Coated
Pt. 1 - Favorites
Introduction
We have spent 4 weeks trying to expose the dangers of hopelessness (see series titled "Heart Attacks" while hoping that some of us who have given up would identify hidden hopelessness in your own life. Some of us have walked around for a long time acting like we have courage, faith, and the truth is we threw the towel in a long time ago. Hopelessness is dangerous but it is also deceitful. Why do I say it is deceitful? Because if we are consumed by hopelessness, then we have believed a lie. Paul tells us we should be overflowing with hope! Why? With what I am facing why should I be filled with hope? If Paul knew my story, then he would surely say I am the exception to this overflowing. He would have written it like this . . . everyone should overflow with hope except __________. Lie. Deceived. We should all be full of hope. Why? I want to, in the course of this series, remind you that you should have hope because you are coated.
I know it is a familiar passage. Our familiarity causes us to overlook, underestimate, and often dismiss important information that we need to embrace as truth!
Text:
Genesis 37:2-4 This is the story of Jacob. The story continues with Joseph, seventeen years old at the time, helping out his brothers in herding the flocks. These were his half brothers actually, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought his father bad reports on them. Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was the child of his old age. And he made him an elaborately embroidered coat. When his brothers realized that their father loved him more than them, they grew to hate him—they wouldn’t even speak to him.
You know this account. You also know the rest of this story. In a jealous fit Joseph's brothers throw him into a pit (isolation) (those who have no hope will hate your hope) and then they sell him into slavery (poverty). Joseph is forgotten. Lied on and thrown into prison. Promoted by the warden. Forgotten again. 2 more years of jail living and finally remembered. However, if you go and read the account he never loses hope in any of those situations. Why? How did he continue to rise to the top? He was coated.
Go back to the beginning and we discover that Joseph was . . .
1. Coated with preference.
As a parent I recognize the danger of favoritism. Certainly Jacob, of all parents after his own childhood was destroyed by it, should have known that it would cause issues. However, right or wrong, appropriate or not Jacob coated Joseph with favor because he was his favorite. He preferred him above his brothers. What is favor? A working definition is . . . preferential treatment you don't deserve. Joseph hadn't done anything to deserve preference. In fact, he was a tattle tale! Our first introduction to him is in this account and he tattles on his half brothers. So he didn't earn favor. He was apparently a bit of a brat. He was favored because of who his mother happened to be and the stage of life his father was in when he was born (in Jacob's old age). How many of you know that he didn't get to choose his mother or the timing of his birth? He was simply favored with undeserved/unwarranted/unearned preference.
May I remind you that our story parallels Joseph? You have done nothing to deserve or to earn it and yet you are coated by preference. Like Mary, who heard from the angel you are chosen and highly favored, you have done nothing to earn it or deserve it. In fact, like Joseph you have been a bit of a brat. There are parts of your story that you would think would disqualify you from preference. However, that doesn't change the fact that your Father has selected you. He has hand picked you out of a lineup of the most unlikely, and He prefers you! That is so difficult for some us to believe.
Listen some of you wouldn't still be standing if it wasn't for the fact that He prefers you. You would already be dead. You would have already laid down destroyed. You would have already been broken beyond repair. You would have already gone down for the last time except for one reason . . . You are coated with preference. The reason you keep snatching victory out of defeat. The reason you keep getting back up. The reason you keep overcoming. The reason you keep rolling out of bed . . . One reason and one reason only . . . Preference. Just like Joseph's coat was a visible reminder of preference there is visible proof of God's preference on your life. It is visible because what should have stopped you didn't. What should have sidelined you only slowed you down for a season. What should have crippled you only catapulted you to greatness. You are coated.
Let me say it another way . . . God is for you! Some of you can list everyone that is against you and it is time for you to stop and list the One who is for you! In fact, let Paul's proclamation really sink in to your spirt . . . Romans 8:31 - "What, then, shall we say in response to these things? (What things - Paul has been discussing present sufferings - in light of suffering and the potential of losing hope and questioning God's preference) He answers his own question . . . What should we say in response . . . here is our response . . . If God is for us, who can be against us?
God is for us! Tell your neighbor . . . God prefers me! God is on my side. I may just be His favorite! We should have hope because He is for us. Quit ducking your head like an outcast, like an outsider, like a less than. You are His favorite!
2. Circumstances don't change coatedness!
That is why in a pit by the hands of others, good name and reputation impugned, imprisoned, struggling with sickness, fighting economic downturn, alone. I don't give up, I don't fold, I don't quit. I am coated. My circumstances don't change my coatedness! In fact, what I see from Joseph's story and from our own is that favor doesn't keep him or us out of trouble but it does get us out of trouble and it gets us through trouble. We have been lead to believe that favor means easy or painless. No, that is naive.
Paul knew this! He continues in Romans 8 and says . . . So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! (Notice Paul doesn't say these things won't happen. He simply says they won't separate us from His preference.) Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. (Then Paul goes further and increases the list of circumstances that we may face but that still have no bearing on our coatedness!) I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
So does what you are going through or the thing that is about to cause you to lose hope fall outside that list? No? Then you can have hope because you are coated! It shouldn't faze us because it doesn't change His love for us.
Joseph's brothers think that if they take the coat, then they take favor. However, the favor wasn't the coat. No . . . the coat came because of favor. They focus on the wrappings of favor. They attack the coat which was the symbol of his favor, but what Joseph's life reveals is that they can remove the coat and defile the coat but they can't remove or recall the favor. So you can have the wrappings of favor . . . Materials, money, fame, approval, acceptance removed but you can't be made a slave when God says you are a prince. You are preferred! People can throw you into bad environment but your favor will bring you out of and cause you to come out on top of the environment. You can be receive a scary diagnosis but that doesn't change favor.
The coat of His preference doesn't mean you won't go through some stuff. It means you don't have to bog down in stuff. Pit stops. Prison stops. Momentary sufferings. You can have hope! (SLIDE 10) Quit treating seasons like life sentences!
Joseph's coat (favor) didn't prevent bad days, but it did protect and propel him through those days. God's preference for you doesn't prevent your circumstance from being painful or undesirable. However, His preference for you does protect you while you go through what you are facing. Have hope. Don't allow what you are facing to convince you that you have lost your coat! The enemy tries to use bad and painful things to camouflage our coat (put on camo over coat) so that we will discard or disregard it. However, our Father's preference is perfected in and paraded for the world to see in our pain! The enemy will try to coat your coat!
You must daily remind yourself. Look at your self and say He is for me!!!
