Why do the Righteous Suffer 2

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Last week, we began to examine together the life of the person, the Old Testament named Joseph.
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And as I said last week, I didn't know how many weeks we were going to devote to the study of Joseph, but I knew it was going to be a multiple week event because the life of Joseph is so filled with stories that can be used to make application in our lives.
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We started last week by asking this question, why do the righteous suffer? And we made the point and said that sometimes this question is asked, why do good things, or rather, why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the righteous suffer? And of course, as we noted, the theologically correct answer is that there is none righteous, no, not one.
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There is none who understands.
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There is none who seeks after God.
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There ultimately is no one good.
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And that, though a satisfactory theological answer, as I noted last week, it does not get to the heart of the real question.
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The heart of the question is, why do injustices occur? If God is a just God, why does he allow injustices to happen? And I said that the greatest example of someone who experienced injustices, but yet at the end of his life was able to survey his life and demonstrate how God was at work, even during those times of injustice, is the person called Joseph.
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Joseph, in Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20, looks back at his life.
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He looks back at the events, all of the injustices that had occurred.
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And he looks at his brothers who had committed the atrocities and he says to them, know this, that it was not you who sent me here, but it was God.
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What you meant for evil, God meant for good.
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And as we noted last week, sometimes the answer to the question is simply this.
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God has a purpose for all things, even if we do not understand what those purposes are when we are going through them.
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So with that being said, I want to begin back in Genesis where we left off last week.
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Hebrews 11 is our starting text.
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You remember we are in Hebrews, we are studying through chapter 11 and we are looking at each individual that is in that chapter and it is a list of faithful people.
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In Hebrews 11.22, if you want to, let's begin there.
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Hebrews 11.22 and we will stand and pray together.
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Let's stand and read this text because this is simply the introductory to who it is we are speaking or about whom we are speaking.
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And it talks about the end of his life again, a time where he looked at his life still in faith.
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And it says, by faith, Joseph at the end of his life made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
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Father, thank you for this time to study.
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Thank you for this time of learning.
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And I do pray that your spirit would first keep me from error and that he would also open the hearts of the people to understand the text.
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That we would, in examining the life of Joseph, at the same time, examine our own lives.
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That we might understand, Lord, that as believers we may have to suffer.
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But yet in our suffering, we can have the hope of understanding that you are sovereign even in our suffering.
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And Lord, we pray that as we continue to look at the life of Joseph, that you would glorify yourself in this teaching and that you would grant us wisdom and understanding in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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The story of Joseph is in Genesis 37, at least that's where it begins.
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And last week, we looked at the very earliest part of his life.
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We noted a few things about his life.
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The fact that Joseph was his father's favorite is pointed out in the text.
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Not only does his father treat him as the favorite, but his father also lavishes upon him gifts that he does not give to the other children.
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We're very familiar, I'm sure, with Joseph's colorful coat that he was given from his father.
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He was given a garment which signified him.
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It sort of separated him from the other brothers as being the one who was the favored among his brethren.
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Joseph, of course, was a miracle baby.
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He came about in his parents' old age and he was one who was the miracle child of his father's beloved wife.
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You'll remember his father had two wives and two other women who he took as wives, who were the servants of his wife.
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So he ultimately had four wives, but one who he loved, one who he had worked for so many years to have her hand in marriage.
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And this child, Joseph, was her firstborn that he had waited for all those many years.
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So he loved Joseph and he had a special affection for Joseph in his heart and his brothers hated him for it.
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And not only did Joseph have an affection from his father, but Joseph also was willing to tell on his brothers when his brothers did bad.
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His father was, it says in the text, that Joseph was willing to go and to tell when his brothers had done evil.
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So not only did they consider him to be the favorite child, they considered him to be somewhat of a tattletale.
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They didn't like him very much for that.
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So here he has not only received the favor of his father, he has received the distaste of his brothers.
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And then it says not only did he do that, but he had a dream where he dreamed that he would be exalted and his brothers would bow down to him.
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And then he had another dream where not only his brothers bowed down to him, but also his father and his father's wives would bow down to him.
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And of course, his brothers hated him even more after they heard about this dream.
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And that's where we ended last week.
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And we said that the thing about Joseph's life, and we're going to get into it this week, he suffered and endured many trials.
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And I am encouraged by the fact that I believe that it was likely his early dreams that helped him during those very discouraging times.
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I believe that God encouraged him early on in those dreams to know that he, though he may suffer, had wondrous blessings awaiting him in the end.
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So we'll begin today with that very familiar story of Joseph being treated poorly by his brothers.
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We're in chapter 37 and we're going to begin in verse 18.
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It says, speaking of his brothers, it says, They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.
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So we see right off in the text, not only did they have a distaste for their brother, they had allowed their distaste to grow into a murderous rage.
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They hated him.
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He no longer to them was a brother.
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To them, he was a person who they felt like they would do better to be without.
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Verse 19, they said to one another, Here comes this dreamer.
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Right there tells you exactly what they were thinking about him.
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They were remembering the fact that he had had those dreams about him being exalted and they bowing down to them.
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They kept that in their mind.
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They kept that grudge, that hatred that they had for Joseph because of his dreams.
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He says, Here comes this dreamer.
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Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.
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Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him.
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And we will see what will become of his dreams.
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If you think about it, if you imagine, I often tell people, if you read existentially and that doesn't mean to to read with some sort of magical way, existentially simply means to read, remembering that these people actually existed and were real human beings.
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Read as if you're there.
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Read with the idea that this literally happened.
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This isn't just a story.
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And when you read that and you can just feel the disdain, they'll say, if we kill him and we put him in a pit, let's see what happens with those dreams.
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You can just imagine their feelings, their hatred for him.
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We'll see what that dreamer gets now.
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Not going to get anything after he's dead.
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So verse 21 says, But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands saying, let us not take his life.
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And Reuben said to them, shed no blood.
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Remember, Reuben is the oldest, so he has a little bit of authority here.
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He has a little bit of power to to see to it that nothing happens.
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He says, shed no blood, throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.
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You see, Reuben, the story of Reuben is rather interesting.
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Reuben, though he was the firstborn and should have been the favored child, he had fallen out of favor with his father.
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Because he had taken one of his father's wives and he had had a relationship with her, he had been intimate with one of his father's wives.
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And because he had been intimate with one of his father's wives, his father had found out about it and had had cursed him as a result of that relationship.
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Some people look at this story and they think that Reuben is very self-sacrificing here and that Reuben really loves Joseph and he may have very well loved Joseph.
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But I think really, if we examine the story more closely, Reuben is trying to get back in the good graces of dad.
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Reuben has messed up big time.
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Reuben has ruined his relationship with his father to the point that later, when we read in the end of Genesis, when the father is giving out blessings to the son, he reminds Reuben of his sin.
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That's how much this sin that Reuben had done to his father.
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That's how long his father carried that memory to the point that on his deathbed, when he's giving out the blessings, he reminds Reuben of that sin.
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So here Reuben has an opportunity.
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I know dad loves Joseph.
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I know dad puts Joseph over everyone.
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But I know dad would love me if he found out that I saved Joseph's life.
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But how can I do that? How can I save his life while at the same time not impugning my own other brothers? How can I? How can I say that I saved him without saying who I saved him from? So he's having to sort of compile in his mind, again, thinking existentially.
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He's having to, as a human being, he's trying to come to a realization.
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How can I save his life, be the hero, and yet at the same time not draw the ire of my brothers? So he begins to concoct his plan, and then it goes on to say.
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In verse 22, and Reuben said, or we've read that in verse 22, it says, and Reuben said, shed no blood, throw him into the pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay hand on him that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.
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So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe.
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That would have been the very colorful robe, the robe of any colors that he wore.
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And they took him and threw him into a pit.
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The pit was empty.
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There was no water in it.
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So they've taken him, they've fallen upon him, they've stripped his clothes off of him, and they've put him into a pit.
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And you can only imagine what's going on in the mind of Joseph at this point.
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Joseph has simply gone out to to meet with his brothers and to bring a report back to his father.
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He had no idea that they were conspiring death against him, had no desire that they were conspiring to bring him about, to bring about the end of his life.
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And here he comes to them.
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Welcome, brothers.
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And they come and fall upon him.
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They take his clothes off of him and they throw him naked into a pit.
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Then in verse twenty five, they sat down to eat again.
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What callous hearts strip a man first of his clothes, but in the same time of his dignity.
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For to strip a man bare would have been stripping him of anything that would cover his indignity.
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He stands there naked, ashamed for having been beaten and then thrown into the pit.
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And what do they do? Do they sit and do they consider their act? Do they sit and do they feel the pain and the suffering of having just hurt their brother? No, they sit down to a meal.
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No pain trying to decide what they're going to do.
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And looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing gum, balm and myrrh and on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
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Then Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.
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And his brothers listened to him.
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Then many a night traders passed by and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver.
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And they took Joseph to Egypt.
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You see, Reuben, at this point, Reuben has gone away.
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Reuben's trying to figure out what's going on.
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Judah, however, is the one used by God to keep them from killing him, even though if you think about it, it's not as if it's not in such a way that he's doing it for any type of positive way.
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What is his reasoning? It's not a positive reasoning.
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He's saying, what are we going to get out of it if we kill him? If we just kill him, bury him in the sand and bring back a bloody garment to our father, that doesn't line our pockets at all.
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That doesn't bring about any goodness for us.
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What can we get? Oh, well, there's some slave traders going by.
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There are some people that do the business of selling humans for work.
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We have a human here that we wish was dead.
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But if we kill him, we get nothing.
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Why don't we sell him? We'll never see him again.
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He'll die as a slave somewhere.
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And we'll get to go back to our father richer than we are now.
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And we'll be able to take back to our father his clothes.
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And we can tell our father he's dead because, hey, you know, he'll never be any the wiser.
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He'll never be the wiser because once we sell him into that caravan, they're going to take him away and he'll never return.
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He'll be a slave the rest of his days and he'll die in slave quarters.
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Let's get rid of him, but line our pockets at the same time.
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And that event dramatically changes the course of Joseph's life.
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Up until that point, Joseph had had had walked to that event.
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He had walked to that event as the son of a very affluent man and the brother of a huge family.
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He had walked to that situation, not understanding what was about to happen to him.
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He walked to that situation, not expecting the pit, not expecting the nakedness, not expecting the slavery, not expecting it at all.
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And then it fell upon him all at once.
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And there he stood, shackled and being drug away to Egypt.
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Beloved, our lives, our lives often experience the same types of turmoil.
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Very often our day will begin one way and will end dramatically different.
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We wake up thinking all is normal and all will be normal when we lay our head down at night.
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But there can come one event in our life that will turn us on our head.
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It can be the death of someone we love that happens tragically and in an instant.
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It can be an illness diagnosed and it happens where we go from one day being healthy and happy to the next day having to be considered various doctors and therapies and things that are going to have to come.
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It can come.
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We're driving ourselves to work and it is an accident that falls upon us.
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It can be that there are those who who do seek our destruction as Joseph had his brother seeking his destruction.
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And in that one fateful day, it happens.
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And beloved, my question to you is when you are facing those inevitable tragedies and they are inevitable, our lives will see suffering.
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Those days will come.
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How will you respond? You see what we're going to see as we go along in the life of Joseph is that Joseph never loses faith in the Lord and the Lord never leaves Joseph in despair.
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He's going to go to suffering and slavery.
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Yes, but in his slavery, he will be exalted.
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He is going to be accused of attempted rape.
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But even when he goes to prison, he is going to be exalted.
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He is going to do good to his fellow inmates and they are going to forget about him.
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But yet, even in their forgetting his goodness, he is going to be exalted because the Lord is with Joseph throughout it all.
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Beloved, that is how we are able to be sustained.
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When life's griefs come crashing down and we never know when they're going to come, we never know what day will bring about that pain.
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But beloved, when we are with and in Christ, when we have Christ as our Savior and our Lord and standing by our side and the Holy Spirit within us to be with us through these things, we will be sustained.
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That's the life of Joseph.
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That's the lesson to us.
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That the Lord sustains us even when our world is turned upside down.
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He is called Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who provides.
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He sustains us in those times.
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It's hard to imagine how he could or how he would.
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But he does.
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Chapter 39 begins with Joseph in Egypt.
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You'll notice that we skip entirely chapter 38.
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And I wish we did not have to.
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But for the story of Joseph to continue, we have to go from chapter 38 or I'm sorry, from 37 to 39.
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But I do want to make mention of one thing about chapter 37.
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I encourage you to study it this week.
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Though it is not part of this series, chapter 37 includes the story of Judah and Tamar.
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And if you read the genealogy of Jesus Christ, you will find only four women are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
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And one of those women is Tamar.
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And this story is not a positive story.
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It is filled with deceit and lies.
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But yet God uses that situation to bring ultimately his Messiah.
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So I encourage you to read about Judah and Tamar this week, because it is an important backstory for the story that we all are celebrating this time of year.
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The story of Christmas, the story of the coming of the Messiah.
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This is the backstory of the Messiah.
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This is a genealogical backstory that we should all be familiar with.
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But then we get to chapter 39 and it picks up again with Joseph.
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It says now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had brought him from the Ishmaelites, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
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The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.
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Beloved, is it possible to be successful in distress? Yes, because that's what we just read.
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It said that Joseph was a successful, he became a successful man.
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How could you be a successful slave? It sounds like an oxymoron.
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It sounds like two words that go together that don't make sense at all.
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To be a successful slave, it only makes sense if you read the whole sentence.
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The Lord was with Joseph.
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And he became a successful man.
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Again, our lives will see suffering.
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There will be injustice.
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We will face trials.
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But so long as the Lord is with us.
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We will never see defeat.
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The Lord will ensure our success.
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The Lord will see our victory.
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If not in this life.
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Then in the life to come.
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That's the promise that guides us.
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That's the promise that undergirds us.
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And it's the promise that we remember in this season that God didn't leave us in our sin.
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But he sent us a savior to take our sin.
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And he gave us a new life, a new life of salvation that we could have eternal life now in the weeks to come.
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We're going to examine further the life of Joseph and we're going to get to the point where we see God bringing him up out of the sack, out of his distress.
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I encourage you this week to continue reading along in Genesis so that you'll be prepared for our study as it comes.
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And we thank you, Lord God, we thank you for the lesson of the life of Joseph, seeing, Lord, this one whose life was turned upside down, but yet was still able to be victorious in his life because you were with him.
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And you have promised us who are in Christ that we are sealed.
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By your spirit until the day of redemption and that you will not leave us, that you will not forsake us.
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So, Lord, as we continue in this Advent season, as we continue to remember the lessons that we're learning from the life of Joseph, as we continue to see step by step the events that happened with him.
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Help us, Lord, to apply these things to our life, that when we face trials, that when we face problems, when we face suffering, when we face the inevitability.
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Of life's turmoils, that we will know that you are with us walking through the fire with us.
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We love you, Lord.
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We thank you.
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We praise you for all that you have given us in Jesus name.
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And for his sake, we pray.
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Amen.