No Wake Zone: Assessing Your Wake Series

I’m so excited about this series we’re starting today. We’ve entitled it No Wake Zone. We’ve done that for a real specific reason. This is a relationship series, but we want to do a visual of what healthy relationships are really like. I think if we could see it first, then we could begin to live it out in our life.

I love the lake. I thought it was cool pulling in this morning to church and seeing all the big boats out there in front of church. I wonder what people in our city are thinking about it. "They are wacked out, exactly what I thought about them. What are they doing? Noah or something’s happening there. They’re expecting a flood. I don’t know what’s going on over there."

We’re just really trying to get this visual, by the time we’re through with this series, what is a no wake relationship like? Over the course of the summer, I like to get out with my boys and we go fish and wakeboard. I don’t wakeboard so much, they do. We just love to be on the water. But, if you go to Percy Priest Lake on a Saturday in the summer, you’re really taking your life in your own hands. Everybody who has a boat in middle Tennessee is there on Saturday and they’re going really fast, all over the place.

One of my buddies showed me a secret there. There’s an area kind of in the middle of the lake that is a large no wake zone. That’s where we head every weekend. The boys swim and I fish and everybody’s happy. You can see out beyond the no wake zone, boats just flying around everywhere and there’re these massive wakes, but you’re able to have some rest in the midst of the storm. I really believe that’s what needs to happen in your life. Some of you today, your marriage is a high wake zone and you’ve just been beaten around and there’s relationships you have with folks in your extended family, brothers and sisters, co-workers, neighbors, and you’re struggling to really have healthy relationships.

I believe this series could really be a powerful one for all of us as we see what God’s word has to say about it. If you have your Bibles, let’s go ahead and open them up to I Samuel 18. We’re going to look at three guys and their wakes. All we’re going to do today is step from the front of the boat and move to the back of the boat, that is our life, because we spend all of our lives really looking ahead to goals and dreams and a time where our life’s going to be a little easier and better. I think we don’t do very much, if any, of walking back to the back of the boat, that is our life, and looking and seeing the wake that we are putting out and seeing its affect on people.

So, let’s just take a look. In I Samuel 18, we get to peek in on King Saul who was the first king of Israel. You’re going to see that he threw off a high wake. Now King Saul was an executive style guy. I mean, he was an executive looking guy. He was tall, dark, and handsome and folks said, "Now, he has the look of a leader." On the outside he did, but on the inside he was just full of all types of anxiety and insecurity; you see that in his wake. One of the things that we’re going to see today is that our wakes never lie. They really reflect what’s going on in our heart.

Then we pick up the story of King David right after he has defeated Goliath. We then meet King Saul’s son, Jonathan, who is the heir-apparent to the throne. And let’s see just a little snippet of their relationship. "After David had finished talking with Saul," this is after he’d defeated Goliath, "Jonathan became one with him in spirit and he loved him as himself." That’s what it means to have healthy relationships, to love somebody as ourselves. Jonathan, the king’s son, loved David that way; just by being in his presence he fell in love with him as a friend. "From that day, Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father’s house.’

One of the things that we see in Saul’s life was that he was a control freak. He wanted to control and manipulate everything. He didn’t want David out of his sight. So, he limited him. That’s a sign of a high wake kind of person. We’re going to see that more and more today. It says, "And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off his robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic and even his sword and his bow and his belt."