Faith in Trial

Before we get going, I want to take a quick moment here to pray for our Jewish brothers and sisters. As I am sure you have seen in the news Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel in the last 48 hours. To this point there have been more than 5,000 rockets launched into mostly residential areas, more than 300 dead, 1,500 injured, and that is what they have been able to count so far.

I emailed Rabbi Yossi Wolff of Chabad Cutler Bay this morning, simply telling him we are praying for the peace of Jerusalem and Israel.

Psalm 122:6-9 says, / / Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May all who love this city prosper. O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls and prosperity in your palaces. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “May you have peace.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek what is best for you, O Jerusalem.

I also want to bring in what Jesus said, Because when we read the Old Testament, especially in the poetic lines of the Psalms, there is a lot of back and forth between save Israel and destroy our enemies, right? David says this quite a bit. Vindicate me O Lord. My enemies surround me. Psalm 143 says destroy, silence my enemies, destroy all my foes.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:43 / / “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.”

So, when we pray, don’t just pray one sided. Pray for peace, peace for the region, peace for both sides. This isn’t always easy to do. We want to pray for victory, for the win. Paul says in Romans 2:4, / / Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

In these moments of terrible acts of hatred and violence, I hope we all remember to pray for peace and pray for every soul involved. Jesus died for every single person in this conflict. He is incredibly patient toward them. And my desire is for the killing to stop, the violence to stop, the hatred to stop. One of the greatest testimonies of the New Testament is the man named Saul who wrote what we just read. He was a brutal pharisee, imprisoning and being complicit in the murder of Christians, until the day he encountered the saving grace of Jesus Christ. At that point he became the greatest champion for the early church. Every evil heart and murderous terrorist is only one encounter with Jesus away from being the greatest champion of love for the kingdom of God. And we must remember that when we pray. So, let’s pray this morning.

Alright, we are continuing our series, / / Ancient Faith for Modern Times, where we are looking at the great men and women of faith through the Old Testament as referenced in Hebrews 11 of the New Testament.

I want to encourage you this morning to be in the word of God. I know, I know. I’ve never said that before. But honestly, there are a lot of people who simply avoid the Old Testament because they find it more difficult to read. There are what we call, “Red Letter Christians” who primarily focus on the words of Jesus. If you get that reference. Kaylee says to me the other day as she’s flipping through her bible, “oh cool, some of these words are in a different color...” Yes, those are the words of Jesus. “oohhhh....”

But, because they read in scripture that Jesus says of himself he came to fulfill the law, and they simply look at the entire Old Testament as being law focused, they disregard the law thinking that Jesus did away with it. But he didn’t. Certainly didn’t do away with the Old Testament.

Look at what the early Christians did. In Luke 24:13-34, this is after Jesus has been crucified and raised from the dead, he’s appeared to a few of the disciples, and there are two disciples who are on a journey walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. It’s a seven mile journey. They aren’t in a hurry, probably just walking at a normal pace. That’s a decently long walk. The average walking speed for a healthy adult is 3mph. So they’ve got a couple hours.

Well, Jesus shows up out of nowhere and starts walking with them, but they don’t know it’s Jesus, they don’t recognize him, or more accurately, Jesus is doing something that is ensuring they don’t recognize him. Jesus asks them what they’re talking about, and they look confused and ask, “Don’t you know what’s been happening in Jerusalem these last few days?”

Jesus plays dumb and says, “What things?”

And their response in Luke 24:19, 21 is, / / “The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth. He was a prophet who did powerful miracles, and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of God and all the people.” “We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel.”

They had lost hope. Jesus was dead and gone. They hadn’t heard yet that he had been raised from the dead. And they are trying to pick their lives back up after having dedicated all of this time to following who they thought was the Messiah.

And this is an incredibly powerful verse. Luke 24:27, / / Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

The writings of Moses, that’s the first 5 books of the bible, where we have got all of our stories so far in this series.

And the prophets are a major portion of the Old Testament writings.

What’s Jesus using to convince these disciples that He’s the Messiah? The Old Testament scripture. He could have chosen to do a miracle, healing, shown them the scars in his hands and feet. But what did he want to do? He wanted to build their faith using what they knew and what they had placed their hope in. They knew the scriptures, this is why they thought Jesus was the Messiah. The only thing missing was that Jesus died and they didn’t know he had been raised from the dead, which was the proof that He actually IS the Messiah.

Jesus was giving them a reason to believe again. Yes, you were right, in all of this, it pointed to ME…then their eyes are opened and they realize the truth.

Father John Behr once said that we should be able to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ using only the Old Testament.

This is what the early church had, wasn’t it?

Our New Testament wasn’t even formally canonized, meaning, recognized as the inspired word of God, until almost 400AD. More than 350 years after the life of Christ.

This is why I encourage you, read the bible. Read both sections, the Old and the New Testament. If it helps you, start calling it scripture instead of “old” & “new”. So your brain doesn’t think the old is replaced by the new. And you may not understand it all. There’s a very very good chance you won’t understand it all. And there’s probably things you haven’t noticed before either. I’ve read the story of Moses and the Exodus so many times in my life and yet as I was preparing for last week’s service, and re-reading the story, I thought, “Oh wow, I remember the magicians in Egypt did the stick into snake thing, but I did not remember, or maybe realize they were also able to turn water in to blood and made a plague of frogs appear.”

Yes, there are parts of the bible that I don’t enjoy reading because the story is horrible. We have to remember that the bible is not just what God wants to say to us, but it is the story of what humanity has done with what God has said to us and sometimes we really mess that up. Sometimes we disregard it completely. Sometimes we actively go against the words of God. And sometimes we claim that God said something and He never did.

This is why we ask God for understanding, wisdom, discernment. This is why we study and look at interpretation. We ask questions.

You don’t have to just take everything at face value. And you don’t have to believe it just because someone said it.

The world has lost a good amount of critical thinking and common sense. And I think we need to work to reclaim the concepts of process and conversation. Christianity isn’t just sitting back and taking it all in. It should be wrestling with the word and coming out with deep wisdom and revelation. It should be challenging, and thought provoking. The bible should compel you to change. It should challenge your life, challenge your reality, challenge your thought process and what you have as a moral foundation.

We talked through that a bit last week, having a biblical worldview.

If you walk away from Sunday and go, “what was that biblical worldview again?” Go do some research. Read into it. Ask the questions. And if you don’t know where to start, send me a text, or email or call me, or come by the office (check and make sure I’m here first, I’ve been working a lot more from home these days), but let’s talk about it. The bible is a beautifully written book containing the story of God and the humanity He loves.

And when you begin to understand some of these things you see why Hebrews talks about these people the way it does. Did you notice there were a few statements last week in reading Hebrews that stuck out as strange. We didn’t have time to get into them, but they are fascinating.

This one in particular. Hebrews 11:26, / / He [Moses] thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.

Moses suffering for the sake of Christ?

How?

Jesus wasn’t born for another almost 1400 years.

How was Christ represented at all through the life of Moses?

Jesus is God. And God is eternal, outside of space and time. John 1 says that Jesus Christ is the very word of God and was present at the very beginning of time and before.

Jesus was as much a part of the Old Testament story as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Just because we don’t see as clearly the representation of the trinity until the New Testament, doesn’t mean God suddenly split personalities at the birth of Christ and transformed from one God to three persons.

Jesus has always been. This is what makes the miracle of Jesus coming to earth so amazing. Because God, who had always been, limits himself to a body of flesh, and for 33 years lives in that body, only to allow the very humanity he created and loves nail him to a cross and crucify that flesh.

It’s remarkable.

So, although we maybe don’t understand it all the time, Jesus has always been present, and the story of the Old Testament points to Him. So, pray for a road to Emmaus experience. Our hearts burned within us as he opened Scripture to us.

Alright, last week I said that we would look at Moses, and then this week we would actually jump back about 400 years and look at the life of Joseph for a week or two.

The story of Joseph is incredible, and I’m surprised that Hebrews kind of just glosses over it and says one thing about Joseph. Let’s read it.

Hebrews 11:22, / / It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. He even commanded them to take his bones with them when they left.

If you want homework for this week, listen to me talking in school terms. But, not a bad thing. Homework is good for you. You can go ahead and read the story of Joseph. It starts in Genesis 37 and goes all the way through the end of the book of Genesis to chapter 50. And Hebrews is only making reference to the very end of his life, in Genesis 50:22-26, it says, / / So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, who he claimed as his own.

“Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob”

Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, “When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with you.” So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

I mean, the man has 14 chapters in the bible about his life and this is the only thing Hebrews references? The story of Joseph actually has just as many chapters as the story of Abraham. And Hebrews just mentions the end of his life.

I think the life of Joseph isn’t mentioned as much because his story doesn’t focus on big moments of faith, or stepping into the unknown.

Think about what we’ve looked at so far.

By faith Noah built a large boat. He had to have faith for that. I mean, the immensity of that task, you have to have such a strong faith that God has said what he’s said to you if you’re going to embark on that journey!

By faith Abraham went, not knowing where he was going. He’s taking a step he can’t see.

By faith Moses believed God, confronted Pharoah, parted the red sea, led the people through the wilderness.

Big things happening, right, and moments where you have to choose to take a step forward without knowing.

Joseph on the other hand, his life was met by tragedy after tragedy, and he’s thrown into situations rather than choosing to take a step. And so it’s not the story of belief that shines, it’s the story of faithfulness in the midst of struggle and trial and having these things thrown on you rather than choosing them in faith. That is what really comes through.

Obviously we aren’t going to read the whole story. But Joseph is 1 of 12 sons of Jacob, or Israel as God calls him. These twelve sons make up the twelve families, or tribes that would eventually become the nation of Israel. But maybe you’ve noticed, no one ever says “tribe of Joseph”… That’s because in Genesis 48, when Jacob is very close to the end of his life, Joseph and his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh come to him and Jacob says that because they were born in Egypt, he’s laying claim to them, because the promise of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will live on through them. So he says in Genesis 48:5, / / “They will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are.”

After this, when we read about the tribes of Israel, you will see that there’s a half-tribe of Manasseh, and a half-tribe of Ephraim, because these two sons, that would become tribes of people, are of the house of Joseph.

These two boys weren’t born in the promised land, they were born in Egypt. So Jacob blesses them specially and claims them as his own so that they can inherit the promise given to Abraham by God. So that 400 years later, when God leads the people of Israel back to the land they were promised, these two half-tribes can lay claim to that promise as well.

It’s a pretty cool little piece of the story, the handing down, and passing on of the promises of God through the generations. Genesis 12 - 50 is that over and over again, the generations passing down the promise of God.

So, like a lot of stories in the bible the story of Joseph starts with a promise.

We’re going to look at Genesis 37-40 this morning, which is the promise and then everything else is down hill for Joseph for a while.

Again, you can read the whole thing this week on your own, we’ll be kind of jumping in and out of scripture here. As we look at four things that Joseph goes through and what we can pull from it.

/ / Promise

Betrayal

Accusation

Punishment unbefitting

Alright, Genesis 37:2-5, This is the account of Jacob and his family. / / When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often tended his father’s flocks. He worked for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.

Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph - a beautiful robe. But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.

One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.

Alright, let’s pause there for a second. Right off the bat we see some things we need to address. I’ve said this before, I was eluding to it earlier. The bible is the story of a perfect God and His less than perfect humanity, written by that humanity in all of their good and bad ways of living.

/ / Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children...

I know it says there’s reasons, but that doesn’t make it right. This is a bad scenario. You want your children to hate one of their siblings, love that one more than the rest. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out, does it.

Also, don’t give one gifts and not the others. I think all parents know that as well. But here’s Joseph, walking around in this beautiful coat that his dad gave him and no one else.

Now, I only have one child, so I can’t speak to what it feels like to suddenly have my heart split into two pieces over a second child coming into my life. BUT, I do know what it’s like to have multiple nieces and nephews, and let me tell you, there is not one of them I love more than any of the others. I absolutely love and adore my nieces and nephews. Each and every one of them.

So, don’t take parenting advice from Jacob at this point in the story, ok.

Second point before we get to the Promise, is that Joseph has a dream and the dream made his brothers hate him even more. Let’s look at that real quick and see why. And in fact, he has two dreams, which makes it that much worse.

These are the dreams. Genesis 37:6-10:

/ / “Listen to this dream,” he said. “We were out in the filed, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”

His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”

This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?”

/ / 1. Promise

I would say without a doubt, there is a promise here. Joseph has seen something twice now. His family will at some point bow down to him. But there’s no context, and there sure is a whole lot of arrogance.

Now, we all have promises. Whether that is a personal promise, or we’ve read the bible which is full of God’s promises for our lives. There are blessings in this world that are just by their very nature from God because of his good nature. Jesus says in Matthew 5:45, / / “For he [God] gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”

Think about that for a second. Don’t let the significance of a verse like that just pass you by. God created the universe and everything in it. The sun, moon, stars. Every morning you wake up and the sun is shining on you, you are standing in the blessing of God.

Every time the rain falls to the ground and waters the earth so we are not in a drought, we are standing in the blessing of God. Nature sings the praises of God. Paul says in Romans 1:20, / / …ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

Everything around us sings of God’s goodness.

So there is that level of blessing and promise. We are surrounded by it.

Then there is what I would call optional blessing by obedient following. Optional blessing by obedient following.

Malachi 3:10-11 is a perfect example of that. / / Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!.”

Tithe is giving 10% of our income to the work of God in this earth. To ensure that the work can continue, that people are fed both physically and spiritually. That there is a place to honor God’s name. And his promise is that when you do, he will honor that and there is blessing for that.

Does that mean God is cursing you if you don’t? No.

Does that mean God can’t bless you if you don’t? Not at all.

Is this an opportunity to be blessed? Something you can either do or not do, but when you do it opens doors you can’t open for yourself? Yes, I believe so.

Another one:

Matthew 6:14, / / “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”

That’s a promise. Live a life of forgiveness and you too will walk in the joy and freedom of being forgiven.

James 1:5, / / If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.

That’s a promise. God is generous, full of wisdom, and will give it to you if you ask.

Romans 10:9, / / If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Promise. Guaranteed. Bring it to the bank. If you believe, you are saved.

Just because you haven’t had a specific dream like Joseph did, does not mean you do not have promises you can be holding onto.

Read the bible, it’s full of them. Both how God blesses humanity simply by the nature of who He is, and by giving opportunity to walk in a level of blessing because of the way we live, what we choose to do.

And of course, like Joseph, you may be carrying specific God given dreams or promises that are just for you.

So, Joseph has these two dreams.

One where his brothers bow down to him. And the next one where his father, mother and brothers all bow down to him.

But, in his arrogance as a 17 year old he says it in a way that simply just angers his brothers. In fact, he probably shouldn’t have said it at all. But he did. And now they are upset.

I said this last week, and this is just a side note, but there is wisdom in knowing who you should and should not tell a dream, promise or what you feel God is saying to you. The right people, and timing can be really important.

Now, I can’t imagine Joseph telling his brothers the dream had any impact on the dream coming true or not. He could have held it in his heart and let it come to pass without telling them. I cant’ say that for certain simply because that’s not how the story goes. But I do know that if God has said to you that he will do something, there’s a good chance he doesn’t need you to tell people he’s going to do it. You can walk that road with him on your own.

Like, if you feel like God told you that you’re going to get a promotion, and the people that have been treating you poorly are suddenly going to be working for them, don’t go up to them and be like, “Ya, well you’re going to work for me one day, and I’ll be your boss....God said so.” Don’t do that.

We have to take these things with some common sense. There’s nothing wrong with talking about these things, it’s about using wisdom, common sense and discernment knowing when and who to talk to.

But, Joseph was 17, and he did NOT do it right, and it got his brothers all kinds of upset with him.

And that’s where things started to go down hill.

And You might relate to these things as we talk through them. I know I sure can. I have definitely had these types of moments in my life. Feeling like I’ve had a promise from God, but I keep hitting road blocks. I keep running into things that seem to halt the blessing.

/ / 2. Betrayal

The first thing Joseph runs into is some serious betrayal.

Let’s jump back into the story. Josephs brothers are out tending the flocks, and his dad sends him out to check in on them and bring them some food. As he’s approaching they see him coming and are fed up with him to the point where they just want to get rid of him.

They come up with a plan. There’s some back and forth, but eventually the idea is to kill him.

But one of his brothers just can’t get with that. Reuben. He says to his brothers. “Guys, let’s not kill the kid, let’s just throw him in this pit over here.” And he had every intention of going back later to get him out.

So they do, they throw him in a pit, take his coat, kill a sheep, put blood all over it and the plan is to go back to their father to tell him that he must have been attacked by a wild animal.

Before they can get through with the whole plan they see a caravan approaching. So Judah, another loving brother, says, “What’s the point of just throwing him in a pit and getting nothing out of it. Look, let’s sell him to these traders as a slave.”

They already have a plan to explain what’s happened. So who cares if he’s brought to Egypt as a slave or dies in a pit? That’s how they see it anyway.

Complete and utter betrayal by the people who are supposed to love you the most, your family.

Have you ever had that. Betrayed by someone you love, or someone you thought had your back?

Maybe you were promised something at work, and someone slipped in and took credit, or took the promotion.

Whatever the case may be, / / when we experience betrayal it can be really hard to keep our hearts right. And although we don’t see specific actions from this point in Joseph’s story, as we continue through, you’ll see how he handled it.

I’ve been saying this throughout this series. There is faith in God, and then there is faithfulness to what God has called you to. And they have to go hand in hand. Believing is the first part, doing is the second. Every story of faith we’ve gone through had two elements, belief and action. Faith and faithfulness. The story is no different for Joseph.

He’s been given a promise by God, but his life is not turning out like it’s supposed to. So what do you do? You be as faithful as you can to the God you believe in.

Let’s just say this is a huge lesson: / / When things aren’t going the way you think they are supposed to go, continue to be as faithful to God as you possibly can!

Unfortunately, the hardship isn’t done. Just when things seem to be turning around for our boy Joseph, a terrible situation happens.

/ / 3. Accusation

And not just accusation because he messed up, but the next thing Joseph deals with is FALSE Accusation. As his story goes, he’s brought to Egypt by the caravan of traders, and sold to a man named Potiphar. Potiphar is captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

And everything that Joseph did was blessed. God was with him. Why? Because Joseph continued to honor God. And as we read the story we’ll see that.

So, Potiphar recognizes that everything Joseph touches is blessed, and it’s not just Joseph that is benefiting, but Potiphar’s entire house is doing better because Joseph is there. So, he puts him in charge of everything. The entire household and everything he owned. Genesis 39:5-6 says, / / From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master’s household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar’s household for Joseph’s sake… With Joseph there, he didn’t worry about a thing - except what kind of food to eat.

Seems like things have turned around for Joseph, right? That’s awesome.

And then he’s accused of the most terrible thing. Scripture says that Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man, and the wife of Potiphar started trying to get him to sleep with her. But he says no, over and over again. She kept after him, until one day she grabbed him by his cloak and the only way he was able to get away was to slip out of his clothing and leave it behind, in her hand, in her bedroom… She screams, and the servants of the house come running in.

/ / “Look!” She said, “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.” (Genesis 39:14-15)

Potiphar comes home, she tells him the same lie, and of course he believes her. Doesn’t matter that Joseph has shown integrity and honesty to this point - it’s too late. The accusation had been made.

/ / 4. Undeserved Punishment

Or punishment unbefitting. Because of a lie, something he did not do, Potiphar, who trusted him with everything in his household and on his property, is now furious. He takes Joseph and throws him into prison.

Now you may not have gone to prison, but that doesn’t mean we don’t lose things when we get falsely accused.

Position - whether that’s at work, or your position in someone’s life even.

Job - I was accused of stealing from a job I had when I was 18 or 19. I didn’t do it. But it was a sizable amount of money at the time and I lost my job over it.

Friendships - hard to maintain a friendship when someone wrongfully accuses you of something.

Money - I lost my job. I had to find another one.

Objects, or other things. Pride. Dignity.

There are intangible things that we lose as well. And that can be hard to go through.

But listen to what the Bible says happens to Joseph. So, he’s been thrown into prison. But Genesis 39:21-23 says, / / But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

This doesn’ talk about anything Joseph did to deserve this, right? I’m not saying the Bible says Joseph was praying everyday, and reading his bible everyday, and doing all the right things and that’s why God blessed him.

But the wording used makes it very easy for us to make some basic assumptions.

You’re in prison, ok, things aren’t going well for you. So, we can ask the question:

If you are a disgruntled, angry, bitter, jealous and uncooperative inmate, do you think the warden takes a liking to you?

Probably not, right?

If you seem shifty, shady and you’re always complaining about how you were wrongfully accused, does the warden decide to put you in charge?

Doubtful.

There are these moments throughout the story that give us glimpses of how Joseph is handling these situations.

He’s not just blessed, but he’s shown himself a good worker, so Potiphar put him in charge of his property.

He’s shown himself trustworthy, so Potiphar and the warden of the prison both feel comfortable leaving him alone to do what they’ve asked him to do.

I would say he’s proven he’s calm and collected. He wouldn’t be given these opportunities if he wasn’t.

/ / The key to Joseph’s turnarounds in these negative situations is that he has learned to be faithful in his faith no matter what.

He doesn’t just believe. But he lives what he believes. He doesn’t just have faith IN God, he is faithful TO God. Whether it is betrayal, accusation or wrongful imprisonment, he knows who he really serves.

I want to close with this thought this morning from one of our pastors many years ago. We had just come through a really hard situation, left being part of a church we had helped start, and had so many people we loved there, but it wasn’t working out, so we felt we needed to step away. And that was really had because it was breaking some long standing close relationships. And one of our former pastors said to us:

/ / “Stay sweet, walk in forgiveness, keep following Jesus.”

What’s that mean? It means, Have faith and be faithful!

Purse God and what He has said, and apply it to your life!

The outcome of this is the outcome we see in the life of Joseph:

When the people of God enter a room the atmosphere should change, not because we are the people of God by name, and not even because He is with us or in us, although that is true and powerful, but because when we live our lives in faithfulness to God we will be different, even in the face of betrayal, accusation and backlash, or as Joseph experienced it, punishment unbefitting of his character and actions.

See, none of those things changed Joseph. Instead, Joseph changed the situations he was in because of who He really served.

Faith that leads to faithfulness changes how we approach situations. I’m not saying you’ll walk in and because you’re faithful to God everything changes and gets better instantly. Not that I don’t believe it can, God can absolutely do that. But I truly believe that if we are in tune with what God is saying to us and following both scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will see things change - we will see things happen. But here’s another reality, if they don’t, if things don’t change. If we don’t see things happen - how will we react?

Who are we really serving.

Yes, things got better for Joseph. Yes, things changed. But he wasn’t faithful to God because God made his situations great, he was faithful to God because he purposed in his heart that that is how he was going to live. Joseph chose before the situations that he was going to be faithful to God.

Regardless of the situation you are in, choose today to be faithful to God.

No matter what you experience at the hands of those around you. It might come from people you don’t know. It may come from people who you work for. It may come from people who are supposed to be family, or even your family itself. Choose today to be faithful to God. To filter all that you go through through that lens, that You will be faithful.

That means following Jesus.

That means forgiving.

That means not losing sight of the bigger picture.

That means staying humble.

Read scripture and learn what it means to be faithful to God. And ask Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you in the here and now in what faithfulness is.

Galatians 5:16 says, / / ...let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t do what your sinful nature craves.

In all those moments that Joseph experienced. I can almost guarantee he had the desire to do what his human nature craved. Anger, revenge, bitterness, holding a grudge. But from what we can tell from the story we are given in scripture, he did not choose those things. He chose to live his life believing for better.

That’s what we keep seeing in this series, isn’t it? Looking forward to something we can’t even see yet, walk by faith toward it.

Moses followed the invisible God.

Abraham left his home and walked, not knowing where he was going, but waiting for that inner peace, that intuitive gut reaction to know, “hey, this is where I’m supposed to be.”

Noah built a boat where a boat wasn’t needed.

Joseph followed God despite constant heartache.

Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives, and instead of doing what your human nature wants to do in those situations, take a moment and lean into how the Holy Spirit wants to remind you of what scripture has shown you, and how you can be different.

Kelley gets these moments at work where people will say, “It’s different when you’re here.”

That’s what I desire for all of us. That it’s different when we are in the room. It’s different when we’re in the office. It’s different when we’re at school, work, family gatherings. Why? Because our faith just isn’t an internal belief, but it’s a life of faithfulness to the ways and leading of God.

Now, I do want to speak to something this morning. Because hurt isn’t easy to get over. I don’t know what Joseph went through in way of working all these things out.

If you jump further in the story, in Genesis 45, it is years and years later and he is reunited with his brothers. We’ll be looking more at that next week, but his brothers think he’s going to hate them. And rightfully so, I mean, they were going to kill him, and instead they sold him as a slave. That’s dirty.

But, in Genesis 45:4-5, Joseph says to his brothers, / / “…don’t be upset, and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here…”

Joseph, are you sure? I’m pretty sure it was them who sold you as a slave.

Being faithful to God isn’t denying that you have bad situations to deal with, it is recognizing that God is still God, God is still faithful, and God is still very capable and able to lead your life through the situations you face.

/ / Faithfulness isn’t dependent on our lives going the way we think they should. It’s making the choice beforehand to be faithful to the God we serve.

I don’t know how you’ve been hurt, or betrayed, or accused, or lost things because of any of that. I do know how I’ve been hurt. And it’s been hard. And I know there are still things in my life that I haven’t 100% let go of. I know that because of the way I think about them. I think we usually know when we’ve been hurt and when we’re still holding on to the hurt or pain.

And I know that this morning God wants to remove some of those hooks that are still stuck in our flesh.

Maybe you were betrayed, or wrongfully accused. Maybe you were punished for something you never did. Lost things, lost friends, lost jobs or money or relationships because you were accused of doing something you didn’t do, but as a result there was loss.

See, the problem with holding on to pain is that it is very difficult to allow God to heal it and work on it when we are too afraid to even look at it.

I know that if you are vulnerable with the Lord this morning, and you are willing to forgive and let go of these situations, you can find healing. Maybe you already know what God wants to bring you freedom in this morning. You can see in your minds eye the person who hurt you. Can you forgive this morning? As hard as that might be.

For Kelley and I we learned to pray this way, “God, with your help, I choose to forgive.” Because sometimes all we have is the word. Our heart isn’t quite there yet. We still feel the pain, and it’s too real to let go of. But instead of holding onto it, because who wants to hold on to that, really? We choose to forgive, even if it’s by word only at the time. When asked how many times we should forgive, Jesus said 70x7. I don’t think that’s an actual number, but a way of saying, “As long as it takes. As many times as it takes.”

You might need to forgive this person tomorrow. And the next day. And next week or month. But I know that if you are faithful to walk humbly before God, If you choose to forgive those who have hurt you, and if you choose to not just believe in God, but to be faithful to Him, you will experience freedom where you have been hurt before.