God is for His people (Providence - Part 3)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. I really do believe that if you love God, He will cause all things to work together for your good.

Again, not all things are good, but He will cause them to work together for your good. So do you believe this? And what is believing anyways? What is believing? Belief and faith. The two are connected.

Faith as the Substance of Things Hoped For

The scripture says about faith, Hebrews 11 .1, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. If you could see it right now, if you could figure it out right now, there'd be no faith required.

Because it'd be right there. Back to Genesis 37. And don't you think Joseph probably had his moments? Joseph is one of those biblical characters that is just above reproach. I mean really, there's very little that you could point to of him lacking faith or doing anything wrong.

But presumably he had his struggles. Look at verse 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. And they took him and cast him into a pit.

And the pit was empty and there was no water in it. We don't know what Joseph is thinking at this point. I mean, if you were there, you wouldn't say, Hey Joseph, don't worry about this. It's going to work out for your good.

Don't worry about it. You wouldn't say that and it wouldn't be well received if you did. And if someone's going through something difficult, don't just say, Hey, you know, don't worry about it. We need to have some compassion for people.

Try to lead them in the right direction to see things through eyes of faith. Here's the thing about this event. Not only will God work this out for Joseph's good, he's going to work it out for the brothers good as well.

And for Jacob, his father. Now he has a lot of work to do. God has a lot of work to do on these brothers of Joseph. He's got a lot of work to do on us too, doesn't he? So Joseph is in the pit and the brothers then see a caravan of Ishmaelites or Midianites.

They're passing by. Look at verse 28. Then Midianite traders passed by. So the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him up out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for 20 shekels of silver. And they took Joseph, the caravan did to Egypt.

Now skip down to verse 36. Now the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard. Okay, so now where is Joseph? He's in Egypt and he is a slave. And he's working for this man named Potiphar who's a pretty powerful individual.

And we remember what happens there. Things actually start going well for a little while because the Lord is blessing the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake. So Potiphar basically, Potiphar probably had a whole estate.

And over time, because God is blessing Joseph and blessing Potiphar because of Joseph, what does Potiphar do? He puts Joseph in charge of his whole estate, all of his affairs. Until the day comes where Potiphar's wife, she's been noticing this young Hebrew man around the house and she kind of has a thing for him.

So she decides she's going to try to seduce Joseph. Of course, the godly man that he is, because she's married, he's not about to commit adultery with her. He's not even going to take a chance. So when she kind of corners him and grabs him so that he would lay with her, what does he do?

He turns around and he runs as fast as he can in the opposite direction, which is really the only proper response. And her being of questionable reputation, what does she do? Well, she's mad now. She's angry.

She's offended. And she basically accuses Joseph of, you know, maybe something as bad as rape. But he tried to grab me. And she tells this to her husband, who is a powerful man. Guess what happens to Joseph?

I mean, he's a slave. He doesn't really have any rights as it stands. And so now Joseph gets tossed into prison. However, in a short time, because God is blessing him, and he's such a skilled individual and hardworking, guess what?

Joseph, after a little while, he's running the prison. You've heard that statement where the inmates are running the prison. It's actually happened here. So Joseph is put in charge of the prison. And who does he meet in prison?

The chief butler and the baker, two men that assist Pharaoh. So he meets the chief butler and the baker who Pharaoh had imprisoned. And the butler and the baker start having these dreams, right? You remember this story.

And the thing is, God has given Joseph the ability to interpret dreams. So the baker has his dream. He tells it to Joseph, the butler as well. Long story short, the baker, Joseph said, you're going to die.

And the baker was hung. But Pharaoh's chief butler, he is restored to his position. Now, before the butler leaves to go back into Pharaoh's court, Joseph reminds him and says, hey, remember me. You know, I kind of helped you out.

I gave you the interpretation of your dream. When you leave and you go see Pharaoh, put in a good word for me, right? And help me get out of this place. But when the butler leaves, what happens? Yeah, he forgets all about Joseph.

So once again, things are going good. Then they start going bad. They start going good, start going bad. That's a constant pattern in Joseph's life. So God is causing. He is causing all things to work together for Joseph's good.

Sometimes you could maybe see, yeah, it's starting to happen. Other times, how is this possible, right? And that's the way it is with all of us. But it's happening. And it takes a long time before he finally sees the big picture.

So the baker, he's forgotten all about Joseph until one day, until one day, guess who has a dream? Pharaoh has a dream. And then the butler, is that right, is it the butler? If it's wrong, just reverse it, okay?

But the butler remembers, oh, Pharaoh, oh, king, I remember this man I once knew in prison. He's able to interpret dreams. So long story short, Pharaoh calls upon Joseph to interpret his dreams. What's the dream about, or a series of dreams?

There's going to be seven years of famine after seven years of plenty. So seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. This leads Joseph to coming up, he comes up with this plan on how to save Egypt during these years of turmoil.

And because he does this, and because Joseph essentially saves the nation, Pharaoh makes Joseph number two man in the kingdom. Again, this took many, many, many years. But Joseph eventually is made essentially the prime minister.

He is the number two ruler in Egypt. And part of his task, because now they have all this grain in the midst of famine, Joseph's job is to distribute and sell the grain. So people are coming from far and wide to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph.

Well, guess who shows up? One day, his brothers show up to buy food. And of course, they don't recognize him at first. Joseph conceals his identity, and he puts them through basically a series of tests to see if they are still the spiteful men that they once were.

Joseph wants to make sure, because he knows that years ago I couldn't trust them. I couldn't believe anything they said. So he's testing them now. And he's able to, in his wisdom, to put them into these positions to where he finally puts them into a situation where they see it for themselves.

Sometimes you can't tell somebody that they made a mistake, or you can't tell them. They have to figure it out for themselves. And that's what happens. His brothers realize, hey, we did a great evil, and God is punishing us for it.

So after Joseph sees this, and he really sees that their heart has been convicted, and he sees some change in his brothers, then finally Joseph reveals himself to them. And then the whole family ends up being reunited.

His father comes down from the land of Canaan to live in Egypt. They're all brought back together to live under Joseph's protection, and they have plenty of food. Their family is reunited. It's a great story.

It's one of the greatest stories in all of the Old Testament Scriptures. But what is God doing through it all? He took sin and evil. The Lord took bad upon bad. And yes, he was able to cause it all to work together for good, to reconcile a family, and to save the lives of many people.

Joseph’s Words in Genesis 50 and Romans 8:28

Genesis 50 verse 20, Joseph says to his brothers, after all of this, he says, but as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. In order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.

What is this? Romans 8, 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Now, before we close, in regard to the things God's people go through today, how God causes all things to work together for good, I can't tell you.

I can't tell you how God is able to do this. I can just tell you that he can do it and that he will do it. What does it require from you? It requires faith. You love God. Place your faith in him. He will cause all things to work together for your good.

And finally, there is one more example of this. The greatest example of this that we cannot avoid. 2000 years ago, godless men committed the most sinful act the world had ever seen. They crucified the son of God.

That was evil. Judas betraying Jesus was evil. The Jewish council condemning Jesus with false accusations in a secret court in the middle of the night, that was evil. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, condemning an innocent man to death, that was evil.

The soldiers driving nails through Jesus' hands and feet, that was evil. And yet, after that, what does Jesus say? Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And it's not that they didn't understand that they were doing wrong.

They just didn't understand who they were doing it to. Here's the point. Hopefully we all understand how God was able to take the most sinful act in human history and bring it about where it caused the salvation of the world.

So, if you love God, He is able and willing to cause all things to work together for your good. You love God and you believe that. Let's close. Heavenly Father, I know that this is a challenging message and I know that the devil would whisper into the ears of probably everybody and say, no, that's not true.

That's not possible. And he wants to sow doubts. But Lord, we love you. We believe you. We trust in you. And no, we don't have it all figured out. There may be some of us who have been through things and have seen things.

And maybe in this life, we'll see the big picture. Maybe we won't. But in glory, we will. Because you have promised a great end for your people. The resurrection of the dead and our glorification with the Son of God.

So that the things that we experience in this life, and we're not downplaying any hurt or any tragedy. But the sufferings of this life, in light of eternity, in light of the glory of God, are not worthy to be compared.

Lord, help us to understand this. Increase our faith. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, MorrisCornickChurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.