebody who's going to get out when you get out if you can help me get out of here I will certainly appreciate it back to Shawshank Redemption Andy Dufresne the great if a the the the banker from Maine unjustly falsely falsely imprisoned accused of murdering his wife he didn't do it but accused of it and they're in the they're in Shawshank Prison in up in Maine he his best friend in prison is a fellas been there a lot longer fellows simply goes nothing a read and one day after they both been in Shawshank Prison for a long time they're talking out in the prison yard and Andy Dufresne is saying he's saying you know I got a I got to find a way to get out of here I'm working on the plan there's somehow some day I can get out of here and read said to no no no Andy you can't think like that that'll drive you crazy we're never gonna look around he says we're never getting out of here Andy Dufresne looks at his buddy red as he's walking away and he says it all comes down to a simple choice get busy living or get busy dying strikes me as a profoundly biblical kind of statement get busy livin get busy dying and Joseph to me this is statement of enormous faith Joseph is saying I am here but this is not my whole life I am here but I believe God's got big plans for me I am here and I believe that somehow someway someday God is going to deliver me out from here and so I'm asking you my friend when you get out of here remember me I mean if I was in prison unjustly I'd be grabbing everybody and saying that to them I'd be saying Lord thy will be done him hey buddy when you get out of here remember me got to get busy living or get busy dying hmm so many people lose hope when hope is gone life is gone I had a young church secretary Isis in 16 years pastoring up the Chicago area and when Marlene and I boys went up there in 1989 quite a bit younger than I am now and surely Banta I inherited her she had been there for Bob gray and been there for Don Gehrig and she knew thee she based around the whole church's good church secretaries do because she knew where all the bodies were buried and the wonderful of surely we we got along fantastically and surely was approaching retirement age and I was able to get her to stay on for a few extra years and she had a little saying she would say this to me and I suppose if she said it once to me she probably said maybe 50 times to me she said remember pastor ray have a blast while you last I like that I like that whatever turns up grab it and do it so I've been pondering this a few days ago I was a really young guy when I came here I got do this in my head but I was like 21 or 22 when I came to Dallas seminary in 20 five I guess when I graduated so I was a young guy I turned 61 a few days ago you know they say when a man turns 60 he becomes a philosopher of life and I have become a philosopher of life I know they say that 60s and 50 maybe but it's not the new 30 when you turn 60s think about that when you turn 60 you can't kid yourself anymore Kenya you have / - ninja 30 or 35 or 40 and someday someday they're gonna lay me to rest it's gonna say ray Pritchard he's gonna say in 1952 little - in the year of my death that's gonna be it and all that 60 or 70 or 80 years is comprehended in that little that little - in the in the limestone there of the of the marker above the body of the box where I'll be in the ground you know when I was a now tell you my whole life story but don't worry this detect like 3 minutes maybe there's born in Memphis and grew up in Alabama went to college in Tennessee Chattanooga Tennessee that's where I met Marlene and we got married on a Thursday night in Phoenix and spent our honeymoon driving here to Dallas and the following Tuesday started my first semester at Dallas Theological Seminary and then went immediately out into the pasture it for 26 years I spent and all in big cities even though I'm a small-town boy just the the way the Lord leads and opens doors I spent we spent five years in Los Angeles and then came back here to Dallas pastored a church in Garland for about six years and then up to Chicago for 16 years up there and wonderful wonderful time of the of the pastoral ministry and you know everywhere I go people ask what exactly is it you do now it's a hard question to answer you know this what are you what who are you and what are you doing that's really more of an existential kind of question but you know one thing I did find dot dot dot dot dot dot dot okay that's it doc God dot the official sign of a preacher's rabbit trail okay so I'm stepping stepping away from a sermon for a moment I like to tell you when I'm doing that so you'll know okay not that that's fooling you too much anyway but I I have discovered I did discover that people understood me much better when I was in the pastor box even some of my best friends in the world just couldn't quite get it we all like to put people in boxes this is a teacher this is a professor there's some missionary this is a pastor and you know inside the ministry and so you're in the box stay in the box everything's good we like you inside the box and if God calls you or you jump out of the box and you can take your choice there if some of my friends still wonder about that uh how do you get from 26 years of pastoring to this ministry we're doing now well I wanted to share these two things with you uh two things happened among many many things the first one was shortly after 9/11 right after 9/11 right like five weeks after 9/11 I was with some friends from my church in Chicago and we went on an evangelistic mission to Washington DC and we stood at the smoking ruins of the Pentagon and then we went to lower Manhattan and this is October of 2001 when the smoke was still rising from the ruins and the acrid smell of wood and and a metal and plastic and some other unimaginable hard-to-define awful smell was rising and covering all of lower Manhattan and and the country was still in shock I remember we were there doing some evangelistic work and trying to talk to people and one of those days when we were there we got as close as you could get to the ruins the smoking was about two blocks away and you can see a part of the World Trade Center was still in that so-called Cathedral view that one part of it was still up and in the wreckage and God spoke to me and I understand I understand there's always a danger when somebody says that you make of it what you will okay you make of it what you will and if somebody says was that an audible voice no it was much more real than that it was deep inside my spirit I stood there and I looked at the smoking ruins the World Trade Center in God spoke to my spirit and said ray pay attention to this look at this this is what the whole world is coming to this is a preview of what happens to the whole world eventually and it was as if the Holy Spirit just opened my eyes and I heard it I heard those words from first John this world is passing away and the lusts thereof he who does the will of God abides forever and I felt the Lord saying to me ray now wake up you ever had the Lord just say wake up to you I've had the Lord said wait he said wake up and he said now ray go and find out what really matters in life and then go and do it and go and do it now we're back home to Chicago moved and challenged and troubled and wondering what God was saying to me and for my family and for our boys hmm God begin to do this you know just move everything around in my life and I went through a time finally had my good friend Colin Smith from the orchard Church up in Arlington Heights outside of Chicago really good friend of mine we were having breakfast one day about a year before we left the church in Chicago he said ray you know what I think God is doing I said what he said you know how when you are going to transplant a plant the first thing you do is you loosen the dirt around the roots of the plant so you don't destroy it he said I think God is loosening the dirt around the roots of your life because he's about to move you in a new direction that became a controlling metaphor by boy that may explain for some of you what's happening in your life right now that digging down there that may just be the Lord digging down there getting ready to do something new in your life and then in early 2005 I knew I knew by the end that my time at the church in Chicago was drawing to a close and had been a wonderful 16 years wonderful church and not gracious they certainly treated they treated our family very you'd never have any very very well can never have any complaints it's a wonderful church wonderful congregation but sometimes you know that you know that you know this stuff is beginning to happen and one day Marlene came home and she said they found something on the mammogram and they want to retest and we went through all this and they said it's early stage breast cancer and you know I want to I just want to say this to you guys from the day I graduated from seminary all the way through all the way through never a week past I didn't deal with somebody with cancer every pastor does that I mean cancer is everywhere either you're praying for somebody who's got cancer we're praying for somebody's loved one with cancer I mean it's everywhere it's all around us pastors deal with this all the time and I had spent 26 years praying and dealing with people who have cancer and I had written a couple of books and talked about it in some of those books let me tell you something I've discovered in one blinding flash cancer looks a lot different on the other side of the pastor's desk and it didn't matter it didn't matter about my experience I was just as terrified as anybody else was and to be quite honest as we went through the the the the the the two surgeries and the radiation my wife was a lot stronger than me in every way possible just in general through all of life let me make clear in the interest of full disclosure she is much stronger than me in every way that really counts she much stronger person and she went through that much better than me I tried to preach my way through it but my legs were shaking underneath me in some way and by the way just to tap one little knot about two weeks ago we got the all-clear mark at the eighth year Oakley reported to eight year mark so we're thanking God for that but but those of you been down that road you understand what I'm about to say you just never know right you just never really know so while Marlene was going through that treatment in O five God spoke to me again much deeper than an audible voice into my spirit and you know what he said to me ray pay attention wasn't like as a ray pay attention this cancer is a wake-up call it's a wake-up call this cancer is a reminder you are not going to be here forever as cancer is a reminder you're not gonna live forever on planet Earth and you know that is a good thing to be reminded of brothers and sisters it is appointed unto man what once to die once to die we're all gonna do some box time eventually there's no escaping that and God spoke to me and he just said right be reminded you won't be here forever and the Lord seemed to say to me so if there's anything else you want to do from me in my kingdom go and do it now because you will not be here forever not be here forever let God speak in that into your heart any way you want but that's why we are where we are doing what we're doing we're not going to be here forever an old man was dying and someone asked his servant how is your master doing the answer came he is dying full of life that's the way to go out Joseph didn't settle we shouldn't either into this story and I'm done the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him that's the end of the story that's the way the chapter ends he's in prison in the beginning in prison at the end Joseph must have had many questions what if the cupbearer never remembers what if I die in prison what if I never get to clear my name let me tell you something brothers and sisters the what-ifs of life will kill you what if you never asked me out on a second date what if I never get married what if we can't have children what if I lose my job what if we run out of money what if my husband makes a bad decision what if I lose my job what if our kids get sick what if the church doesn't call me what if the chemo doesn't work what if she files for divorce what if the church splits think of Joseph's experience the only people who can help him either a think he's dead or B think he's committed a vile crime or C have forgotten him completely what do you do then it all depends on how big your God is when you've been forgotten like that small sighs God's not gonna get you through medium sighs God got to go back on the shelf we need the great big God of the Bible uh-huh okay remember this please God doesn't keep time the way we do right from everlasting to everlasting day with the Lord is like a thousand years time is no complication to God aw Tozer said quote God never hurries there are no deadlines against which he must work God is bigger than the clock he's never in a hurry he's never late he's never behind schedule the cup bearer forgot Joseph but God didn't so what are you gonna do while you wait I have an idea for you wait on the Lord why because they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint brothers and sisters your Redeemer is on the way he's just not working on your schedule so one more sentence and I'm done let God be God and all will be well so Lord we have this story increase our faith in you our great sovereign Almighty God help us to know that while we wait you have not forgotten us do your work in us we pray in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

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Length: 41min 0sec (2460 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2013