Quiet Times Search

• Told his brothers to not be distressed or angry with themselves for selling him to slavery
• Purpose was to save the lives of his family - Genesis 45:5
• He saved himself a lifetime of bitterness and self-pity

• We must come to peace with the past
• Develop his perspective on the matters at hand
• Be gracious is your evaluation of others' roles
• Forgive yourself and others
• Never waste the impact that your past can have on others
• Be thankful

Jesus often withdrew

• Jesus often withdrew - Luke 5:16
• Spent the night praying - Luke 6:12
• Jesus was praying in private - Luke 9:18
• Jesus... took Peter, John, and James .. to a mountain to pray - Luke 9:28
• Withdrew to mountain by himself - John 6:15

When was the last time you withdrew an entire night, day, or week?
We wonder why we are stale, unmotivated, joyless, and weary and have not grown
It takes awhile to detact from the world

A retreat can be unforgetable, life-changing time
You have to plan it to make it happen, Satan will try to stop you

Loving God is a journey

Father draws us to himself - John 6:44

Father does not change - James 1:17
Hard to understand God when we are so inconsistent

It is OK for a journey to have highs and lows

Why love God?
Why not just obey him?
Why not just "gut out" our journey with God? Because we are commanded to

What touches you most about God?

• He never quits
• Always a refuge
• Always will take you back
• He will make sure you know where you are
• Champion of the truth and the underdog
• Tender with the weak and brokenhearted
• Hammer the arrogant and pround
• Never makes a mistake

Despite all the good qualities of God - our relationship with God still takes work

• "We are not compatible anymore"
• "We have both changed"
• Think about an old boyfriend or girlfriend

• Because of Jesus we can be one with Him
• He has not changed
• He is thinking of me, I am I thinking of him?

It is good to be reminded of who God the Father is:

1. God's love is unconitional

• Thomas, the douber, was forgiven
• Peter, who deied the Lord, was forgiven
• Paul, killer of Christians, was forgiven

The only ones who dail to receive forgiveness are the ones who fail  to ask for it

2. God always comes through

God is faithful, he can not disown himself (2 Timothy 2:13)

3. Nothing is impossible for God

God's power is absolute
He can change anyone and anything
It is never an issue of whether or not God has power, it is if we believe

4. God never makes a mistake

He knows what we can bear - he is always right

• Spirit's circumcision of my heart - Romans 2:29
• God pours his love into my heart via the Spirit - Romans 5:1-5
• God's Spirit lives in me - 1 Corinthians 3:16
• Holy Spirit within me cries out to God - Galatians 4:6
• Credit for all wisdom and revelation goes to the Spirit - Ephesians 1:17
• He himself testifies to us that he lives within us - 1 John 4:23

If God's people will humble themselves pray and seek his face, he will hear from heaven and forgive us - 2 Chronicles 7:11-16

Even after the temple was built, God was concerned whether his people will still seek him

God himself was often "felt" but not "found" - He has the same concern today

Difference: being members / having a deep personal and individual relationship with God

In his pride the wicked does not seek him - Psalms 10:1-4

One thing I ask: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, gaze upon the beauty - Psalms 27:1-9

Nothing will satisfy like seeking his face

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead - Philippians 3:12-14

Much of our challenge is in accepting failures without feeling like failures

Peter and Judas were both betrayers
Peter was forgiven and Judas would have too if he had not killed himself

Mistakes are part of the growing process

1. Performance mind-set - try to minimize our failures (no risks)
2. Terminal thinkers - avoid calling them mistakes

Gospel allows us to start over and over again
Failure to achieve dreams is one our greatest challenges from our past

Shock > denial > anger > depression, apathy, or peace (grace of God)

BIG PICTURE - being right with God, growing in our relationship with him, and helping others

God has a purpose behind every problem

God uses problems to draw you closer to himself
Lord is close to the brokenhearted - Psalms 34:18

God had the ability to kept:

• Joesph out of jail
• Daniel out the lion's den
• Paul from being shipwrecked 3 times
• Young Hebrew from being thrown in a furance

... but he didn't

Problem force us to look to God and depend on him
None of your problem could happen without God's permission

Romans 8:28-29 (NLT)

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters.

• "God causes everything" - God is behind everything
• "to work together" - work together as part of God's plan
• "for the good" - the end result is for our hearts to be more like Jesus
• "of those who love God" - those who are obedient
• "according to his purpose"  - the purpose is "become like his Son"

Service starts in the mind

Servants think more about others than about themselves

Not thinking less of ourselves, thinking of ourselves less
Forget yourselves; lend a helping a hand - Philippians 2:4
This is what it means to "lose your life"
Jesus emptied himself; taking the form of a servant - Philippians 2:7

Self-denial is the core of servanthood
Unfair situation; use the occasion to practice the servant life - Matthew 5:41

Servants think like stewards, not owners

Remember the God owns it all
No servant can serve two masters - Money not "should not", "can not"
If you have been trusted with the world's weath, than you can be trusted with true riches - Luke 16:11

Will the cross ever make sense to the world?

Will all the wisdom of the world, no one has found God
Man destined to frustration by God himself to show themselves helpless without God

Jews sought a miracle worker general ignoring scriptures like Isaiah 53
Greeks described god as apatheia - total inability to feel; looked don on uncultered Christians

God's plan was never to impress prideful scholars or to find acceptance among the rulers of the ages

Some things never change:

• Graduate student in the laborary for 100 hours - OK
• Athlete who trains 6-8 hours a day - OK
• Executive working 60 hours a week - OK
• Someone passionate about Christ - Bad

Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing
Man without the Spirit does not accpet spiritual things - 1 Corinthians 2:14
God has blinded the minds of unbelievers - 2 Corinthians 4:4

God didn't come to impress the world. Are you?

World often assumes humily with being quite, soft, weak, a loner, apathetic and without convictions

Does this sound like Jesus to you?
Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on the cross - Philippians 2:8
Death on the cross was considered a curse - Deuteronomy 21:22-23
He allowed himself to be cursed
He put his trust in him who judges justly - 1 Peter 2:23

With humility, you give up yourself, but in the process you find God and yourself

Questions and answers about humility:

1. Where does God dwell? with the humble and concrite - Isaiah 57:15
2. Who does God esteem? he who is humble, concrite, and trembles at his word - Isaiah 66:2-3
3. Who receives God's grace? not the proud but the humble - James 4:6
4. Who does God lift up? those who humble themselves under God's mighty hand - 1 Peter 5:5-6

Answered the following questions in the Q & A section:

1. Is marriage approved?
2. Is there one God or more than one God?
3. Should our good works be seen or unseen?
4. Was Christ's mission peace or not?
5. Was Christ's testimony of himself is true?
6. Was Keturah Abrahams' wife or concubine?
7. Where did Cain get his wife?

• He entrusted himself to him who judges - 1 Peter 2:23
• Kept his focus on the joy that would be his - Hebrews 12:2

• Simply save himself and let everyone fend for themselves
• Come down in hope that they would believe
• Settle on improving their lives but not saving them

• Jesus also loved the world that he gave his only life - Love
• He cared deeply for others
• He knew he could bring salvation to many

Joy set before him endured the cross - Hebrews 12:2-3
Jesus was a joyful person; even at the cross - at the cross it seemed that everything was going wrong

Yet joy joy was still in the heart of Jesus:

• He knew God was in control
• He didn't agrue with God
• He didn't need explaination
• He didn't need to justify himself
• He entrusted himself to the one who judges - 1 Peter 2:23

When we try to take over God's role - there is no joy
Jesus prayed for his disciples to have the full measure of his joy - John 17:13

Even the violent scene of the cross brought about joy and hope
What will you allow to steal your joy?

• Made himself nothing
• Took the very nature of a servant
• Was made in human likeness
• In the appearance of a man
• Obedient to death

• Consumed with finiding fault with God
• Reject God rather than questioning ourselves
• Thinks he could do a better ob

1. Start with a fresh look at the cross
2. Remind yourself of the humility shown by Christ
3. Want reconciliation more than anything
4. Confess your sin first

• Even when there was a large crows of disciples - Luke 6:17
• Even when the is a entire town gathered - John 4:2

• For the strength to live this way
• For the trust needed to believe
• For the supplies necessary to meet every need
• For the godliness to live as the Bible directs

• Satan would be destroying himself
• Or He was telling the truth

How can we tell if our oldrer chidlren are disrepectful?

• Slamming doors
• Rolling eyes
• Muttering
• List is endless

Our children honoring us is to show honor to God and his plan
As our children come to respect our authority, they learn to respect God himself

Claim your authority! Expect to respected!
If you not expect it, you will not get it

Children really want deep down inside - the confidence from knowing their limits
They want to know how far they can go

1. He obeyed her - Luke 2:51
2. He allowed her to influence him when he performed his first miracle - John 2:1-11
3. He did not allow his devotion to Mary make him sentimental - Mark 3:20-35
4. Protected and provided for her needs as he died on the cross

Jesus had compassion and healed the man with leprosy - Luke 5:12-18
Jesus is filled with compassion - Mark 1:41

Jesus was different:

• He hurt for those whose lives were devastated by illness
• He went to great lengths to be with them
• Helped and encouraged them
• Made himself available to them and spent many hours with them - Mark 1:32-34

What Jesus did we can also do (beside healing):

• Include those who are sick when you can
• Find ways to serve
• Help and encourage

Society shrinks back - hospitals are not our favorite place
Jesus reached out his hand and touched
The sick need real involvement in their lives

Somehow, we think that the person is responsible for his or her condition
In some cases yes, but we can not oversimplify God's working in our world

Job "friends" did not understand what God was doing
How unsearchale his judgement and his paths beyond tracing out - Romans 11:33

How can I imitate Jesus by "reaching out" in compassion to the sick?