We'll See God - We'll See God, Part 1

Let's face it, we all look at God like a vending machine or a fast food restaurant at times. We step up, make our request, and then we expect God to give us what we want right away. But that's not how it works.

In fact, there's something far better than simply getting your order filled from the God of the universe. And today, we'll learn how to do that. Stay with us. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. As many of you know, Chip is our regular Bible teacher for this daily program, but in this new short series, he's passing the mic to his longtime friend, Greg Dietrich. Greg is a respected Marketplace leader as the former president of KFC and is currently the head of Iron Bell Ministries based in Louisville, Kentucky. For the next two broadcasts, Greg will help us get a clearer picture of our Heavenly Father, especially when we are in a season of waiting on God. But before he begins, to help you get the most out of Greg's teaching, download our message notes. They contain Greg's outline, scripture references, and much more.

Get them by going to the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tab, fill in notes. Okay, if you're ready, go in your Bible to Genesis chapter 37. As we begin Greg's talk, we'll see God. Well, there was a Chinese fable that goes something like this. A farmer had only one horse, and one day his horse ran away. And his neighbor said, I'm so sorry. This is such bad news.

You must be so upset. And the farmer just said, we'll see. And a few days later his horse came back and with 20 more wild horses with it. And his son and he were able to corral all 21 horses. And his neighbor said, congratulations, you must be so happy.

This is such great news. And the farmer said, we'll see. Well, one of the wild horses kicked the man's only son, breaking both his legs severely. And his neighbors came and said, I'm so sorry. This is such bad news.

You must be so upset. And the farmer said, we'll see. Well, the country went to war and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight.

And the war was terrible and killed every young man except the farmer's son was spared since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted. And the neighbor said, congratulations. This is such good news.

You must be so happy. And the farmer said, we'll see. You see, the God of the Bible is the will-see God. When he created Adam and Eve in the garden to have intimate fellowship with him and they sinned and broke fellowship and it looked like God's plan for humanity was forever separated, we'll see. When Abraham, who was designated to be the father of many nations and he was gonna provide the lineage through which Jesus would come, but his wife Sarah was barren, we'll see. When the Israelites were trapped in Egypt and they were his chosen people, the nation he had built and it looked like all was lost, we'll see. When Moses comes to save them from Pharaoh and take them into the promised land, the first thing they run into is the Red Sea and they're trapped. And it looks like they're either gonna be drowned or have to go back into slavery in Egypt.

We'll see. When they finally get to the promised land and the spies go and they see nothing but giants in the land and they fear that they cannot have it, we'll see. When David is anointed king but Saul is still on the throne and Saul is pursuing him to kill David and snuff out the lineage of Christ, we'll see. When Peter, one of Christ's closest disciples, denies him three times on his arrest, it looks like Peter's disqualified, we'll see. When Christ, who is the plan of God for the redemption of mankind, is killed on the cross and in the grave and it looks like, once again, God's plans are thwarted and his promises will not bear out, we'll see.

Folks, we still serve the we'll see God. Now, it's easy, I think, to see life as a series of mountains and valleys connected by a few very short plateaus in my experience. And several years ago, I was in a valley. Oh, sure, on the outside, everything looked great. I had a great job, a great family, a great reputation, but inside, I was dying. I was dry, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And a marriage of over 20 years was hanging in the balance that looked like it wasn't gonna make it. We didn't know if our marriage would survive. And with it, the plans that God had to birth our purposes through Shelly and through I and through us together, we'll see. How many of you have experienced a valley in the last couple years?

A few of us, right? I had a friend who said, you know, in my life, it seems like, Greg, to be honest, I'm either in a valley, just coming out of a valley, or about ready to enter a valley. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know this. Jesus said in John 16, 33, I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble.

But take heart, I have overcome the world. So I've tried to adopt the posture of rather than trying to avoid valleys, to learn from the Lord how to navigate the valleys that we experience. So let's take a look at Joseph. I call Joseph a valley veteran of Genesis 37 through 45.

Joseph had these two dreams, the dream of the sheaves, of grain, and then the sun, moon, and stars, and he bows down to his family. And Joseph is not quite smart enough to figure out older brothers don't like to have things rubbed in their face. I'm the youngest of three brothers, and when I started reading that story, I was like, oh no, this isn't gonna end well.

I know how this ends with a bloody nose and a bruise. But for him, it actually ended worse. He ended up being thrown in a pit, and he was sold by his family. He gets sent down to Potiphar's house and you saw he did everything right. He served in his capacity as the captain of guard. Did everything right, but he was wrongly accused. And as a result, Potiphar, the people he served so well, they sent him to prison.

But Joseph still chose to serve. The baker and the cup bear were there. Unfortunately for the baker, the dream didn't go so well. For the cup bear, he says, you're gonna be restored to your place of service with Pharaoh.

He says, and when you do, would you remember me? And these haunting words are in scripture. It says, but he forgot Joseph. Two more years, Joseph waited in prison. Now if we'd have intersected Joseph in prison right there and said, hey, Joe, how's it going? You know, you had this great dream, these promises from God.

Joseph's like, not great at all. First I'm sold by my family. Then I'm betrayed by the people that I've given my life in service to, and then I end up in prison. And then in an instant, Pharaoh has a dream. The cup bearer remembers, and he's restored in front of the Pharaoh and ends up ruling in Egypt. His family is starving in Israel. They need food. They come to Egypt. They don't know Joseph's down there. There's an encounter with his brothers, and in that encounter he unveils his identity.

They see him, and they're like, oh no, we're gonna get ours. But Joseph looks at them, and he says, I think one of the most amazing sentences in the Bible, he said, you sold me, but God sent me to preserve life. You sold me, but God sent me. And then with faith, Joseph, after this journey he's been on, at the end of his life, he says, you're not gonna stay here forever. You're going back to Israel, all of you.

And when you do, you take my bones with you. Even though at that time he's still in Egypt with no signs of returning. What an amazing story, really. But let's take a closer look at what's going on here and see if we can maybe tap into God's perspective on it. So at 17, he has this dream of his destiny, and it's from God.

It's a good thing. It's a promise that he's gonna hold onto. And how does that journey begin? It begins with the pit. Not so good.

But might I suggest to you that the pit is actually dream fulfillment stage one? And you're like, how is that, Greg? Well, I can assure you that Joseph was very happy in Israel. He was the favorite of his father. He already had this multicolored coat. He was the baby. And he had an inheritance. He had an identity. He wasn't going anywhere. But the problem was the Lord needed him in Egypt.

So the Lord used the pit to get him to Egypt. Well, then he ends up in Potiphar's house as a servant. You might say, well, gosh, how does that help? But might I suggest to you that Potiphar's house is actually dream fulfillment stage two?

And you might say, how's that, Greg? Well, think of it this way. If he hadn't worked in Potiphar's house, he never would have learned how to rule in a different culture. He never would have learned the ways and made the relationships to be able to walk into his destiny at some point, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to learn to resist temptation, either wealth or from Potiphar's wife.

So he grew in character in Potiphar's house. And that ended him up in prison, and that looks like a bad thing. But might I suggest to you prison is dream fulfillment stage three? And how is that, you might ask? Well, if he hadn't been in prison, he never would have met the cupbearer.

And if he hadn't met the cupbearer and interpreted his dream, he never would have been put in front of Pharaoh to interpret Pharaoh's dream. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our guest teacher today is businessman and marketplace leader, Greg Dietrich. We'll get back to his talk in just a minute. But quickly, are you burned out spiritually? Does your faith feel more like a long list of to-dos instead of a genuine connection to Jesus? We'll stick around after this message as Chip points us to a new resource that'll help you rediscover the life-giving relationship God desires to have with you.

You don't want to miss it. Well, with that, here again is our guest teacher, Greg Dietrich, to finish his talk. You see, through the natural lens, all of these things look hopeless. They all look like a retreat from the promises of God and the things that are good for Joseph. But Joseph didn't get stuck. He learned how to navigate the valley. And he waited in this valley for thirteen years. Now, it seems like a long time, but the more I read the Bible, the more I realize, not really. Abraham was promised a son, waited twenty-five years. David, who I mentioned, he was anointed king by the prophet, waited thirteen years to come into the throne. And during those thirteen years, pretty much was running away from Saul, who was trying to kill him. Paul, whose explicit purpose was to be the missionary to the Gentiles, by all accounts, waited about fifteen years to even go on his first missionary journey.

Why wait? Why did Joseph have to wait thirteen years? Because Joseph wasn't ready for his destiny.

You see, he was selfish, he was proud, he was unskilled at seventeen, and he wasn't even in the land of his destiny. Joseph's character and capability weren't ready for his destiny. The second thing we learned from this, his faith was being tested so that he could learn about God's faithfulness to him through these circumstances and grow into fullness. So Joseph gained a new perspective on his journey, because he learned who God is, his nature. He wrestled with God in those places, and he discovered more about him, and he learned to trust his ways. So Joseph chose to believe God's promises, not his circumstances or his feelings, which certainly belied the stories and promises that he had been given. And at the end of it, then, he could look at his brothers and say, no, you sold me, but God sent me to preserve life.

And as a result, he could declare in faith that his bones would be buried in his homeland, because he knew the Lord would take them back there. What we learned from Joseph is that the pit, Potiphar's house, and prison can be the end of the journey or the preparation for the main event. You see, this is our story as well. We have to learn to contend and navigate the pit, Potiphar's house, and prison, our version of it. We've got to contend for our destiny. We have to be transformed by our life experiences, and our faith must grow as our character and our capability are developed with it.

And we must hope in the we'll see God. Adam referenced the ministry that my wife Shelly and I started with some other people and our daughters, and it's called Iron Bell. And when we were first forming it, people who had come to help us decided they were moving back. There were relational issues. The neighbors were upset, all kinds of chaos. And I sat down with my pastor at that time and I said, Pastor, this isn't going so well. I could throw in the towel.

I don't need to do this. And he said, Greg, let me tell you this story. It's a true story. He says, I have a friend who's a pastor in Oregon, and he has a congregant who's a wine grower. And he says, he has these vines, and he's a little different. He said, every morning he grabs his coffee and rolls up his newspaper, and he walked through his vineyard, and it would go thwack, thwack, thwack.

And he'd do this every day for year in and year out. And one year there was a terrible storm that hit the region, and a lot of the vineyards in the area were wiped out. It had great damage to their vines. But his suffered very little damage, and everybody's like, what'd you do?

How did it happen? He said, well, it's very simple. He said, every morning I'd get up, I'd grab my coffee, I'd roll up my newspaper, I'd walk through the vineyard, and I'd take my newspaper and I'd thwack each vine, thwack. He said, and when I thwack that vine, it signals trauma to the vine, and the vine says, go deeper, send your roots deeper. You're experiencing trauma, you have to go deeper, and it sends its roots deeper.

So when the big storm came, they were ready for it. So my pastor looked at me, he says, Greg, you've just been thwacked. God never does anything broad until he does it deep. See, God's a farmer. And I think because we don't live in an agricultural society anymore, we lose track of that. See, a farmer doesn't go out and plant a seed, and then the next day come back and say, where's my harvest?

What happened here? No, he goes out, first he tills the soil, then he plants the seed, then he tends the crop, he weeds it, he waters it, then he comes in for a harvest. And many times in our life, we want God to be the instant God.

God, this is what I want. And I've seen God work miraculously in an instant, like he did when he brought Joseph in front of Pharaoh. And I've seen some amazing things that God's done in people's lives and stories I have. But you know what I've seen more?

Is that God's the God of the process. Shelly and I were visiting our kids in Virginia, and in that region of Virginia, it's a burgeoning wine growing area. I said, I see all these wine years around, this must be really good soil. And they said, no, no, the soil's terrible. I said, really?

Tell me more. They said, well, in most parts, it's kind of craggy, and it's hard for the roots to get nutrients and water, so it forces the roots to go deep to gain the nutrients. And it's in the struggle to gain the nutrients that the greatest fruit is produced.

I said, oh, God really is a farmer. Romans 5, 3 through 5 says it this way. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character, character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see the progression? I think we all need a renewed perspective on God's process. You know, why a process?

Why is there a process that God uses? Well, when I was in leadership at YUM, I had the fortune of working with Dr. Noel Tishie, who was one of the foremost experts in adult learning. And he said, you have three zones that your people are going to operate in, all of us do. He said, there's the comfort zone, that's where you're comfortable.

Then there's the panic zone. He said, that's as if, Greg, let's say I wanted to train you like a Navy Seal, and we go out your first night, and you're in the shape you're in, and I push you out the airplane at midnight, you're a mile offshore, and you don't have any instructions, you've got to find your way back. He said, but the thing is, there's this sweet spot in the middle, in between those called the learning zone. And he said, if we can create the learning zone for people, if we can create just enough discomfort, maybe a little pain, not in the physical sense, but just a rethinking of their circumstances, that's where the growth comes. That's the learning.

He said, so that's what you need to do. I was reminded of a story when I was at a church once, and they had a motivational speaker come in, and it was a guy who had no arms and no legs, and he was missing them from birth. And he told the story of when he was young, he was on the floor getting ready for school, and he was putting his shirt on, which you can imagine would be a very, very difficult proposition for him. And his mom was in the kitchen, the neighbor came and knocked on the door and said, hey, I need to borrow an egg, can you grab me an egg? And the neighbor could see the son struggling to put the shirt on, and she said, oh no, you don't have to get that right, now help your son first.

And the mom looked at the neighbor and said, I am helping my son. You see, in our life, we all love the winds of favor, don't we? But here's the thing, in God's kingdom, winds of resistance usually come first. Winds of resistance come to strengthen us, to cause our roots to grow deep, to prepare us for the purposes and the promises that God has for our life.

Winds of favor, yes, but first winds of resistance. You've been listening to the first part of our guest teacher, Greg Dietrich's message, We'll See God. Chip will join us here in studio with some additional thoughts about today's program in just a minute. For more information about this ministry or our many resources, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003 or LivingOnTheEdge.org. Our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, is with me now. Chip, I want to read this really insightful quote that I think will encourage anyone going through a tough season right now.

You can look at God through the lens of your circumstances, or you can look at your circumstances through the lens of God. That is so great, Dave, and that actually is a quote from my friend Greg Dietrich's brand new book, Building in the Spirit. It's a powerful testimony that comes out of Greg's life, who kind of hit the pinnacle of success as the president of KFC and then watched everything come crashing to the ground. And in it is what I love is that, yes, it's a great testimony, it's a great story of his life and some things he learned, but what I really love, because Greg is a very close personal friend, we've been on this journey together for about 15 years, God has given him insight and counsel about how to build your life.

To me, it's the teaching in this book. If you are struggling, if you're tired, if you sort of lost the gusto and the zest for life or the Christian life feels like duty and mundane and you're doing all the right things but feel like there's not power and joy, I will tell you Building in the Spirit is the book for you. Dave, would you take a minute and tell our listeners how they can get this book?

Be glad to, Chip. To order your copy of Greg Dietrich's new book, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. We pray this resource will show you how to break free from the burden of religion and thrive in the joy of being in a relationship with Jesus. Again, to get the book Building in the Spirit by Greg Dietrich, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call 888-333-6003.

App listeners tap special offers. Well, with that, Chip, let's get to that application we promised. Thanks, Dave, and I hope you all enjoyed Greg's message.

I know I did. Greg's had a tremendous impact on my life. And for those of you that are wondering, maybe just tuned in and know who exactly is Greg, and let me encourage you go back a broadcast or two where I did an interview with Greg.

He and I have been very close friends and on a journey for about 15 or 16 years. And over time, what I've learned from Greg and with Greg is that despite how much we hate hard times, the winds of adversity, it is during those times that God shapes our life. Winds of adversity either make us or they break us.

And it all goes back to perspective. Who is God? What can you expect?

What is He like? What is life all about? And if unconsciously we kind of layer over the American dream into our biblical view of God and things don't go our way and we aren't successful and happy and fulfilled and everything wonderful, I meet Christians all the time that are so disillusioned with God, but they're disillusioned with a God that doesn't exist. He didn't promise to make it easy. In fact, if anything, He said in the world you have tribulation.

The apostle Paul would tell us that if you desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, here's the promise, you will be persecuted. And so I just want to encourage you to pause, to sort of soak in what you heard God say through Greg today, and think about the winds of adversity first in your past, and how far from maybe it being negative when you look backwards, God used some of your most difficult times to do some of the deepest and best things in your life. In the midst of the biggest marriage struggles I've had, the biggest financial issues I've had, the biggest health issues I've had in my family, the biggest conflicts with any of my kids, it has been the resolve of my will to say I don't understand it, I don't like it, but Lord, I trust you. Lord, do something good out of this challenging time. And what I can tell you is that He will. On your timing, probably not.

As fast as you want, absolutely not. But as you hang in there, as you trust Him, God always works for your good. Don't give up. Don't give in.

He loves you. Same word, Chip, thanks. As we close, I want to quickly thank those of you who regularly give to Living on the Edge. You're making a big difference in helping Christians live like Christians. But if you're benefiting from our ministry and haven't started giving yet, let me encourage you to join the Living on the Edge team. Now, you can do that by setting up a recurring donation at livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap Donate, and thanks for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. We'll listen in next time as we hear the conclusion to our guest teacher, Gray Dietrich's message, We'll See God. Until then, this is Dave Drouy saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.