Meant for Good
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Promise and Process
PRAYER
“Jesus, Please help us to see you clearly. Please help us to understand the power of your process, and the beauty of your intentions, so that we can cooperate with your work, instead of fighting against you.”
SCRIPTURE
Genesis 37:1-36, Psalm 105:16-19, John 16:33, and Proverbs 24:16.
INTRODUCTION
Today we are going to kick off a series about the life of Joseph and in this series we will cover some broad Christian principles for living that I think will be helpful.
Today, we're going to talk about the Christian walk, and we’re going to challenge some preconceived notions that many people have about Christianity especially in our western, industrialized, post-modern culture. And we’re going to be looking at the first part of the story of Joseph.
Let's start with some common ideas about God that need to be challenged. Think about times in your life when you have had any of these thoughts or feelings or you heard them from someone:
● If God loves me, he will make my life relatively easy and comfortable.
● God’s primary goal for me in my life is to make me feel good.
● …then the opposite...If I'm suffering, it means God doesn't love me.
You might look at these ideas and say to yourself, “of course those aren’t true.”
But I think as humans…one of our defaults in this world is towards selfishness right? All of us have fallen victim to these thoughts, or thoughts like them, in our lives. Can you think of a time when you were disappointed, or even angry at God for letting bad things happen to you? We can all relate.
Our culture has exposed us to a worldview that things should go well for us. We are more addicted to convenience than any generation before us.
If we are hungry, we go to the store. If we are thirsty, we turn on the faucet. If we need something, many of us just tap on our computer, and then it arrives at our door. In some ways, this is awesome. And then the our ideas are always best and right…and I think our culture almost enjoys conflict now. But a sense of entitlement for things to be easy and convenient or just that things are the way that we want....
....can put us into conflict with God’s ways of dealing with us, which often involves waiting and even suffering.
The idea that God’s love means convenience, or easy, or just like we want it…that’s just something we don’t see in scripture. God’s biggest concern is that we’re changed into something different than we are now, into the image of Christ.
So lots of times we have a hard time filtering through things…but there are some people in the Bible who seem to figure out something about life…you might know someone like this …even here in this room are people like this. I struggle with this…but we have people who walk through life…with a joy that doesn’t seem to quit. And most of us envy them. Jesus talked like this…make my joy complete…Paul and other writers said the same thing…keep joy…make my joy complete…as though…disciple making (in a way) is a way of having complete joy..
But what is it based on…what’s the starting point…and I think we see this ironic life right away in Joseph’s young life…and it looks like he holds onto this idea (truth) and it carries him.
And here we have Joseph.
Today, we will be talking about two ideas. The Promise and The Process. Let’s read through the text and highlight some themes about God’s real work in our lives. Today, we’ll be spending time in Genesis 37:1-36.
SCRIPTURE: THE BAD REPORT
Genesis 37:1-4
1 Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him.
4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
REFLECTIONS:
For background, Joseph has a very troubled family dynamic. His father shows evident favoritism towards Joseph, which causes incredible strife with his brothers. Joseph compounds this strife by tattling on his brothers, making him an even greater target. This a box of fireworks waiting to catch on fire.
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SCRIPTURE: JOSEPH’S DREAMS
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.
6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:
7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?”
11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
REFLECTIONS:
Dreams were and are…sometimes important things. It’s pretty obvious something is happening here with Joseph if no one else. Is he a 17 year old dreamer…or just in his own head…we don’t know…but something is happening in him. Does he get how this is affecting things with brothers…doesn’t seem to get it.
…even dad says “Hey wait a minute...” Almost like…Joseph please stop talking…dad is realising that the family dynamic here isn’t all wonderful.
The incredible part is that this dream actually is, functionally, a PROMISE from God. This prophecy will indeed one day come true. Joseph is truly hearing from God through his dreams. But Joseph only seems to see the “coolness” of the promise, and has no idea what it is going to cost to bring the events of the promise about. It’s going to cost him everything he loves....and it won’t be a cost that he pays willingly. This will be paid without his consent. This will happen to him. But still....a promise…and it looks like he holds to this idea of promise from God.
APPLICATION:
In a similar way, I think we can easily see the PROMISES of God, especially when we are young believers, and we don’t have a proper understanding that God’s PROCESS for bringing these promises into reality.
We want the promise without the process…we want convenient. We want the promise …on our terms.
This can cause us to struggle with God, blame God, and even turn away from God.
“In trial and weakness and trouble, He seeks to bring us low, until we learn that His grace is all, and to take pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. His presence filling and satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of humility that need never fail.”—Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, Andrew Murray
“The humble man has learned the secret of abiding gladness. The weaker he feels, the lower he sinks, and the greater his humiliations appear, the more power and the presence of Christ are his portion.”—Humility and Absolute Surrender, Andrew Murray
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SUMMARY
Genesis 37:12-16 --Jacob basically sends Joseph to spy on his brothers, who are out in the field. This pattern of favoritism is only creating more strife, and it’s about to lead to a murder plot.
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SCRIPTURE: MURDER PLOT
18 But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other.
20 “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”
21 When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said.
22 “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—
24 and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
REFLECTIONS:
Hatred and anger. I thing we all can imagine what the brothers…as Joseph has grown up as favorite…robes and tattling…we can assume maybe more…they’ve been thinking a lot…and probably not healthy thinking either. What happens when we allow anger and hate to grab ahold of our minds? These guys went all the way to murder. We begin to think…and for most humans…thinking without the holy spirit guiding us can become dangerous if not just exhausting and joyless.
Ruben steps in…in a way saving his brother.
This is the beginning of a road of suffering and exile that will last for decades.
This is God’s Process for Joseph, in order to bring blessings for the nation of Israel that will endure for generations.
APPLICATION:
When I talk about God’s “process,” I am referring to the reality that we, like Joseph, must endure suffering and hardship in order to receive the inner character that makes us more and more able to authentically serve the people around us, and fulfill God’s calling on our lives. When we became Christians, we signed up to be “conformed/transformed into the image of Jesus,” and this process always includes suffering, as it did for Jesus and every other hero of faith.
SEGUE: Let’s keep reading.
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SCRIPTURE: SOLD AS A SLAVE
25 As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?
27 Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.
28 So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
REFLECTIONS:
Think about Joseph....later in the account we hear the brothers thinking back to when they sold him. They give us this picture…we knew we were doing wrong as he was begging for his life…and we still sold him.
POINT OF APPLICATION:
Sometimes the distance and tension between God's PROMISE and His PROCESS can feel like a million miles..or even not connected. God’s ways are not our ways, and His plans are not our plans. As Christians, we have incredible promises, like Joseph. We are more than conquerors. All things will work together for our good. God will exalt us; we will judge angels, God will crush Satan under our feet. New, everlasting life.
But we must also understand that God has a PROCESS. There will be times when the PROCESS is painful, and it will be difficult to trust him.
If we think we can have the PROMISE without the PROCESS, we will be disappointed and angry with God, or we will think God is cruel, or we will think He doesn’t love us.
This is why many have walked away from the faith. We can receive the PROMISE with joy, and be totally unprepared that the PROCESS involves suffering, and this suffering can make us think falsely about God and run away from Him. Joseph is an incredible testimony of God’s power to hold us through the most horrific of circumstances.
Are you in the PROCESS right now? Are you feeling the impossibility that a loving God could possibly let things happen that have happened in your life? We must all grapple with this tension. I pray that the spirit of God, right now, will equip and comfort you, because no human words can explain away your suffering. Only God himself can give you the power to embrace His PROCESS. But rest assured, God has a plan, just as he had a plan for Joseph all along. In fact, in Joseph’s case, God had planned all this beforehand for the rescue and deliverance of Israel on a grand scale.
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SCRIPTURE: Psalm 105:16-19
16 He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food;
17 and he sent a man before them— Joseph, sold as a slave.
18 They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons,
19 till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true.
REFLECTIONS:
Joseph’s story, his process, rescued an entire nation…and showed God’s promises come true.
What does it mean to be tested? It means to be refined, like metals that are smelted in a furnace. The Word of the Lord TESTED Joseph. The promise of God TESTED him. It forged him into something new.
God is FORGING you right now, through all the suffering, into something precious and amazing that couldn’t be forged without great pressure and cost! Do we understand what it means to be tested by a promise? It means we must live inside the tension between the PROMISE and the PROCESS -- and if we can hold that tension, by the grace of God, then we will be able to ultimately accept God’s ways of dealing with us, even if His ways are sometimes painful and uncomfortable.
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CONCLUSION: SUMMARY
Joseph is living in this tension.
CONCLUSION: APPLICATIONS
Now I want you to think about your actual life. Chances are, those promises don't always feel true for you. In fact, I'm willing to wager that sometimes those promises sound opposite to your experience. "How can both be true?" You might ask. "How can a loving God take this away from me?" "How can a loving God withhold this from us?” “How can I give this up?”
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.”
Can you feel The tension, even in that sentence from Jesus's mouth?
"You're going to suffer … a lot. But cheer up and have peace! Why? Because I won the whole ballgame already -- you just can't see it yet!"
The promise is there…focus on it as you walk through the process…the process of you being changed into the image of Christ.
16 for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.
I fall. But I get back up. That is the mark of the righteous. We fall, but we rise again through Christ.
What verses do you come back to? What verses or pictures or promises…what truth do you hold to? You know, I bet that the more we can walk through the process well…the more we will see others say...”how in the world do you do it?”
I’ve got a promise from God.
Let’s pray together.