Joseph: Meeting Destiny

Note: Andy Stanley's talk on Joesph at Catalyst Conferee 2004 had a big impact on this message. I had to share.

Title: Joseph and the Process

Theme: To show that many times our relationship with God is about a process and if we don’t give up on the process God will show us great and mighty things ahead

Text: Genesis 37 – 41

Philippians 1:6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;

Introduction

Last week I talked with you about the importance of “redeeming the time”. Also the importance of being “sensitive to the spirit of God” We looked over the power characteristics of a person who lives the “spirit filled life” (singing spiritual songs, giving thanks, being submissive.

It is so easy for us to fall into the mundane and routine of life. If we were to be honest it becomes so frustrating to get routine.

I mean all the movies we enjoy are about the shining night the hero’s rescue. The one that stood up and lead. It is amazing how these become so popular.

Yet we are not like that. We don’t live the life of adventure. We don’t have the excitement we see. For some our biggest adventure is to get our bills met or to avoid going to the doctor.

This morning I want to retell a story that almost everyone of you know. The problem is because we are so familiar with it we want to rush to the end. But in this very familiar OT story is one simple truth that has revolutionized the routine boring of the day.

In it contains one simple truth that when we look at our mundane life and tempted to lose tack of the bigger picture we can be aware of the fact that there is a bigger story and I have been invited into it.

It is the story of Joseph. Not Mary and Joseph but Joseph of the OT. You know Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Jacob had 12 sons. Joseph was the favorite son.

His brothers did not like him for several reasons.

He was set up for failure by God, his father and himself.

One day they see him coming and say let us sell him but instead they through him in a pit.

Suddenly there is a 17 year old boy shackled to shackled to other boys. He had no idea in history what was going on.

Joseph’s Pit

Genesis 37: (23) So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. (24) Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.

(28) Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelite’s for twenty shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.

There is a story.

How do you keep that it in mind when you

• Joseph was only 17 years old when he was sold to who knows who for who knows

what.

• No assurances of what lies ahead

By the time we get to the end of Genesis 38 we see Joseph shackled to many slaves leaving his home land to who knows where to be sold to who knows who.

From the vantage point of history God was up to something huge and Joseph did not know the first thing about it.

Could that be true in your life, could that be true in my life. Isn’t that exactly where we live ankle to ankle, wrist to wrist marching thorugh life. Not a very long life.

Unless you see it thought the lens of eternity.

• God was up to something huge and Joseph did not know the first things about it.

• Through the Lens of eternity, God was positioning a person who would raise up a

nation with a nation from whom the Messiah would ultimately come as the savior to

the world.

The epic had started and Joesph was the center character.

To Potiphar’s House

Gen 39:1-23

(1) Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelite’s who had taken him down there.

Here is this strange verse.

(2) The Lord was with Joseph,

This seems to be strange. If this was true what was Joseph doing here. Now don’t rush to the end yet. Because you can’t do that in your own life. How could he be sold by his brothers and now in slavery. Shouldn’t this be where his brothers are. They should be here. They committed the crime.