Now Is Not The End
Scripture: Genesis 37:1-22; 23-28
Introduction:
I want to take this time on our first Sunday of a New Year to wish each of you a Happy New Year. As I thought about the message I wanted to deliver today, I thought about a message that my brother had delivered at his church. The message was “Now Is Not The End”. As I listened to his message, I thought to myself there is a message in there for us as we start this New Year. This morning my message is titled “Now Is Not The End” which I thought was very fitting. The last two sermons that I have preached focused on how we sometimes enter into doubt about what God has told us to do because when we start doing it we run into problems. This doubt opens the door for Satan to hinder us from ever completing the task that God has laid before us. In this series I want us to consider how our focus is often on the “Now” and not the “End”. We operate in the “now” and we base what we do on the “now”. This morning, however, I want you to consider what will happen if we begin to ignore the now and what we are dealing with to complete what God has told us to do and focus on the end goal.
Most of you know that I bake bread several times a year. I do not do it more often because we do not need to consume that much bread in my home and it takes several hours to complete the process. When I first started baking bread it did not always turn out right, but after 20+ years of doing it I can bake mine without a recipe or directions because it is in my head. When I start the process there are certain things that must be done in a certain order. I must follow the steps as laid out in the directions if I want the end product to be something people can eat. So when I made the decision to bake the bread, I also make the decision to follow the directions in the proper order to ensure that the end is what it should be. I can take all of the same ingredients and not follow the directions and end up with a mess. I would have a mess not because of faulty ingredients, but because I did not follow the directions. Because I know what the end product will be if I follow the directions, I can easily follow those directions. But what about following the directions for something when you do not have a clue about what the end results will be. Would you skip a step because you did not understand its importance? Would you get tired of the process and take a few shortcuts? This is literally what we are faced with when we begin to walk with God. How hard is it to follow God’s directions when you do not know what the end results will be? Our “now” is not the end, just a moment in time when the right decision must be made in order to set up the other “now” experiences we will go through to get to the end.
One more point about our “now” experiences. The beginning and everything leading up to the end is the “now”. The “now” floats through the whole process because it is always in the present. Whatever we are doing we are always in the “now” because we exist in the present. Even though our present is influenced by our past; we do not live in the past. Even though our future will be influenced by this present, we do not actually live in the future. We exist in the present and therefore we are continually having “now” experiences. I have said all of this to make this one simple point: Our “now” is not our end! As we go through this series, we will examine what happens when the “end” is not known, especially when we are walking in the steps God has ordered for us? We will look at what happens when we face severe trials and tribulations for no apparent reason as we walk with God. We will examine what happens when things are so bad for so long and we are trying to figure out what God is doing through the situation. Again, as we go through this series, remember your now is not your end. I mentioned a few minutes ago that God will order our steps. Let me clarify this before we go further. Turn with me to Psalm 37:23.
I. Out Steps Are Ordered
In order for us to understand the fullness of what I have just shared with you about how our “now” experiences will not define the “end” when we do not know what the end will be, I want to place this Scripture in your spirits. If you grasp this Scripture and understand it, then what I have just shared with you and what I will share moving forward with you is going to make a lot of sense. Psalm 37:23 says “The steps of a good man are directed and established by the Lord when He delights in his way and He busies himself with his every step.” (Amp)
David wrote these words in this song. So let me make it clear what he was saying. First he says the Lord directs and establishes the steps of a good man when He is delighted in his way. This is the first thing we need to realize. If we are walking with God and He is delighted with us, it does not matter what we will go through, God will direct and establish out steps. This does not mean that He is ordering everything around us and we are His puppets; it means that no matter what we face; He will direct our steps. Think of what happens when the traffic lights stop working in a busy intersection. If there is no policeman available to direct the traffic, many time accidents will happen. With the policeman there to direct the traffic, the traffic continues to run smoothly. Without God in our life, our lives become a busy traffic intersection where the lights have failed. We do not know which way to turn and nothing stops for us. The accidents of life starts happening and they continue until we are buried under them. But with God in the midst, when things go haywire, He begins to direct our steps (like the policeman) and leads us around and/or through those things the enemy has placed before us. The last part of the verse says that God will busy Himself with our every step. It is not just the one step where we are about to get in trouble where He intervenes, if He delights in us, He is concerned about every single step we make. No matter how small or large, He is watching and directing our steps because He delights is us. I ask that you keep this in the forefront of your minds because understanding this will allow you to know that when you are facing your darkest moments in life, those moments represents your “now” but not your “end”.
II. Decisions In The “Now”
Before I take you to the story that we will use for this series, there is one more critical point that I need you to remember throughout this message. I have already shared with you that our “now” experiences do not necessarily define what our “end” will be and that if we are pleasing to God He will direct our steps. The final point that we need to remember is that these first two points rests on this: the decisions we make in our “now” will directly impact our future “now” experiences. Let me explain as this point will be important throughout this series. Every moment we exist consists of a series of “now” experiences. It can be said that you have in one day 86,400 “now” experiences if you count each experience by the second. But of course we do not measure our experiences in this fashion. We measure our experiences by what we are doing at the time. So my first “now” experience of this day was waking up.
When I woke this morning, I was in a now experience that I was conscious of. During the night I experienced “now” experiences but I was not conscious of them. But when I woke up this morning I was immediately in a conscious “now” experience. The very first decision I made was to get out of bed. That decision led to another “now” experience – whether that was going downstairs for breakfast or getting in the shower, it all started with the decision that I made to get out of bed. If I had chose to stay in bed that would have brought a whole new set of “now” experiences, like maybe having breakfast in bed; or skipping Church altogether and just staying in bed. My point is that every “now” experience rests upon the decisions made in the previous experience. Why is this important? As I shared with you earlier, our “now” experiences do not define what the end will be if we are walking with God. There are things we will go through in our service to Him that will not be pleasant but will if we are faithful, we will get to the desired end. Now along the way, we need to rely on His guidance and that was point number two, that our steps are ordered (or directed) by God if we are pleasing Him. But even though God directs our steps, we must decide to follow those directions. Remember, our “now” experiences are directly impacted by the decisions we make and we can make the decision not to follow in the direction God is leading us. Keep this in mind as we continue in this message today and throughout the rest of the series.
Throughout this series we will examine the life of Joseph and how his “now” experiences, as bad as they were, led to an end that God wanted in His fulfillment of His promise to Abraham. As we examine Joseph’s life during the next few weeks, keep in mind what we have just discussed. Turn with me to Genesis the 37th chapter.
II. Joseph’ Brothers
Genesis the 37th chapter opens the story of Joseph and the dreams that God gave him. In the opening of the chapter, we are told some things about Joseph’s role in the household. Verse two of this chapter speaks of Joseph giving a bad report on his brothers – in other words, he was a tattle tail. Because Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son (as evident by the coat of many colors that he gave Joseph) Joseph had a special relationship with his father and a strained relationship with his older brothers. Can you imagine why? Here is your teenage brother always running back and telling your father about something you did wrong. Joseph’s brothers grew to hate him. Let’s pick up the story at verse five.
“Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, ‘Please listen to this dream which I have had: for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” (Vss. 5-7)
Put yourself in his brother’s shoes. You already hated him because he was your father’s favorite and because he was always running back and telling on you. Now here he was saying that he had a dream where you would be bowing down to him? Would this not make your blood boil even more? Can you imagine how animated Joseph was when he was telling his brother’s his dream? Jump down to verse nine.
“Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, ‘Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” (Vs. 9)
When he shared this dream it even caused Jacob his father to take notice. Jacob rebuked him for saying that he and Joseph’s mother would one day bow down to him. Now can you imagine the fire that was burning within his brothers now? Joseph was already in the midst of being prepared to fulfill what God had called him to do and he was not even aware of it. As you continue reading, you see that Jacob took notice of what Joseph had dreamed and kept it in his mind, but his brothers were angrier still.
One day Joseph’s brothers were in the pasture with their father’s flock. Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers to see if they were in fact doing what they were supposed to be doing. Joseph served as Jacob’s eyes and ears when it came to ensuring the brothers were doing their duties correctly. His brothers were not where they had been originally so Joseph had to search for them. When he finally found them his brothers saw him coming from a far off. They decided that they would rid themselves of Joseph once and for all. Go down to verse nineteen.
“They said to one another, ‘Here comes the dreamer! Now then, come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we will say, ‘A wild beast devoured him.’ Then let us see what will become of his dreams!’ But Rueben heard this and rescued him out of their hands and said, ‘Let us not take his life.’ Rueben further said to them, ‘Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but do not lay hands on him’ that he might rescue him out of their hands and restore him to his father. So it came about when Joseph reached his brothers that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the varicolored tunic that was on him and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, without any water in it……..(28) Then some Midianite traders passed by, so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.” (Vss. 19-24; 28)
When Joseph comes upon his brothers, they grab him and strip him of the coat that constantly reminded them of how much their father loved Joseph versus them. Their initial plan was to kill him but Rueben restrained them. Rueben’s plan was to set him free and return him to their father. Before Rueben could do that however, his brother took Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver.
A couple of things that I want you to notice from Joseph’s brothers’ viewpoint. First, their hate for him grew to such a level that they were willing to kill him. Second, as they considered killing him one of the brothers spoke what all of them possibly felt and that was “Then let us see what will become of his dreams!” This statement lets us know that the dream that Joseph had was so detailed that his brothers did not just dismiss it. No, those two dreams were on their mind to the point that they thought if they killed Joseph there would be no way the dreams could come true. We are not told why they thought this way but what we do know is that those dreams that Joseph had stayed with them. Another point to consider is that these brothers (and Joseph) were all the great-grandsons of Abraham. So they would have known about God taking Abraham away from his family. They would have known about Isaac and his walk with God. And they surely knew of Jacob, their father, and his relationship with God. Because they all had a strong knowledge of God it is very possible that they believed that God would fulfill the dreams that Joseph had and they would one day bow down to him. Regardless of their overall motivation, they desired to be rid of Joseph so they sold him into slavery. Now lets transition to Joseph and his first “now” experience.
II. Joseph
Imagine yourself in Joseph shoes. He comes from a line of men who walked with God. He was the favorite of his father and surely he spent time at his father’s knee hearing about all of the wonderful things God had done for his great-grandfather; grandfather and his father. He knew that God was active in his family and there was a high likelihood that those dreams he had came from God. Think about it, how many of your dreams have you had that you have actually shared with someone? We have dreams all of the time but we do not always share them. There was something about these dreams that made Joseph want to share them. I do not think it was just because he ended up in the best place in the dreams or he was just a teenager and his frontal lobe was not fully developed yet. I think maybe it was because he believed they came from God and if this was what he believed, what was he thinking while he was in that pit all alone? What was he thinking when his brothers pulled him out of the pit? Could he have thought they had changed their minds and would send him home? Once they got him out, imagine how his heart fell when they sold him into slavery. Consider the thoughts that went through his head as he left his brothers to be taken to a strange land. Imagine him thinking about never seeing his father or little brother again. Imagine how heavy his heart was. Imagine his first “now” experience of being all alone for the first time in his life. What would you have been thinking? If it were me I probably would have wondered how it could be happening and if I had truly missed God. I surely would have questions why am I there considering the dreams that He had given me. Joseph could have asked these exact same questions in this new “now” experience.
A few points to consider about Joseph first “now” experience. First, when he woke up that morning and started out to find his brothers, it probably never crossed his mind that his brothers hated him so much as to sell him into slavery and he would possibly never see his family again. It probably never crossed his mind that during the midst of what he was about to experience that God would direct his steps which would lead to the saving of his entire family. What Joseph probably focused on right then what the now. The pain of being sold into slavery; the pain of knowing that he would probably never see his family again; and the uncertainty of what his life would be like wherever they were taking him. As we will discover as we continue in this story, his now was not the end.
I am going to stop here and we will pick the story up next week with Joseph’s arrival into Egypt. Before I close, I want you to consider this. Whatever you are experiencing right now, it is not the end! I do not care how long you have been dealing with it, it is not the end! And because it is not the end, it is crucial that you pay close attention to the decisions you are making to ensure that you decisions are in line with where God is leading you. If you are unsure of His leading, just pray and ask Him to reveal Himself to you in a way that you can recognize Him and I promise you that God will do it. He never turns down anyone who actively seeks Him. Until next week, may God bless and keep you.
