Scars that Remind
Notes
Transcript
Well, good morning, Center.
It's good to be with you all this morning.
Introduction: Do you have scars?
Introduction: Do you have scars?
Do you have any scars on your body that tell a pretty good story?
Uh, this might apply more for the guys than for the girls, but usually guys, we get scars and they're a lot of times they’re something that we are proud of.
There's this saying when I was growing up, chicks dig scars, which usually is said right before doing something that is rather stupid.
This is where you're getting ready to jump off the roof of your house using only a blanket as your parachute and you're really starting to question, is this a good idea or not, and your friend decides to tell you hey man, chicks dig scars.
And so you decide yeah, so you jump only to get that scar on you and then you wear that as a trophy, like man I jumped off the roof. That parachute did not work, but I have a story to tell.
You see, that's the thing about scars is they serve as a reminder of some event that took place in our lives.
ILLUSTRATION — CHRISTOPHER HITTING HIS HEAD
You see, when my brother was in high school, even now still, but he he was an adrenaline junkie. He loved to just do extreme sports. If it had wheels, then he was going to push it to its limits.
And so we went mountain biking one day. And we were coming home. We had a good day. It was just really nice.
We got home and he was going to unload all the bikes and so like not like any ordinary person where the normal person just decides to reach over the bed of the truck, grab the bicycle, pull it out and set it down. But my brother is not normal like that. He decides that what he wants to do is he wants to back the truck up and then ride the bicycle out, jumping out of the bed of the truck and landing four feet off the ground and riding away. And he's done this multiple times before, but this time there's something a little bit different that he doesn't account for. This time he is parked too close to the to the garage of our house.
And so as he's riding his bike out of the bed of the truck, he realizes he's going to hit the garage, and so he ducks to avoid the garage, which what ends up happening is throws off his balance so that when he lands he's not centered and he whiplashes his head on to the concrete. Now the rest of us are inside, so we don't know what's going on other than my brother comes in a couple minutes later and he says hey, I hit my head and so we enter kind of the concussion protocol, we keep an eye on him and it's not until he actually throws up multiple times that we realize there is something wrong here. So what we do is we take him to the hospital. They do a cat-scan and MRI only to reveal that my brother has cracked his skull, he has bleeding on the brain, and it is swelling and putting undue pressure on his brain and the doctor realizes we have to get him somewhere. So they decide to life light my brother down to to Tulsa and really the doctor didn't even think my brother was going to make it on the flight because he walked him to the helicopter, which is not something he usually does, but he just thought there's he's not going to make it. Three days later, my brother walks out of that hospital.
And the thing is, is that he is parked too close to the to the garage of our house.
And so as he's riding his bike out of the bed of the truck, he realizes he's going to hit the garage, and so he ducks to avoid the garage, which what ends up happening is throws off his balance so that when he lands he's not centered and he whiplashes his head on to the concrete.
Now the rest of us are inside, so we don't know what's going on other than my brother comes in a couple minutes later and he says hey, I hit my head and so we enter kind of the concussion protocol, we keep an eye on him and it's not until he actually throws up multiple times that we realize there is something wrong here.
He is he he still has a road to recovery, but my brother is able to after emergency brain surgery, where they cut just above his hairline around his ear into the base of his skull and peeled back his skull so that they could relieve the pressure on his brain three days later, my brother walks out he leaves the hospital and to this day he's his normal self, but he has a scar that if you look close and his hair's cut just right, you can see that scar run all the way around.
That scar serves as a reminder to us of the protection that God placed on my brother, just the glory that God deserves that my brother is the same man of integrity that he is the same brother that I grew up with, and so that scar serves as a reminder to us.
Scars do that, and the thing with scars is they usually come with an amount of pain as well.
Series
Series
We're in this series of Through the Bible, and what we're going to be looking at today is two accounts in which the people of God are going through extreme amounts of pain. It's some of the darkest moments in their lives and really as as you read through this, the question that you could easily ask is, where is God in all of this? Where is he as his people are suffering as they are going through this difficult time?
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever questioned God, where are you in this pit that I am in?
ILLUSTRATION: GOD LOOKING THROUGH A TELESCOPE
This past week I was taken a moment to just pray to God because I've been just going through some difficulty, nothing extreme or anything, but just some mental trials, some stresses and stuff like that. And so I was talking to a friend and as we were talking about prayer, I mentioned that when I pray, it's hard for me because as I'm praying, my mind just wants to run. So I'll start praying for something and then I catch myself running down this little rabbit trail and try to veer back and I catch myself running down and it becomes just this mental exercise that wears me me out mentally. And so then eventually my prayers just struggled. And so my friend just told me, hey, how about what you do is you find a chair and you look at that chair and you visualize God being in that chair and so this week as I was praying, I did that. I just sat there and I looked at a chair and I visualized that God was in that chair that he was there in my presence, and as I was praying to him, I came to this conclusion, even though I never would have verbally said it, and even though it's not truly what I believe, it is kind of how my life was being lived, and that is that God is distant,
that God is living somewhere else up in heaven and that he has this microscope or telescope that he's able to look at earth and he can see anywhere he wants to at any time he wants to so he can see your life he knows what's going on in your life. He has that red phone to be able to pick up a call when you pray to him that he's there. He can hear you. You have free long distance calling to him, but he is not here. And that's something that I realized that is like, man, I'm struggling with knowing God, are you here?
And what we're going to see again in our text this morning and maybe what you might be feeling today is God, where are you? Are you here or are you distant? Am I left on this earth alone or do I have your spirit with me?
In our text, we're going to see two stories in which people are in holes, are in the pits of life, and what we are going to see is the truth that is repeated multiple times in the passage, explicitly and implicitly, is that God is with them. And what we're going to see is that God is with you as well.
Here and now, you're not alone.
So if you'll join me, we're going to be in Genesis 39 and we are covering a whole lot. We're going to make it all the way to Exodus 6 this morning, but if you'll join me, we'll open up in a word of prayer.
PRAYER
POINT 1: GOD IS WITH JOSEPH
Recap up to Genesis 39
So last week we saw Abraham being tested by God to give up his son of the promise. God promises Abraham when he calls him in Genesis 12 to go into this land and I'm going to give you a land that you do not yet know. I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you, and through you all nations will be blessed
We see Abraham going in faith, and then Abraham is told you're going to have an offspring, and Abraham's old, and so Abraham takes matters into his own hands, and he sleeps with his wife's maidservant Hagar, and they give birth to Ishmael. But God says that is not going to be who the heir of the of the covenant is, instead I'm going to give you a son through Sarah. And so at 100 years old, Abraham fathers, Isaac.
And then some time later, God tests Abraham and says, are you going to with old your son, your only son from me? God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, and Abraham is fully obedient, with knife in hand, getting ready to to strike down his son, at the last moment God offers a ram in Isaac’s place. Now we're roughly 250 years after that event, where Isaac has grown up and married and had sons, Esau and Jacob.
The promise continues through Jacob, who grows up and has 11 sons with four different women, his favorite being Rachel, and the last son that Jacob has is named Joseph. He is born to the woman that Jacob loves. And so there's this favoritism given to Joseph because Jacob loves Rachel more than his other wives and concubines.
We see this favoritism when Jacob gives Joseph a coat of many colors. You're familiar with that story. Then Joseph at the age of 17 has a dream, in which it represents all of his family bowing down and worshiping him. So all of this is kind of getting under the skin of his brothers, and then the culmination of it all, the tipping point for his brothers is whenever Jacob sends Joseph to check in on his brothers in the fields. And Joseph goes and his brothers see him coming from a long ways off and they just can't take it any more. So what they do is they they leap upon Joseph, throw him in a pit, trying to decide, what are we going to do with him? We should kill him. Finally Judah says, let's not kill him, let's sell him. Let's make a profit on our brother. So they see some Ishmaelites coming along, and they sell their brother into slavery to these Ishmaelites, and that is where we get to our text:
1 Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
So now look at Joseph's scenario here.
Joseph has been betrayed by his family.
Joseph has been sold to a foreign land,
now he is doing forced labor for a foreign master.
Joseph went from being his father's favorite to being the lowest of lows
If ever there was really a time where you would question, now would be the time, where you might say, God, where are you? It feels like you're so distant from me.
That’s the thing, whenever we are on the mountain top, we feel close to God.
It's like, oh, I can feel God's presence, and usually we attribute that to our circumstances.We allow our circumstances to dictate the proximity that we feel God is to us. God, I feel you're so good because you are blessing me with a good day, a beautiful home, an amazing spouse, wonderful children, health, wealth. You are giving me these things. So God, I feel a little closer to you. And then whenever we hit those valleys, it feels like we are drawing away from God, and that could be where Joseph is here. God, where are you? I've been betrayed by my family. I've been sold into this foreign land, and I am now forced to work for a foreign master.
2 The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. 4 So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. 5 From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. 6 So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate.
Even in this dark moment we see repeated there explicitly, God saying that he is with Joseph and implicitly saying that his hand was upon Joseph. We see that God is with Joseph here. And so everything that Joseph does succeeds. We see God taking Joseph being sold into a foreign land, and it's like, okay, he's now into the pits of it all, but he is working his way up to now being like the second in command but it doesn't stay that way. Joseph receives the favor of God, but Joseph were also told at the end of verse six that Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.
Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.
Thank you for that little bit of information. Why is that necessary? Because Potiphar's wife has taken notice of Joseph. She sees him and she wants him, and so she pursues him, and day after day were told she tries to get him to sleep with her and notice Joseph's response.
How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
Notice how can I sin against God? Not how can I sin against my master, but it's still God I'm serving even in the pit I can feel God's presence, even in the valleys I know God is with me. And so I'm not going to sin against him. A lot of times we can use those dark valleys as an excuse to sin, okay, God must have abandon me, so therefore I'm just going to go ahead and do whatever I want since God's not going to provide for me, I'm going to provide for myself. I'm going to do whatever it takes to gain an edge to feel better, to satisfy my urges.
But Joseph is a man of integrity, and he continues to do the right thing then we see in verse 11, even though he's doing the right thing, it says, but one day when he went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was there in the house, Potiphar's wife caught him by his garment, saying lie with me, but he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.
You see Joseph could have potentially just said, okay, I'm done fighting. I'm done resisting. I'm gonna all right, nobody else is in here. I can technically get away with this. But Joseph doesn't do that.
Instead, Joseph does what all of us should do whenever there's temptation. We should flee. He turns around and runs away, leaving his garment in her hand, which comes to play later because what she does is she sees, okay, if he's not going to sleep with me, she's probably humiliated right now so she decides I'm going to turn it on him. I have his garment. I can say nobody there's no witnesses. So Joseph attacked me. He came on to me. He was going to have his way with me. She accuses Joseph of attempting to molest her. She has the garment in hand. Joseph really has no no defense against this, even though Joseph was doing the right thing, Joseph still gets found guilty and is thrown in jail for doing the right thing. You see if Joseph were to have actually gone and and molested her and had his way with her, then yeah we can understand you deserve to be thrown in jail, but here Joseph was doing the right thing, and the right thing gets him thrown in prison.
When you are in that circumstance, the question you usually want to ask is, what is going on here? Why did this happen to me? Where are you God?
Again you could see that question being asked, but yet were told Genesis 39:19-23
19 As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. 20 And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. 22 And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. 23 The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
Again we see over and over in Joseph's life. It looks like God is distant. It looks like you could be like, God, where are you in this? But over and over God's word is showing us the truth and the reality of it all. God is with you, even in the pits, even in the valleys.
For 13 years Joseph was a slave to Potiphar, or he was a slave in prison. He was not his own master. He was not a free man, and yet we see over and over God was with Joseph Eventually we get into Genesis chapter 41, where Joseph has now interpreted two dreams of a cup bearer and a baker who both served Potiphar, and he tells the cup bearer that you are going to be able to be reinstated, but when you do remember me tell tell uh they're not tell pharaoh who I am remember me, but in Genesis chapter 40 verse 2, all this comes to truth.
The cupbearer is reinstated, the chief baker ends up not getting that good of a outcome. He is actually hanged.
23 Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.
1 After two whole years
Joseph has been forgotten about by man, and so often we take man's emotions and man's feelings towards us, and we attribute those to God. And so Joseph again could have been like okay, the cup the chief cup bearer forgot about me. So does that mean that God has forgotten about me as well?
We see over and over again for two years. Joseph is like I did what is right. I am wrongfully accused, and here I am in prison, and it man has forgotten me, and it seems like God has forgotten me as well, but the reality of it is is that God never forgot Joseph. He was with Joseph through it all. The Lord was with Joseph.
You see that's what God says in Isaiah chapter 49 because Israel has this feeling
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
That's how we feel sometimes God, where are you?
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Again many times we can get in these warp thinkings and get caught up in our circumstances, and so we think God, where are you?
But he has not forgotten. He is not distant from us. He is near.
God is with Moses
God is with Moses
You see fast forward a couple hundred years and we see what ends up happening in Joseph's story is that God leads his family back to him.
Joseph ends up being reinstated, not just into Potiphar’s home, but as the second in command in all of Egypt, which is like the most powerful nation in the world right now. So Joseph is the second most powerful man in the world. And what we see is that God has provided through Joseph, because now there is a famine in the land, and Joseph was put in charge of the grain in preparing for this famine, and so now everybody is coming to Joseph notice all nations are blessed through an offspring of Abraham.
Joseph is now able to provide and give and direct all the nations in the known world.
And so Joseph's family ends up coming back to him, and Joseph goes through this little period where he's testing them, and then he reveals himself to them, talk about an oh no moment where they realize the second most powerful man in the world is our brother who we sold into slavery
5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; do not tarry.
He's gone through the trial. He is able to look back and he is able to see God’s had working through it all. Joseph is able to look back. Now, in the middle of it all, he might not have known that he might have been wondering, God, where are you but noticed he held firm to God he trusted in God, and we see over and over the promise that God is with him so that now he's come through it and he sees God worked for the good and God used this darkest moment in Joseph's life, so that he could work through Joseph's life, so that he could preserve Joseph's family.
This allowed for the Hebrew people to come, the people that God has chosen to come and be provided for and were told 70 people in all came into Egypt. And then fast forward a couple hundred years now, as these 70 people are now 600 men strong. They are now a nation residing inside of Israel. And again, I don't know how God works, but my speculation here is that they have now become comfortable in Egypt. They've been provided for. They've been comfortable. And so God needs for them to be taken back out because remember, Egypt is not the land that God promised to them.
And so God needs them to leave in the way to get them out of their comfort is to put them through some form of trial, and so oppression comes upon them and they are put into extreme forced labor under Pharaoh, a new pharaoh, who has forgotten about Joseph, we're told. And so they're in this difficult time, and we see again that the the people of Israel, the Hebrews are crying out to God because of the difficulty that they are in.
23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
So they're crying out, their groans are going out.
And in the word for that groaning, the word for that crying out is like if both your arms broke, the agony and the pain that you would feel that's what they have right now dark, dark moment.
24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
What is God doing at this moment? God is preparing for them a deliverer to deliver them from their oppression.
They're just in so much pain groaned because of their slavery and they cried out for help again, where are you, God? Are you distant from us? Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
Notice the words. God heard their groaning. God remembered his covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. The cries came to God, and he in that moment responded. And and it's not that God was distant from them. God is sending them the man who will deliver them.
He calls Moses from the wilderness to go and deliver the people, and he says,
10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you….
Remember God's not sending people alone. God's not distant, but God is near. He will be with you.
It's like, okay, you're going to be with me, that's not necessarily enough.
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Fast forward a couple of verses, and Moses is still having this conversation with God, where he's just looking for almost every excuse to not have to be the one sent.
10 But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” 11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” 13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” 14 Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.
So again here we see that Moses is just looking for some way out. The people of Israel are needing some way out, and God says, I'm going to send you a helper and I will be with you through it all. Maybe you're in a valley today. Maybe you're going through a difficult time and you're just thinking, God, where are you? Maybe you've gone through a moment where you're not even really in a valley, but you just feel like there's this indifference from God. Like he's far off. Like he is looking at you through a telescope. And yet you can call him whenever you want, but he's not near.
FACETIMING IN HAITI
He's like if I had a friend in Haiti that I just wanted to reach. I could FaceTime him where I can see him. I can pick up a phone and call him and talk to him. I can send him text messages, but he's not here. He doesn't understand. He doesn't really know.
Those are the lies that we can fall prey to. But what we see is that God is with us even in the moments of suffering, even in our darkest moments, God promises to be with us.
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Psalm 34:18
We are told in the psalms that God is near to the broken hearted.
18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
Immanuel Today
Immanuel Today
We're going to fast forward to the New Testament. God hears his people who are caught in their sin, crying out to God for deliverance because the law is not helping them. The law is just condemning them more and more showing us more and more that we are guilty, and so we cry out, God, save me, who is there that will deliver me? God, are you even here?
And God sends us his son, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son who was called Emman you well, God with us, that Jesus came and he lived among us to be that example, and then Jesus died the darkest moment is in history is when Jesus went upon the cross and bore the sins of the world because what happened in that moment as the veil was torn, and we were now able to completely be with God.
7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
Even though the disciples walked with Jesus, Jesus was not able to reside inside the disciples, but when Jesus died, buried and rose again, and he ascended, he said, I will send you the helper, and he says that if you profess the name of Christ, believe in him, his spirit comes upon you.
Man may forget you. Your family may disown you, but God does not forget you. You may feel distant from God, but God never moves.
1 But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life.
5 Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.
Remember how our scars serve as a reminder to us?
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
You are mine. I love you. I care for you. I am with you. No matter how dark the world gets, you are not alone.
God is with you, Emmanuel and he will never forget you.
Maybe you need to hear what God said about the Israelites whenever they cried out to God where he says, God heard, God remembered, God saw, and God knew. God hears your cries to him. God sees the pain that you are in. God remembers the covenant, the promise that he made through his son Jesus. God knows,
Those aren't just things like I I hear and I'm not going to respond. I see, but I'm not going to do anything about it. I remember, but it's just a recollection. I know, but it's just knowledge.
No, those are action words because what was God doing? He then called Moses to go and help. You see, we are told in Romans that when we cry out to God, sometimes we cry with words that we don't even know what to say, he says his spirit intercedes for us.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
I don't know how I can't tell you when, but hold for keep fighting the good fight of faith because God says we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God hears, God remembers, God sees, God knows. God is with you, Emmanuel.
