Climate Change - Pt. 2 - Forecasts Series

Forecasts

I. Introduction

We confuse climate with weather. They are not the same thing. Climate is in fact defined as "a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years." So this is more than weather! Climate is in fact what sets weather into motion. Climate controls weather. Climate dictates what the weather will be like. Climate can be a great destabilizing force. So some of you are fighting storms, trouble, difficulties and you only seem to get temporary relief or respite. Then those same challenges show up on the horizon again! We expend all of our energy on fighting weather when if we would spend the same efforts on controlling the climate the storms, patterns, cycles would change! We have a tendency to react to the patterns and never do anything to address the climate that is causing those patterns. Some of you have been fighting the same fight new versions for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years and you rail against the weather but never deal with the root which is the climate that produces the weather.

So last week we began by looking at how Jesus dealt with climate before He dealt with weather. When dealing with the synagogue leader's daughter he walks into a climate that was not conducive to miracles. So He instantly and abruptly dealt with and took control of the climate. Some of you are asking for climate change but you are unwilling to control the climate so the climate dictates no change. We talked about the fact that climate control dictates dismissal. There are folks in your life that have made a profession out of celebrating the death you are living through. They will try to talk you into believing that something that is only asleep is dead. Until you dismiss them you will have no miracle.

So let's move forward. I want to you about forecasts. Some of us need to check the radar the climate we allow to go unchanged forecasts what is about to take place. Let's go to instances in Jesus' life that reveal this!

II. Forecasts

John 8:1-11

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” 11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

11 “No one, Master.” “Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”

Well, I do not condemn you either; all I ask is that you go and from now on avoid the sins that plague you.

Mark 4:35-40

35-38 Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?” 39-40 Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

In the first account we get sidetracked and focused on things like mercy, what did He write, where was the man, judgement, hypocrisy, and forgiveness. And the truth is this account does speak to all of this. However, we miss that this account also speaks to climate! It speaks to climate's ability to forecast!