Sermons

Life's events can sometimes feel meaningless. "What purpose do they serve?" we might ask. Like the stock market, we have our ups and we have our downs. Because we would like to minimize the downturns, our natural tendency is to control our circumstances. When we attempt to do so, though, we lose out on God's purpose for both the ups and the downs of life. In this sermon, we explore how God uses everyday circumstances for both His purposes in history and His purpose to change his servant.

Joseph Just Like Us
This year our church's theme is: Be a Good and Faithful Servant. It is on our bulletins every week, but we have not had very many reminders of this theme over the year. For much of the rest of this year I will begin a series on a servant of God I very much admire. His name is Joseph and we can find his story in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis from chapters 37--50. Most of my sermons will come from 37--45. We will not hit every passage, but those that especially help us see how Joseph was a Good and Faithful Servant.

One commentator said this about Joseph: Joseph is the patriarch with which modern readers can identify most easily. He is the spoiled brat who through adversity develops into a mature and competent leader. He is the unfairly persecuted boy who eventually becomes top man and shows magnanimity to his persecutors. He is the one despised and rejected by his family who ultimately is the agent of their salvation and countless others. More than that, the story of Joseph shows how God's secret providence is behind the darkest deeds of men and works to their ultimate good. It is thus both a very realistic story and also profoundly optimistic. It is little wonder that it has delighted generations of hearers. 
We will find that we can relate to Joseph's story as it twists and turns. He is an example of a person whom God used to fulfill His purposes--just like you and I.



The Best and Worst of Times (1-4)

Charles Dicken's in the Tale of Two Cities began his book by saying, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." My wife told me that this much cited Dickens quotation was related to the French Revolution but spoke to his times. I said, isn't this quotation a commentary on all times? Perhaps that is why the quotation is timeless. We can see how this quotation is true for us today:

Sometimes life feels like the BEST OF TIMES. 
· Our society is experiencing a great economic boom. Inflation is low at the same time unemployment is.
· There is Peace in our part of the world.
· The technology industry here is the envy of the world and many of us have benefited personally from it.
· Our schools are among the best in the nation, we go to the best colleges.

What Circumstances would we consider to be the BEST OF TIMES for us?

For Joseph it was the BEST OF TIMES:
For Joseph in the beginning of chapter 37, it was the Best of Times:
· He had the best situation of all the family members:
· 
· Father's Favorite: Chosen Son, eldest born of Rachel (14 years in waiting)
· Decorated: Ornamented Robe that prevented him from working in the fields
· Easy job: checking up on the older brothers and their flocks
· Capable and Smart: Able to oversee Egypt's grain program
· Young: Seventeen Years Old (relate to our youth in our congregation)

Had Much to Boast About: 
The story tells us that Joseph, blessed by God, was given two dreams. These were not normal dreams. They were prophetic dreams. They speak of Joseph's future and what would happen to his family. They also addressed the future of Egypt in relation to a coming severe famine. We'll get into the actual dreams a little bit later. The point here is HOW HE USED THE DREAMS.
Joseph's Proud and Competitive side comes out. He taunts his brothers (he did not have to mention anything!) twice, once with his dad there by telling them the dream. The brothers reaction tells us everything we need to know: they hated him (v. 4) for father's favoritism. But with the dreams they hated him more (v. 8) and became jealously enraged after the second dream (v. 11). Joseph got his desired response: his taunts showed how superior he was over his brothers.
He had much going for his life, IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES.

Sometimes, though, we may think of life as the WORST OF TIMES:

• The world is facing an uncertain future with an oil shortage.

• Though we are at peace in the US, parts of the world are struggling with famine, war, and disease among other things.

• Getting into college is harder than it ever has been before.

• Even in the booming economic times, many young families cannot afford to buy a house in our area.

What Circumstances would we consider to be the WORST OF TIMES for us?

For Joseph, the WORST OF TIMES were yet to come.

• Thrown into a Cistern by his brothers and Sold (37)

• Separated from His Family as a teenager (37)

• Unjustly Accused and Jailed (39)

• Forgotton (40)

SUMMARY: Human tendency is to MAXIMIZE the BEST OF TIMES and MINIMIZE the WORST OF TIMES. We like it when things are going our way, and try to change those things that seem to be going what we would consider the wrong way. That is human nature. 

As the songs says, "Let the Good Times Roll!" Because when they are rolling our way we do not ever want them to stop. 
What do we do, though, when things stop rolling our way?
How do we approach the ups and down of life?

Joseph: the Best of Times?
Joseph was no different than you and I. He wanted to be a winner and finish on top. But his life was just like all of ours: There were good times and then there would be bad times. And in those Bad, Ugly and Worst times, Joseph learned to handle life's circumstances in a godly way.
Let's examine how he found meaning in what seemed to be meaningless circumstances.

I. God's Servant Learns that God's Purposes are Worked Through All Circumstance (5-11).

Me and History
I am learning in my life just how big a God our God is. It is so easy for us to focus in our own worlds and families. But God has a grand purpose for His Kingdom. From centuries past and as many centuries we might have going forward, God's purposes are being carried out.

Have you ever considered where you have come from? Some people have a fascination with family trees. I have always wondered what my grandfather on my father's side was like. I never met him. I don't know anything else about my father beyond him-except they were farmers in the same village in Hunan for generations.

One family out of the village escaped while the Communists were taking over. My grandfather sent my grandmother, my father and aunts off to Vietnam. They would be refugees there, but they would find freedom from the Communists. Along the way they lost a family member.

They made it from Vietnam to Taiwan. There the odds were stacked against them. My father was one of the few refugees he knew to make it through the university system. Then, he made it over to the states.
This is just my father's side. My mother's side's story is just as amazing. I tell these stories because of the impact they have had on me. I am standing here today because all these events came to pass before me. God gave me the opportunity to grow up in the States, to have an education here, and to eventual go on to seminary and become a full-time minister.

The events of just a couple of generations have a profound impact on what happens today. And what happens today will have a deep effect on what happens tomorrow.

Called into God's Service
Those generations in my family before did not know it, but God was using everyday circumstances for His divine Purposes. It is no accident you and I are here today. We have a part to play in God's Divine Purpose for Creation. That means we are His servants to His Divine ends. 

Joseph was God's servant and he had a special call on his life. God had earmarked a great work for him. And this work was revealed in two dreams: 

First dream: Agricultural significance--famine will come in the land (vv. 7-8) 
Second: Sun, Moon, Stars: Family will submit to his rule (9-10)

Why two dreams? There is great significance and assurance in two similar dreams as Joseph tells Pharaoh later in the story:

Gen 41:32
32 The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon. 

We are fortunate enough to know the end of the story. The dreams would indeed come to pass. A great famine comes over all the lands, and because of Joseph's leadership in Egypt, he was able to save enough grain to preserve the future nation of Israel.
We know that God's desire to preserve His own chosen people would be carried out through Joseph. He uses everyday people and everyday circumstances to contribute to His eternal purposes. 

Now let's see how they were carried out in spite of Joseph's IMPERFECTIONS.

One of Joseph's imperfections we find in this passage is his Pride and Boasting. Remember those dreams he had? He just HAD to tell them and boast about what God was going to do?
Yet, what did he really have to boast in? 

Jacob and God have bestowed on him His status. The GOOD TIMES had very little to do with Joseph in the first place:

• birth order and mother

• job opportunities/education-shepherds in the field, dreams and future-given by God.

Salvation Status: We have nothing to boast in as Paul says in Romans 3--everything we have has been graciously given to us, Salvation not being the least of these.

Rom 3:25-27
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--
26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.

We have so little to do with our circumstances. If they are not for us to BOAST in, then what purpose do they serve? 

FIRST THEY serve to SHOW US THAT GOD'S SOVEREIGN PURPOSES WILL BE CARRIED OUT. He had been graciously given GOOD FAVOR at every turn. But God had a purpose for Him as well-and it was not to enjoy a comfortable life. God wanted His servant to GROW. God wanted his servant to become a MATURE LEADER.

God Uses Us
We can gain an ever-wider view of our God by reflecting on how every circumstance, every hardship, and movement fits into his grand scheme . Think back a few generations in your own family. Or think about someone like Joseph, who lived a few thousand years ago. Everyday life, whether the BEST of TIMES or the WORST of TIMES, God works for His Purposes. And we are a part of that purpose.

This point begs the question: does God use us like pawns on a chessboard to fulfill His Purpose in this world? In ancient mythologies, fickle gods would try to influence people for their selfish purposes. Or in video games, we play characters to achieve some kind of goal. Is our God like this?

II. God's Servant Learns that God's Purposes Include Life Transformation for Servant (12-26)

The Potter and the Wheel
When I was in elementary school I had the opportunity to make clay figures, burn them in a kiln, and paint them. I chose to make a Snail, because that was the easiest. I was never much of a clay maker. There are times we liken our relationship with God as a potter, one who works with clay, to a pot, His people being shaped and formed by His loving Hand.

Jeremiah 18:2-4 says

"Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.

Israel was the pot that God spoke of to Jeremiah. But we are like a pot as well. God is working on us and shaping us as He best sees fit. We are being made into a beautiful pot. But sometimes God has to RESHAPE us, and that HURTS. 

Joseph and Life's Wheel: Brothers
Joseph had to go through this process as well: 
His first trial comes in chapter 37 of Genesis. The brother's are breathing fire. They want Joseph dead. As Joseph comes in from the distance, they decide they are going to kill him. That decision was made long ago in their hearts, perhaps when they heard Joseph's second dream. The brothers say in Gen 37:20 "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."
And that's exactly what they do. They throw him in a cistern that was to hold water in a dry land. But the cistern was empty. Joseph was not to die now. He would be sold instead to a caravan of Ishmaelites.

Joseph's BEST OF TIMES had TURNED INTO THE WORST OF TIMES. 

CHARACTER AND US
As we are swept up in the Great Purposes of God in History, He cares for each one of us individually to grow in Character--to be what we were meant to be in the Garden. The problem is that the WORST of TIMES seem to be just that: Bad times without a purpose. 
Life's circumstances and History may work for God's Kingdom Purposes. But as He works out His purposes THROUGH us, He also has His purposes to WORK IN US. 
Romans 8:28 says: 
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.but not as pawns--but as objects of love. 

God was working IN and THROUGH Joseph, through ALL THINGS, GOOD AND BAD. He desired him, and he desires us, to be conformed to the likeness of Christ through life's circumstances.

Joseph 20 Years Later
How will we know that we are being transformed by History and circumstance? It took over 20 years before Joseph realized all that God had for him. Genesis 45:7, 50:20--fast forward twenty years from the brash young man to a wise leader:

Gen 45:7
7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Genesis 50:20 
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

• Care for Others: Saved a Nation, saved family that persecuted him. Paul and 2 Corinthians 4:7-12: For your sake…

• Peace in God's Intentions: Joseph gained this over time, Genesis 45:7. Romans 8:28. What happens to us helps change us.

• Find Joy Even in Suffering: Seeing God work over time. Do not become embittered: (42:21--They said to one another, "Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that's why this distress has come upon us.")

• Faith is Deeper and Stronger: 2 Imprisonments, Forgotten, thrown in a muddy pit. Lord's Prayer: Thy will be Done, Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven--a daily prayer for us to shift perspective from ourselves to God, from our ways to God's ways. No matter how messy life gets.

Conclusion:

Heimlich and the Beautiful Butterfly
When I was a grade school student, I learned about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. I loved to watch the monarchs flying around our house and think about how they had come to fly.
Then, when I watched the movie A Bug's Life, a caterpillar character changed my understanding. Heimlich, the big caterpillar, undergoes the process of change to become a butterfly. If you remember the end of the movie, Heimlich is still a caterpillar, just with a couple of tiny white wings on his back. He says, "I am a beautiful butterfly." 
We as Christians are like Heimlich. We have become beautiful butterflies, but the transformation is incomplete. In a lot of ways, we still act and think the way we did before we came to know God. On top of that, the full and complete transformation will not take place until Christ returns.

Today and in the coming sermons, Joseph shows us that the Making of a Servant, like fine wine, takes all of life's experiences to transform us into His likeness. That is the purpose of the ups and downs of life. We cannot control them-they will come at every turn of life. We will only be frustrated if we try to control. But they can transform us--

Sometimes we may question God's love in the tough times, even the Worst of Times. But God knows us-we will not change without a bit of pressure. He allows it because He loves us too much to allow us to stay where we are.