What’s Your Story? - Purpose

Introduction

We all have a tendency to edit stories to make them more entertaining, engaging, or maybe make ourselves look better.

Sometimes we can do this with our “stories.”

We each have a story, a unique sequence of events and experiences that bring us to where we are today, and in many ways form us into who we are today.

For us as Christians and specifically in this series, we look at how God has been faithful to draw us into relationship with himself, sustain us, and grow us through all these different things we experience in our lives.

But sometimes, our stories are hard. We’ve been sinned against, we’ve sinned. There are pages in the storybook of our lives that we would rather not open. Ones that we’d rip out if we could. Things that both we have done and have been done to us.

In some ways, one of our main struggles is being able to see how God has worked and is working through our stories, even when it seems impossible. How could God use this part of my story? Wouldn’t it just be better to leave that part of it out?

Our focus for this series is:

Remember

Remind (re-mind)

Retell

It will be a struggle for you to remember, remind, and retell if you are not at peace with your story. If you are not able to see God’s faithfulness and redemption in your life.

If you can’t accept this singular fact:

You have a story. You have to make peace with it.

In order to illustrate this, we are going to turn to a biblical character who has one of the craziest stories in the whole Bible. The ups and downs and twists and turns can make your head spin. This biblical character is: Joseph.

Genesis 45:1–15 CSB

Joseph could no longer keep his composure in front of all his attendants, so he called out, “Send everyone away from me!” No one was with him when he revealed his identity to his brothers. But he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and also Pharaoh’s household heard it. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But they could not answer him because they were terrified in his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please, come near me,” and they came near. “I am Joseph, your brother,” he said, “the one you sold into Egypt. And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. “Return quickly to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: “God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me without delay. You can settle in the land of Goshen and be near me—you, your children, and your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and all you have. There I will sustain you, for there will be five more years of famine. Otherwise, you, your household, and everything you have will become destitute.” ’ Look! Your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin can see that I’m the one speaking to you. Tell my father about all my glory in Egypt and about all you have seen. And bring my father here quickly.” Then Joseph threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin wept on his shoulder. Joseph kissed each of his brothers as he wept, and afterward his brothers talked with him.

We can see how Joseph remembered, re-minded, and retold his story:

Exegesis

Remember

Joseph did not forget

Joseph had held all the events of his life in his mind, he had not forgotten them

It would have been easy for him to block some of these memories out, to put them out of his mind

Joseph did not embellish

Joseph did not go overboard with details or exaggerate any part of his story

He is matter of fact with what happened - you sold me into slavery

Joseph did not sanitize

He says specifically - you sold me into slavery. That happened. It was the worst

Later on he says - “you planned this for evil” - He does not excuse what they did, or pretend it was anything but evil.

There was no excusing what his brothers had done, there was not “cleaning up” his story to make it seem better than it was - he did not try to rationalize it or explain it away

Remember Your Story

Don’t forget your story

Don’t allow your life to become a series of events disconnected from each other in your mind

Don’t forget to look back on what has happened in your life, good and bad, and face it

Don’t embellish your story

Don’t give in to the temptation to make your story “more” than what it is

Don’t lie

Don’t look around at other people’s stories and feel like you have to exaggerate in order to “measure up”

Social media is the worst for this

Don’t sanitize your story

On the other hand - don’t sanitize your story

We sometimes sanitize our stories out of shame or trying to make things sound better than they are. Or maybe we think that God just wants us to be happy-clappy all the time so talking about difficult things we’ve experienced is somehow “wrong.”

Of course we need to share appropriate details based on the audience, but that does not mean we simply leave out parts of our story that are important

Context for Genesis 50

Genesis 50:15–21 CSB

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, “If Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the suffering we caused him.” So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before he died your father gave a command: ‘Say this to Joseph: Please forgive your brothers’ transgression and their sin—the suffering they caused you.’ Therefore, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when their message came to him. His brothers also came to him, bowed down before him, and said, “We are your slaves!” But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. Therefore don’t be afraid. I will take care of you and your children.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

Note about Joseph’s brothers

Remind

Joseph does not just remember - he holds his story in his mind and is able to remind both himself and his brothers but in order to do this he…

Joseph reframes his story…

Let’s recap Joseph’s story - He is sold into slavery, separated from his family, falsely accused, imprisoned. Yes, it’s turned out okay in the end but all those things happened. Those are wounds that he carries

How does Joseph talk about it?

Genesis 45:5–8 “And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.”

Genesis 50:19–20 “But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.”

As Joseph is reminding - he would have plenty of awful things to recount but instead of focusing on the negative aspects of his story he instead focuses on God’s good providence and how God has worked in his life, even through these awful things, to accomplish his good purposes

…because God has redeemed his story

Joseph, because of his faith in God, has been able to hold all the details of his story in his mind, remembering them, but his “reminding” isn’t a list of grievances but rather a testament to God’s sovereignty and redemption that through all of the terrible things, God was faithful and brought about a result that not only saved Joseph but also his entire family

Joseph is able to have this mindset because he sees himself as fitting into God’s story, not God fitting into his.

This is not a heart and a mindset that Joseph developed overnight. No, this was formed in Joseph by consistent faith in God and his redemptive power, through trials and struggles that were a part of his story. Joseph over and over had to choose to see his story as something God could redeem.

Reframe your story…

If you were in Joseph’s shoes, how would you react? Some of us crumple like a leaf if any small thing goes wrong. But at the end of all of it he says “look - this was all meant by God for good.” Can you say that?

What is the lens that you see your life through?

Do you have a mindset that every thing that goes wrong serves no purpose, that there is no hope of redemption?

When something goes wrong do you tend to say “welp, yeah, I don’t know what I expected.”

Do you have a fatalistic view of your life?

“I hate my life,” “everything is terrible” even tongue in cheek

Every blessing of God quickly gets overshadowed by any minor setback

You spend way less time being grateful for any blessing or good thing that happens than dwelling on the negative

…because God is redeeming your story.

Are you willing to look for God’s redemption in your story and accept it when you see it? Or will you go to sugarcoating and denial, or bitterness and resentment?

All of us have things that have been done to us, some of them are awful. All of us have sin that mars our past and even our present. Our stories are not neat and tidy.

Our hesitation to share our stories is sometimes because we have parts of our story that we don’t believe God has redeemed, or we don’t see how he could.

How is God going to redeem and use your story? I don’t know, maybe you don’t either. You may not know until you see your brothers come in your door to buy food from you in a famine - and maybe you will never really know.

But we hold onto this promise from God…

Romans 8:28–30 CSB

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

We can have confidence that all things - all means all - work together for our good - our highest good - being conformed to the image of Christ.

So whether we see tangible, real-life evidence of our story being redeemed like Joseph did, or simply reframe our experiences to acknowledge that God is and will work through them - we can know that nothing is wasted, nothing is outside of God’s ability to redeem.

Retell

We read two passages from Genesis earlier, one from chapter 45 and one from chapter 50. Chapter 45 is right before Jacob comes to Egypt, and chapter 50 is right after Jacob’s death.

Here is what is interesting about this:

Seventeen years has elapsed between chapter 45 and chapter 50, yet, when Joseph’s brothers try to deceive him because they are afraid he has been holding a grudge against them, Joseph still says almost exactly what he said in Genesis 45

In both cases, Joseph is clear - You did evil to me, but God meant it for good and worked through it.

Joseph has been retelling the same story for 17 years - of God’s faithfulness and redemption.

He has retold his story faithfully because he has fit into God’s story, not tried to make God fit into his.

Joseph tells God’s story…

At every point that Joseph talks about his life he resets the focus from himself, what he went through, the injustices, the suffering, the pain, etc., to what God was doing through it

He does not ignore the pain but refuses to wallow in it because he looks toward what God was doing through it

Joseph has such confidence in God’s sovereignty and redemptive power that he is able to retell in a way that gives all glory to God and points his whole family to a reminder of God’s faithfulness

But he is only able to do that…

…because Joseph lived God’s story

Joseph’s ability to retell comes from how he lived

As we read through Joseph’s story we do not see him giving into despair, anger, or bitterness. At every point he leans into where he is, what God is doing, and invests himself deeply

Potiphar’s house

Jail

Servant of Pharaoh

Now imagine two things:

How different would Joseph’s story have been if he had not lived this way?

And how difficult would it have been for him to retell his story had he not lived this way?

I am sure that Joseph had many moments of doubt, of fear, of worry. But it seems as if the orientation of his heart throughout was to see how he was fitting into God’s story, not trying to make God fit into his.

So, when God worked, he was ready. He was looking. He was expectant.

Whose story are you living?

Are you looking for how you fit into God’s story, or are you trying to make God fit into your story?

Is the orientation of your heart faith that God is working all things out for his glory and your good?

Do you truly believe that the good God has promised you is good?

Is it good for you to be conformed to the image of Christ?

Whose story you believe you are living is revealed in how you talk about your story now

Whose story will you retell?

You will have opportunities to tell your story. How are you going to tell it?

How do you tell it now?

Not happy-clappy, sanitized and fake - real, honest, genuine, but framed in the context of your faith in God’s plan and promises.

Sometimes this is with tears - help my unbelief

But, the words you speak about your life frame your belief about your life

Not in some kind of hocus-pocus - speak your reality type of way

Your words are powerful - how you speak about your story to yourself and others will shape what you believe about it.

Do you believe that God is writing your story?

Do you believe that nothing is wasted?

Do you believe that everything in your life will work for his glory and your good?

Psalm 16:5–6 CSB

Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Application

Perhaps you are on the road to Egypt, drug along as a slave.

Perhaps you are sitting in prison with no idea how God is going to redeem this.

Or perhaps you have the mercy of being able to sit and look at how God has brought you through. Regardless, here are your three application points:

Remember God’s story

Re-mind God’s story

Retell God’s story

Remember your story.

Re-mind your story.

Retell your story.

Keep living your story faithfully and intentionally.

Keep a journal - spiritual markers

Look for opportunities to share

Who can you help? Who can you encourage? Who can you empathize with?

Conclusion

Connection from Joseph to Jesus

Explanation of famines

God used Joseph’s story not just to “preserve life” but to preserve the line from which would come the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ.

How would in blow Joseph’s mind to know that?

You may not see exactly how God is working but you can have faith that he is.

Nothing is wasted.

God has redeemed and is redeeming your story.

You have a story. God has given you a story. You have to make peace with it.

Remember, Remind, and Retell