December 30, 2010 The Big Trip 3-4

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and His mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill Him." So he got up and took the child and His mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

Good Thursday pray for our schools and families day, to all of you. And please remember to pray for the family of God. Folks, so many have drifted away from family, and not just the earthly family but God's family. I still think to get the earthly family to really work out, one must first really and truly belong to the family of God. It took me a long, long time till I was solid enough in the family of God to trust Him to run things at our home and me work under Him, and it over the years cost me dearly and I am not talking in dollars and cents here, folks, I am talking in what is important, like family. Prayers again today for those with cancer, for Lonewolf who had surgery last week and did find out she has cancer. Lonewolf is born again, loves the Lord and is looking to Him for healing to stay with family on earth. But she did tell me this, she has family already in heaven and is ready to meet Jesus face to face and is not afraid to go on to heaven. We are praying for you, my sister, and we are just going to put it into God's hands and say, Thy will be done. Please also keep praying for Vicki... I have not heard from her for a while, except for a phone call telling me the computer crashed out.

The Big Trip 3-4: Matthew 2:13 - When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and His mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill Him." 14 So he got up and took the child and His mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my Son." (NIV)

Before I start working on the scripture and what it might mean to us this day, I want to point something out to you... After Jesus was born, please note that when Jesus or The Child is mentioned along with Mary or "His Mother" that the child is always mentioned first.

So how often do you dream and then you try and figure out what that dream might be meaning? Once in a while I will have a dream, and in most cases it does not take me long to figure out what they were meaning. I dream I am out someplace and cannot find a restroom, and I am hunting and hunting for a restroom, then I wake up, and sure enough, I need to go to the bathroom. Ok, I should not have said that but it is true and you need to laugh a little this morning.

But what about those dreams, have you ever had something pointed out to you in a dream? I know that I have had dreams and the subject of what God wants me to write about is pointed out by the subject of my dream. I cannot say that I saw Jesus or even an angel of the Lord, but the subject was so right there and I just knew that God wanted me to talk about it. I have also had that happen after I had my message all ready on a Saturday night and I got awake during the night and the subject was changed and I started over again. I have talked with other pastors who have had that happen also.

So let's take a look at Joseph and His dreams. First an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him about Mary, being a virgin, and was going to have a child and he should take care of the child. Now the angel is appearing again to Joseph and telling him again to take care of the child, pointing out that king Herod wants to kill the child. Right from the start, the very beginning, there where those who wanted to kill our Lord Jesus and since nothing is different today, except that Jesus was killed but was raised from the dead and is alive and well, those who wanted to kill him, now want to kill us, and why? Because as a solid Christian, one who really, really loves Jesus, we have Jesus living in us and they, in my opinion, think they can kill off Jesus if they kill those of us who love Him...

So when the angel of the Lord, appeared to Joseph and said "Get up" and escape to Egypt, Joseph did not fall back asleep and say I will take care of that tomorrow or this coming weekend, I will pack for the trip..No Joseph got up, got The Child and His mother and took off. That brings me to this question for all of you. If God calls on you to do something for Him, how long do you put it off before you even start to work on it? Think about it, we can make all sorts of excuses for not getting started right away, but in fact when God calls us we should respond right away, we are either with Him, or we are thinking about it. And most often what do we Christians say when we think Jesus is calling us? Well, let me pray about it for a while. WAIT A MINUTE, God already called you, what are you waiting for, but hey, we still do it. Joseph packed up and answered the call right away. And did we see it happen before in the Bible? Sure we did, God called on Noah and Noah built an Ark, took him a long time but he went right to work for God. And what about when Jesus called His disciples?

Matthew 4:18 - As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 "Come follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 20 At once they left their nets and followed Him. (NIV)

So the brothers laid down their nets and followed Jesus, in other words they answered the call. They did not say to Jesus, give me the weekend and I will go home and pray about it to God, or I must go home and fix things up, no, they just followed Jesus. And that is what we should do, follow Jesus, and folks, if we pray and listen we will find that He is calling all of us, and we need to get moving on what He wants us to do. If Joseph would have not answered the call and moved out right away with Jesus and His mother, they might have been killed by Herod's army. God is still in control, and if He calls you, He will also give you the tools to get the job done..I think, and I have tried it, I wanted to work for God, but I wanted to do it my way, and God wants it done His way. And we all know or should know by now, it is His will that needs to be done by us and not our will.

So when an angel of the Lord calls you, or if God just talks to your heart, take time to listen, take that step out in faith, my brothers and sisters. Hold onto Jesus and follow Him and trust me on this, the trip is always interesting, always rewarding and most often hard work, but hey, hard work will not hurt you if you are doing it for God.

Dear Father in Heaven... Help us all to listen for You to call on us and help us to answer the call. Help us walk in the light of Jesus and belong to the family of God... Your family, dear Lord. Help us. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Now go forth, go forth and share your blessings that were given to you by God. Love ya, Pastor Dan.