Genesis- People Relating To God Part 8- Living A Life Of Promise Series

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Genesis – people relating to God part 8

“Living a life of promise in a hostile world”

Genesis chapters 39-50

The life lessons of Joseph part 2

I don’t have a big sweet tooth

Oh

I will eat and occasional piece of pie or cake on Wednesday night at our pot luck meal

Every once in a great while I will buy a candy bar or a coke

Maybe a bag of maple nut goodies or cherry sours

But for the most part

Sweets are not a weakness of mine

I can kind of take them or leave them

But

There is a sweet food that I rarely can pass by

If I happen to ride by

Walk by

Or even drive by

A dewberry patch

That has ripe

Plump

Juicy

Berries on it

I just have to eat some

More than just some at times

Anyone here who has this weakness

Knows that as sweet as those berries are

As Good as they taste

They come with a down side

The biggest

Plumpest

Best

Berries are always deep in the bush

And

The vines they grow on are covered with Thorns

Not big thorns like on a mesquite or locust tree

And not the tiny almost invisible thorns on a prickly pear

But small

Evil thorns

Ones that dig in and are very hard to get out

They don’t hurt all that bad

But when you get a mess of them they can sure irritate you and are sure hard to get rid of

Always sticking at just the wrong time

If you get them in your gloves or jeans they can wart you for a really long time

On top of the thorns

Yellow jackets

Red wasps

And snakes often like the bushes as well

Life is a lot like those dew berries

You often can’t get to the best

Without going through the thorns

Or fighting the critters that try to stop us

Life

Can be

Very sweet

Very satisfying

But

But the joy of this life is often

Surrounded by the thorns of this world

There are many

Things

People

And evil creatures who want o keep us from the good stuff

As we begin to wrap up our series on People relating to God

In today’s second study of Joseph

I think it is important to lay out Joseph’s life

Some will be a quick recap

We will key in on a couple of verses

And then

I think it is important to reflect on our own lives as well

And try and see what this all means to us

First please open your bibles to

Genesis 50:20

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good”

Joseph is talking to his brothers here

Reminding them of their deeds

But showing them Gods plan

Everyone here has heard the phrase “God works in mysterious ways”

Life is never a straight line

In a perfect world we world go from point A to point B

With no detours

No obstacles

No wasps

Or snakes

And certainly no thorns

But this the road of this life is filled with twists and turns

Bumps and potholes

Sometimes it is very hard to see God’s hand in the circumstances or situations that you find yourselves in

Right?

I have no doubt that this is how it was for Joseph as well

I am sure He like we often do

Had trouble seeing the good

Or worse

Seeing

God in what was happening in his life

I have no doubt he had “why me moments”

I have no doubt he threw himself a pity part ever once in a while

Joseph

To quickly recap

Was the favorite son of Jacob also known as Israel

Jacob as you will remember was the younger of twin sons of Isaac

Isaac was the promised son of Abraham?

When he was just a pup

God had shown Joseph through 2 dreams that he was going to be the fulfillment of God’s covenant to His great Grandfather Abraham

Let me read that promise to you again

Genesis 22:17-18

17 I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants[a] beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. 18 And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.”

We have studied in our morning Round pens and in our sermons about how

God

Passed that covenant to Abraham- his promise

To his promised son Isaac

Then to how he passed it to

Jacob

And now in this story

That promise is being passed to Joseph