Your Place In An Uncertain Future Series

UNLIKELY - Your Place in an Uncertain Future

John 3:7-8 MsgB

“So don’t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be ‘born from above’—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.”

Introduction: The future is a mystery, a story yet to be written. From time to time we all try to imagine what tomorrow holds; sometimes its with anticipation and excitement while at others its with fear and dread. No matter how well we plan for tomorrow, none of us can know for sure what will happen. The future is an uncertain place.

God wants us to know we have a secure place with the Lord in an uncertain future.

God has a place for the unlikely; the wind of the Spirit will blow us into surprising places to accomplish His purpose in our lives.

Will we yield to the Holy Spirit, or will we push back against the wind to resist the Lord?

God has a place for the unlikely. The Holy Spirit continues to Surprise us; one breath of God is not enough.

Nicodemus found himself surprised by the place God brought him. Nicodemus thought he was good with God. He struggled to understand the God wanted him to be born again. Jesus explained this spiritual rebirth as being of the Spirit - the wind or breath of God.

Wind and Spirit as translated in our English bibles comes from the same Greek word PNEUMA. The wind (pneuma) blows wherever it wants; you hear the sound of the wind (pneuma), but you don’t know where it came from or where it’s going. In the same way the Holy Spirit, or Spirit (pneuma) blows into our lives to accomplish the work God desires.

Being born again or born from above is only the beginning of the work God wants to do in your life. Just as the winds continue to blow day after day, the Spirit will come again and again into our lives- sometimes as a gentle breeze and at other times like a gusting hurricane we will discover the wind of God has blown us again into an unlikely place.

An Uncertain Future is before us all; only God knows what tomorrow holds.

1. Joseph lived with an uncertain future.

God had already changed Joseph’s plans. Joseph dreamed of bringing Mary home to be his wife and starting a family of their own. But his betrothed was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph thought about ending their relationship because he wasn’t sure what to think about Mary or her pregnancy. But an angel appeared to him in his dreams assuring him that the child she carried truly was the son of God; this baby, Emmanuel or God with us was to be given the name Jesus because he would save His people from their sins. His dream of having his firstborn son being named after him came to an end; instead Joseph would be the earthly step-father to the Son of God.

Uncertainty continued to follow Joseph’s story. He took Mary home to be his wife, but no sooner had she gotten settled in her new home with the man of her dreams, things changed. They were ordered to leave their home to return to Joseph’s hometown for the Roman census. And while they were in Bethlehem, overflowing with all the people who had likewise been displaced from their homes, Mary gave birth to Jesus in an unlikely place - a stable where she laid her newborn baby in a manger.

Joseph brought some stability to their lives. Sometime after the shepherds returned to the fields and the angels had returned to heaven, Joseph found a home for them to live in there in Bethlehem, but an uncertain future soon found them again. Magi from the east had stopped in Jerusalem and inquired of King Herod where the newborn king of the Jews had been born. There were no babies in Herod’s palace, but the religious leaders found God’s promise of a newborn king to be born in Bethlehem. Herod sent the Magi on to Bethlehem to find the child and report back to him so he to could go and worship the newborn king; however, Herod’s intentions were not so noble. Herod planned to kill this rival king before his throne could be challenged and taken away from him.

2. God provided direction, but the future for Joseph and his little family was indeed an uncertain place because God didn’t even tell Joseph everything.