Never Forgotten

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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This message is by Lead Pastor Don Filsek and is a part of the series, Beginning with God, walking through the book of Genesis.

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If you would like to contact us, please visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.

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Here's Pastor Don. Praise his holy name. I encourage you to get comfortable as much as possible with your

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Bibles open. Welcome to Genesis chapter 40 as we're going to dig in and walk through this text this morning. Remember that you can get more coffee or juice or donuts at any time during the message.

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Restrooms are out the door to the end of the right. If you need to get up and stretch out in the back, I know that the chairs are not the most comfortable that have been made by humans.

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So you might need to get up and stretch out, and that's fine too. Whatever it takes to,

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I mean, ultimately keep our focus on the word of God over the next 35 to 40 minutes or so and just keep at this and looking and digging in and figuring out what it is that the

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Holy Spirit desires to communicate to us as his people here this morning.

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What we find out right away in verse 1 is that some time has passed since Joseph was thrown into prison.

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Some time has gone by. And remember that he was thrown into prison based on false accusations of attempted rape.

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So he did not do anything wrong. As a matter of fact, he was trying to flee the advances of his boss's wife when she accused him and he has been found guilty by his boss and put in the slammer.

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Joseph was 17 years old. Just to give you some math here to think through, he was 17 years old, the text told us earlier when he was sold into slavery by his brother.

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So he was 17 at that point. He's going to be 30, this is a little bit of a spoiler alert, but he's 30 years old when he's raised to power as the chief only next to Pharaoh over all of Egypt.

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And so you can do the math and figure out that if you take into account the time of his slavery in Potiphar's house as well as his time in prison, that's going to amount to 13 years.

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Okay, nobody did the math real quick for me. It's going to be 13 years. So approximately 13 years of slavery and time in prison combined.

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And how many of you think 13 years, I mean, just in the scope of your own personal life, 13 years seems like a big chunk?

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I mean, when you're allotted maybe 80, maybe 90, maybe fewer, we don't know how many days God has numbered for us, but when you're allotted a set number of years,

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I mean, one year wasted sounds pretty tough, right? One year doing something completely and utterly against your will and just being owned by somebody else does not sound fun to me.

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This is 13 years of enduring and putting up with being sold into slavery and being owned by somebody else and then also being falsely accused.

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And I believe 13 years is a sufficient time to develop a pretty heavy bitterness. I think it's a sufficient time to develop and nurse a significant grudge.

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Many of us have done better in fewer, you know, less amount of time developing a grudge.

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And he's got 13 years to nurse this. Anybody in agreement with me on that, that this is enough time for him to develop some significant problems?

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But while Joseph was in prison, we were told last week that he has been placed in a prominent position by the prison keeper.

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So regardless of how there seems to be setback after setback in Joseph's life, he's still by his character, the character that God is infusing in him and is creating in him, he is able to rise up.

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I mentioned last week, it's like Joseph seems to be like a chunk of wood thrown into a river that keeps bobbing up to the surface.

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So as he, they try to drown him, he just keeps bobbing back up and he keeps rising up. Whatever circumstances he's thrown into, he finds himself up at the top of the water again.

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And so here, wherever, wherever he is, I mean, he goes to prison as a prisoner and ends up being a leader in the prison.

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It's like they were looking for a new guard and they were like, hey, let's take, let's take applications from the prisoners. And he ends up becoming one of the guards, so to speak.

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And it's like, that's not very common, is it? It's a sign of the supernatural hand of God on his life that a prisoner is given significant responsibility within the walls of those prisons, of that prison.

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But I want to be clear that we're going to have to take, take it at his word later, that we're going to actually see, mentioned later in the text, that Joseph wants out of this situation.

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So I think that my Sunday school mindset growing up was like, prison wasn't that bad for Joseph, right?

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Like, I mean, he was, he was a leader in prison, right? So how bad could it have been? We're going to see him desperate to get out.

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He's going to plead to get out. He's going to plead with the cupbearer, don't forget me, get me out of this house, get me out of this.

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He's going to refer to it as a pit. So don't, don't think, don't think, don't picture Joseph in like really awesome, great circumstances during this time.

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He's a leader among leaders and things are just going, you know, he's a leader among criminals, okay?

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He's in prison in a place that's not meant for joy, not, don't, don't think, don't imagine that he got, you know, courtyard time, that there was a weight room and that he was able to watch cable

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TV all day. This is not a pleasant circumstance that he's in. Well, we see in the text right away that he receives two new prisoners under his care in verse one.

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The cupbearer and the baker, the chief cupbearer, the chief baker for the pharaoh have done something against Pharaoh.

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Now the word that is there that's used for the something that they did wrong is actually sinned against.

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It's unclear what they actually did but certainly to Pharaoh it was perceived as a significant wrong that they have done.

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Now it's indicated somewhere, some kind of like, between the lines it seems to be that he's unsure which one of them is guilty.

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So he's placed them into the jail to determine this and I think we're going to see by the end of the text that he's made a decision. He's figured out what has gone on but it's,

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I mentioned last week that in ancient Egypt we've got documents that indicate that prisons were used but they were not a final sentence.

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Prison was just only if you didn't know the verdict. If you knew the verdict, if you knew guilt and could establish guilt, the sentence was carried out on the spot at the time.

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So prison was not like this long term, you know, you've done wrong and so even with Joseph it's indicated that Potiphar probably still doesn't know exactly what has happened enough to be willing to put his right hand man to death for something that he's not sure he's actually done, it indicates that.

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But we see that whatever the baker and the cupbearer have done, it has incited Pharaoh to significant anger.

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It says in the text, his anger burned against them. The word for anger, I love it, the Hebrew language has multiple, it's very good at demonstrating emotion so it's got multiple words where we just kind of say he was angry and we then have to modify that a lot.

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The actual word for anger indicates a brand of anger, a type of anger and this word that's used here denotes brash, quick, powerful, but short -lived anger.

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Like this would be like saying he went off on them, okay, I mean he just lost it, he lost his temper with them and he was so angry at something that these two did.

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Now since they worked in the food industry, you notice the common theme there, one is the cupbearer, one is the chief baker, many commentaries like speculate that maybe

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Pharaoh got sick from a meal, okay, that's a possibility. One of their chief responsibilities is to make sure

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Pharaoh is okay, make sure he gets good food, make sure nobody poisons him and if he gets sick from a meal, how many of you think that might make

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Pharaoh angry? And so he might think, well, who's guilty for this? Which one of these guys have done this to me?

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Or maybe he even thinks that they've done it on purpose, intentionally or even if it was an accident. Maybe they delivered a subpar meal in the presence of dignitaries, maybe they brought something in and they had burned a loaf of bread or they had, you know, something wasn't just, the meal itself was not pleasing to him.

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We know that Pharaohs could be pretty picky about their food and picky about having things just so, just like some of our rock stars who have to have the water temperature at, you know, at 63 .5

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degrees, get me a bottle of water and I only want blue M &Ms and, you know, all that kind of stuff that they have to have when they fly in to do a gig.

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So maybe he delivered some kind of a, they delivered a subpar meal, shamed him in some way or whatever.

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But whatever they did, Pharaoh was upset, he was angry and put them in the same prison where Joseph was confined.

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Now, without them coming in contact with Joseph, I just want to point out, we would never know anything about these guys. It's only in light of them coming in contact with this man of God that they're even mentioned in the text and it's because they happened to be put in prison with him,

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God orchestrating these events that he would rub shoulders with these two dignitaries. And Joseph was appointed to care or to take care of or to attend to these two high -standing officials who are now in prison.

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Now, I want to make sure that we all understand how significant these two roles would have been in this ancient, ancient culture and ancient times.

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Both of these men are entrusted with the health and well -being of Pharaoh, who is the king over all of Egypt.

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They would be thoroughly vetted, they would be completely and utterly dependable and trustworthy in the eyes of Pharaoh himself, the king over all, in order to be the ones who are able to provide him with food and provide him with drink.

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And so, this is a high office and not only are they a cup bearer or a baker, but the chief cup bearer, the chief baker, the head over all of them within the court of Pharaoh.

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The chief cup bearer likely had responsibilities that went far beyond just tasting, like maybe having in your mind that he hands a cup to him from time to time.

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And maybe, you know, maybe you've read enough or you've heard enough in sermons or whatever that, well, he drank a little bit, made sure he didn't die, and then handed it to Pharaoh and Pharaoh was able to drink it or whatever.

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But this would go far beyond that to probably even the realm of making wine.

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We see that in his dream, that's going to be part of the function of what he does is actually squeeze the grapes and he's probably the chief vintner responsible for the growing of the grapes, the production of the wine.

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He is the head of the wine industry in regard to Pharaoh's court. That's this man's office.

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The chief baker, likewise, probably spent less time with actual flour and dough, but was more a manager of sorts overseeing a massive bakery operation in the courts of Pharaoh.

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So, this would not just be a small thing. We have ancient hieroglyphic writings that go back to this very era where there are documents and lists of different types of pastries and rolls and breads, thirty -eight different types of cakes, nine varieties of bread made in Egypt during this era.

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Now there might be thirty -nine different types of doughnuts at Sweetwater's, I don't know, but at this time, I mean, imagine that they're pushing the envelope of the pastry industry in Egypt during this time and they're making new stuff all the time and bringing it before him and stuff like that.

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So it's a pretty significant undertaking that this baker, the chief baker, is responsible for.

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So they're in prison and on one night, one fateful night, they're there in prison.

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It's an undisclosed amount of time passes. We don't know if it was a year, we don't know if it was two years. How long were they there imprisoned with Joseph?

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But they have a dream. And the cupbearer and the baker both have dreams on the same night.

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And many of us have had dreams that stuck with us. Raise your hand if you've had a dream that just kind of stuck with you throughout the next day.

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And probably most of us, just on a routine basis, we just forget our dreams or we don't have dreams or whatever, or they're just kind of fuzzy and hazy.

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Have you ever had a dream you kind of were like trying to think through and it just evaporated almost in front of your eyes and it's like, I don't really remember it that much anymore.

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But then there are other dreams that have troubled us throughout the day. And these guys, it says in the text very definitively, they were troubled by these dreams.

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I think what bothered them most is something that wouldn't bother us as much, and that is that they don't understand the interpretation.

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It's like they literally don't have anybody to go to to ask, what does this dream mean?

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You see, the expectation in ancient culture was that dreams brought to the individual who was dreaming a message from the gods or from God.

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And there was literally an occupation, like you could walk down the street in a city in ancient Egypt and see the office on the corner, you know, the storefront on the corner was the dream reader.

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And that was an actual office, that was a position, that was a paid service that was provided for people in that ancient culture that you could go in and tell them your dream and then they would basically tell you their future or something like that, kind of like tea leaf reading or, you know, the crystal ball or whatever, or palm reading or that kind of stuff.

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But that was pretty common in ancient Egypt, that dreams were thought of as very significant. And these men being in prison have no access to a dream reader.

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And that's a setback for them, they're concerned about this. Now you also put into account that they're in prison trying to determine, they're concerned for what their fate is.

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So now they're kind of like double troubled because they're also assuming, I would think they're assuming that this dream had something to do with their, what their status is going to be.

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But since Joseph was given the task of attending these two dignitaries, he goes and sees them in the morning and he notices that they're troubled, they're distraught, their faces show that they're concerned about something.

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Now I mentioned in a previous sermon that most of my dreams are just random and senseless. But there are times that I have had dreams that troubled me all throughout the next day or even on into, on into the week.

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But like I said, usually dreams just fade. Occasionally a dream or a nightmare seems so real that it shakes us and we wake up and it's like, was that real?

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That wasn't real? No, of course that wasn't real, but you ever had one that was just like absurd but it still troubled you? It's like, that was absurd, that was obviously fictional and yet I'm still disturbed by it.

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They recall their dreams with clarity. These are not the kinds of dreams that just fade away. They're able to speak in detail of what they saw in these dreams.

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Now the ancients would often reserve interpretation of dreams for only dreams that contained visual images only.

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Now this was an interesting find and I don't know how beneficial it is to you other than just to kind of understand that what we look at in our dreams and what we see here in the text, there's a certain brand of dream that they were looking for for interpretation.

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If one was spoken to in a dream, you heard someone speak to you, or you spoke in a dream, they would not interpret that kind of a dream because the words themselves would be, they would expect you to be able to determine from the words spoken what it was about.

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And so they would particularly pick out these visual dreams and that'd be an interesting study for someone to go out and,

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I mean, have you ever thought about like how, what percentage of your dreams actually have words spoken in them versus how much of, how many of them are just silent pictures that are going by in your mind or whatever?

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And I don't know how significant that is, but they would leave the wordless, the wordless dreams up to the dream reader.

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I'm sure that the sense of importance over these dreams is heightened by their current position, they're stuck in prison and they assume that their current situation, these dreams have something to do with it.

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Now Joseph is able to pull out of them that the dreams are the cause, he's there and he's attending to their needs and, and he says, you know, it's obvious that you're troubled, you're distressed, and notice

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Joseph's availability for them in their time of trouble, their time of crisis. He is there to assist, he is there to help, he is there to listen.

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I would suggest to you that this is going above and beyond what would be the job description of your average prisoner at this time to interpret dreams.

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I don't believe that there was probably anything in his contract that said you must interpret dreams for people while you're in jail.

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He could have just said, too bad, that's none of my business, obviously they're troubled, but that's, that's up to them, of course they're troubled, they're in prison, duh.

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So he could have just, how many of you know that he, that there's a way that you, you have at times identified a co -worker, you've been at work, you've been in a, in a context and in a situation outside of your home where you've identified that someone is troubled and you've just kind of left them in it.

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I think all of us have been there at some point, I'm too busy, I don't have the time, whatever, but Joseph here is,

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I mean, his role is to attend to them for sure, but he is also available, he's willing to help and assist and to listen and take that opportunity when he sees that somebody is visually disturbed or troubled.

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He engages these two and is concerned for their express needs. Notice where, though,

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Joseph points these two men, immediately, immediately, they're troubled, they're disturbed, they tell him, well, we had some dreams last night that were really problematic to us, and his first response is, do not, interpretations belong to God.

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Goes there right away. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't beat around the bush, he doesn't try to make them all comfortable and, you know, make sure that, you know, well, are they people of faith or not or, but right, he just goes right for it.

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In essence, Joseph says, isn't God the solution to your problem? Have you considered God?

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I love how here in this prison, Joseph is eagerly testifying to the power of God. Joseph knows that God hasn't given up on him and Joseph himself hasn't given up on God and even here in this pit, as he calls it, he brings with him the light of the power of God and says, let's, let's go to God with this one.

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There's all these dream readers out, but you don't, you don't need a dream reader, you don't need to get out of jail and go to the, go to the corner and pay money to have a dream reader.

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Isn't God the one who knows what this was all about in the first place? Can't we turn to him? He asked for them then to share the dream with him and the cupbearer starts first.

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He had a dream of a fast motion process. Have you ever seen those fast motion movies where the, where it goes from like seed to flower like in just a matter of seconds and it just kind of like you see the plant grow and then the blossom and then it withers and then it fades and it's dead?

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Those are kind of cool and that's like the image of his dream. That's what he sees in his mind as he sleeps.

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He sees the vine grow a branch, I mean a vine, and it grows into three branches, it buds, it blossoms, forms clusters, and then the cupbearer prepares it, pours it, and serves it all just in a matter of really, really fast.

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It's like this just happens. Everything in this accounted dream, everything in the statement of his dream spoken to Joseph is in triplets.

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The vine does three things, three verbs ascribed to the vine. The cupbearer does three things, the vine has three branches,

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Pharaoh is mentioned three times, the cup is mentioned three times. You might start to think three has some significance in this dream and Joseph keys in on the three branches and identifies that that doesn't indeed matter and that he will be called into the presence of Pharaoh in three days.

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And not only that, but the interpretation is quite simple, he's going to be restored to his office, he's going to be brought back as the cupbearer.

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The phrase, by the way, in case you're curious, because it's mentioned a couple times and it's used as a play on words, the phrase lift up your head is a figure of speech for being called into the presence of the king or Pharaoh, so it's used in the passage three times, two of them are referred to being called into the king's presence, and one of them means to literally lift up a head.

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And so one of them is a gruesome literal translation, the other two that are used in the text are indeed figurative.

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But to help you understand what I mean when I say it's a figure of speech, when the king would enter his throne room, everybody in attendance would look down at their feet.

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Nobody would ever make eye contact with the Pharaoh unless requested to make eye contact with the

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Pharaoh. So to lift up one's head is for Pharaoh to literally step forward and touch your chin and bring you up to eye level.

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You've been summoned to have an interaction with the king. Are you getting what I'm saying? And so that's the notion of him lifting up your head is calling for your attention.

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Now it might not be physical lifting up your head, it might be by saying your name or by declaring you, and then you now are to give your full attention to him and he has your attention and you'd think that's a pretty significant thing to be called and have him lift up your head and that's what we're talking about here as this figure of speech.

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Now it's clear that Joseph was depending upon God, he said God is the one who interprets dreams and he's giving him the glory and yet he speaks directly on this interpretation.

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Why don't you think that's pretty direct, pretty just bold for him to say this is the interpretation of your dream. His confidence,

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I'm going to be honest with you as your pastor, this is something I struggle with. What is the mechanism of his confidence?

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How does one stand in the presence of another and with assurance interpret their dreams?

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Three days you're going to be restored, everything's going to be great. How many of you, if you're honest, in your heart you wrestle with the notion of that level of confidence that Joseph shows here in the text?

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Anybody with me on that? A handful of us? Okay, we're, just this, this notion that like, how do

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I know? How did he know? How do you look someone in the face and say, dude, three days from now you're going to be called back into service, out of prison, everything's going to be fine, it's all going to go just like it used to.

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It's obvious to me that God is capable of giving, like he gave to Joseph, this kind of confidence.

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He's capable of doing so. Now, what that looks like in our lives, it's hard to tell. I mean,

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I've heard that abused a lot and so it's very, very cautious thing, you know, like the, like the guy in college who says,

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God told me to marry you, God told me you're supposed to date me, you know, whatever, it's like, there's all kinds of weirdness that gets rolled in or God told me to buy two houses,

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God told me to buy the Maserati, God told me to buy the Bucati, whatever it is, you know, it's like, you could, how many of you know that as open abuse?

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A little bit, okay. And so, I don't understand the mechanism of it, but I'm pretty sure that we can know when

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God is in that and I think even the one who says, God told me to buy the Maserati, they know, they know in their heart, we know in our heart when we are extending beyond ourselves and we're using

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God's name to try to get what we want, I think we have a pretty good indication of that as well if we're honest in our own hearts.

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But as if to emphasize how assured Joseph was, I mean, Joseph is so sure that this is going to go down the way that he says it is, that he has the right interpretation that he goes further and says, when you are restored definitively, when this happens, when you get back in the good graces of Pharaoh, only remember me, please do this kindness to me and just in any subtle way possible, by your kindness, please mention my plight to Pharaoh.

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If you would please just do that, I mean, he's overboard in his emphasis on just humility and only, just this one small thing

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I'm asking of you, I've done this favor for you, I've interpreted your dream and I've told you what it means, could you please mention my situation to Pharaoh?

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But before we get the notion of this prison being a favorable situation, like I mentioned earlier, we need to let

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Joseph's request here in this portion of the text stand on its own. He is not at all saying, hey, this prison gig is pretty good, they feed me,

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I've got clothes, I'm taken care of, I have responsibility, the prison keeper likes me,

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I wouldn't mind just staying here. The text is very clear, he wants out, he's been stolen, he declares to the cup bearer,

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I've been stolen and I've been falsely imprisoned, tell this to Pharaoh, please. Now while we might technically think that he's exaggerating when he says he was stolen, wasn't he sold, he's not stolen, but we need to keep in mind that when someone sells something that doesn't belong to them, they are stealing and that is what has happened to him.

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And even the end of verse 15 shows that even though many years have passed, the word, it's interesting, the word pit, the word for cistern is not far from his mind.

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As many years as have passed, it's as if in the text what Joseph is identifying is I just haven't moved that far from where my brothers threw me.

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They threw me in a pit and here I still am. He's here, in essence, by using this particular word for the prison, he's identifying that he doesn't feel the progress that you and I think he feels.

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Because we've been in Sunday school class, we've thought Joseph, awesome, cool, great, he rises up, we know the end of the story, we've got the spoiler alert and because we know the spoiler at the end, we assume that this is going well for Joseph.

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This is not going well for Joseph. This is not pleasant circumstances for him.

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He says, I'm right where, right where I started out. My brothers threw me in a pit and here

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I sit in this pit still. Have there been some ups? Sure, there have been some ups and downs in his life, rising up in the house of Potiphar, but imagine the, imagine the difficulty of the harassment that he faced from Potiphar's wife even during that time.

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Do you think that that might have wore him down? Do you think that might have been an adverse working situation for him? That wasn't super pleasant.

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And so he has not had an easy time of this. From Joseph's viewpoint, he has just not moved that far.

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And as exciting as his life might look from 10 ,000 feet, we need to keep in mind that it was going nowhere from Joseph's viewpoint.

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From the practical day in and day out of what Joseph faced every morning when he woke up, just not much movement.

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I point this out to suggest to you that being significant in God's plan doesn't always look like being significant in God's plan.

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And it certainly doesn't always feel like being significant in God's plan. Are you getting me on that?

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Many people have been used to do awesome things for the kingdom of God, while from their perspective, all they were doing was what felt mundane and routine to them.

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We live in a culture that deifies the big sacrifice. Evangelical culture,

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American Christian culture deifies the big, huge sacrifice. Pick up your family, move to the

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Middle East, that's something. The cutting edge ministry, we elevate and lift up.

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The big names, the big numbers, we elevate. While God is working through the routine everyday people who often wake up in the morning feeling forgotten and left out and go to bed feeling forgotten and left out.

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Like Joseph. You know where this story is going, does God have big plans for Joseph?

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Amazing plans for Joseph. Is there any indication that Joseph is just living in that, just thrilled in that right now?

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He's like, get me out of this house, just only do this one favor for me, just be kind for just a moment, just say something to Pharaoh for me, and maybe something will move.

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So when the chief baker sees that the cupbearer received a good interpretation, I think in that phrase that the baker only after seeing the positive interpretation that was given to the cupbearer then feels free, indicates some level that the baker has some indication things aren't good in his dream.

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He has already some latent sense that he wants a positive interpretation, but I'm not sure that he really thought he was going to get that.

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If we consider what his dream was, he shares his dream, and his dream is also visual.

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And in it he has three large baskets of pastries on his head, a common way of carrying things in that era.

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So he's got these three large baskets and there's one balanced in between the other two on the top and in that uppermost basket there's all kinds of cakes and pastries that have been made.

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Again, a pretty simple dream, but in the dream the birds are eating from the baskets.

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It's a very different dream if you think about it from what the cupbearer's dream was. Notice the absence of Pharaoh.

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There's no Pharaoh that he would have been supposed to be serving. Notice the negative connotation of the baker having his baked goods stolen by birds.

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Notice the absence of him, any motion or movement from the baker to try to shoo away the birds or anything.

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It doesn't seem likely that this, it does seem likely rather that the baker might have had some notion from just thinking about what he dreamt that this is not going to go well for him.

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You see what I'm saying? When you have a dream like that, it's like things are not working out well according to his career. If you bake pastries, you don't make them for the birds.

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Just like the cupbearer, the number three is significant, but in this case, in three days, the baker will indeed be summoned into the presence of Pharaoh and have his head required of him.

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He will be decapitated and then impaled on a stake as an example to all who displease

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Pharaoh. Not a pleasant picture in our minds of that. You need to be understanding that what we think of in the

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Wild West when we see an English Standard Version or various translations, we think hanged, so we're thinking Wild West, gallows, that kind of stuff.

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That is not the picture that we have there. When you see the word hanged, most often in the Old Testament, like you see that Haman was hung, and a lot of times the translation is gallows, it's a pike, it's a stake, it's impaled, that's what they did in that ancient time, so think not

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Wild Wild West, but Wild Wild East, and that's what they did. And they would usually kill the person first, so there was a method of execution.

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In this case, we're actually told he was decapitated, he was beheaded, and then his body is placed on a stake for the deterrence of rubbing the

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Pharaoh the wrong way, okay? I mean, I think that might be a deterrent in your community if on a regular basis, you know, you might pay your taxes on time and stuff like that, if that was a legitimate way and method of getting your obedience.

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And so, that's what we've got going on here. And this is the interpretation of Joseph, of this dude's dream.

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And when I read this, I think, wow, Joseph, like if there is ever a time for a convenient lie, okay,

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I'm not suggesting that you lie, but what I am just saying is like, I mean, the whole like, does this dress make me look fat question, you guys know exactly the question

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I'm talking about here, you know, you're looking for a creative way to address that question.

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When you're looking at this and you're saying, like, is there any room, any wiggle room for Joseph to look at this text and look at this dream and go,

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I'm just not getting it. This one looks fuzzy to me. I'm not quite sure, or even just, you know what it looks like to me,

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Baker, you're going to go back, you're going to bake some bread, birds are going to eat it. That's what I'm getting from this one. That's what

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I'm seeing here, birds eating your bread, they like your cakes, it's going to be great. You're going to work at the zoo, you're going to work at the zoo,

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I'm getting this, feeding the leftovers, but that's not it. And I used humor there just to point out the exact opposite of what

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I'm joking about and that's how utterly direct, how utterly harsh this interpretation comes off in the text.

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Anybody with me on that? Does this come off harsh? The guy says, oh, here's my dream, you've just given a positive interpretation, here's my dream and you're like, dude, you're going to die three days from now, it's done.

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What are you like, ah, I didn't, I didn't really want you to, I don't want you to interpret my dream, stop, too late.

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Joseph clearly had some divine revelation, would you agree with me on that? In order to speak this clearly about the future with assurance and clarity.

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This is, this is not merely psychology, this is not Freudian dream interpretation kind of stuff where if you see a snake it means this or if you see this in your dream it means that or whatever, he's not, he's not following a code of words on this side of the page that this in your dreams or something like that.

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This is divine revelation. If it takes assurance to tell the cupbearer he will be restored, how much more assurance is required to tell a guy you're going to die in three days?

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He's assured of it. Again, I don't know the mechanism of that level of assurance but it's there and God is able to provide it.

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It's obvious to me in this text that Joseph was indeed constrained. He was confined in his interpretations to speak the truth.

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He is not speaking on his behalf, he's not interpreting in his strength, he's not interpreting according to his wisdom or his knowledge but he is speaking on behalf of the

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God who interprets, the God who knows true meanings, the God who understands true significance, the

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God who is. And three days later, Pharaoh throws a birthday party, a feast for all of his servants, this would be significant.

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And by the way, the word birthday, you know, I could go back and forth and I could just leave it at that but oftentimes the coronation day of the

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Pharaoh is seen to be his birthday so it's quite possible that this is the coronation, the anniversary of his coronation, it could also equally be just his birthday.

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But it would be a significant deal for the servants to be invited to a party thrown by royalty, you getting that?

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Like that's a big deal, this would be a huge celebration throughout the capital city. And at this party,

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Pharaoh calls out the chief cupbearer and he lifts up the chief cupbearer and the chief baker.

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So in the presence of the Pharaoh, at some point, you know, they're all bowing and he singles them out and draws their attention specifically.

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He restores the cupbearer but indeed orders the execution of the baker. And at the end of verse 22, the text makes it explicit that things went down just as Joseph had interpreted.

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The text wants to be abundantly clear, it happened in the same way that he had said it would. And from that,

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I just want to point out that God is trustworthy in what he reveals to us about the future.

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The future is not some nebulously unclear thing to the sovereign God as if he's, he goes, you know what, these humans have me stumped a little bit, like I'm trying to figure it out and I'm trying to, you know,

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I mean, they've got their free will so I don't know how this one's going to work out. Maybe Pharaoh's going to change his mind and he's going to restore the baker too.

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He's got the future in his hand and he's not stymied by this. I mean, as much as we definitely, certainly live our lives according to the premise that you and I have free will, we make choices.

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How many made a choice this morning? You made a choice to come here this morning, right? You made some choices. But the reality of it is, somewhere behind the scenes in the mechanism of this entire cosmos,

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God is having his will done in us and through us. It's a mystery, it's a divine mystery, it's an awesome mystery, it's a glorious mystery, it's a beautiful thing, but I don't,

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I think we, you know, your head will start spinning if you try to reconcile this and completely and thoroughly understand it.

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And yet I will, and I mentioned this before from up front, I will always, I will always err, I will always shy on the side,

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I will always lean to the side of the sovereignty of God. I do not believe I will stand in his presence one day and go, you know what,

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I had you all wrong. I was obviously in more control than I thought I was. I will stand in his presence and I will bow on my face and say,

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I had no idea how sovereign you were. I had no idea how glorious you were.

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I was playing with the notions and the thoughts of who you are. But now that I have beheld you, how dare

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I think that anything came from me at all except for sin.

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Except for that which I have failed at. But in his presence all of that even will be burned away and we will be, we will then be known, we will know as we are fully known and it will be a glorious day.

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Anybody looking forward to that day? I get pumped up just thinking about it, just enthusiastic and excited about that day when we meet him and we see him.

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And I think our questions will fade away, just like Job, who had his opportunity, had his day in court, so to speak, and what did he do?

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It says at the end in chapter 40, I put my hands, not just one, but I put both of my hands over my mouth.

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What I spoke of in the past and what I thought I was going to come and I was going to ask God questions, I was going to question him and I was going to put him to the test,

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I got no more questions. I beheld you now, I got nothing. I look forward to that day of actually having those things reconciled in meeting

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God face to face. It will be a glorious and a beautiful thing. And none of that was in my notes. So I'm going to get a little caught up here.

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The ultimate fulfillment of that revelation of the God who knows the future, like he has declared the future here to the baker and to the cupbearer, is that final revelation of his son that he has promised us.

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And promised us enough to put it down in writing, it's in scripture, that his son is going to return for us. It's there.

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And it's in writing. It's not just some dream that he's given us to interpret and kind of like, oh, is it right, is it not right?

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It's in the written word from his prophets. He has told us he's returning. He has told us that his son will indeed be victorious.

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He has told us he will return for us. And just like he told the baker and the cupbearer that would happen in three days, he has communicated to us what is coming soon.

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And I believe that the God who holds the future has accurately communicated what you and I need to know about the future through his prophets.

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But our text concludes on a down note. So we get down to verse, verse 23,

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I think, yeah, verse 23. The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

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To be sold into slavery, that would be painful. To be falsely accused, that would be painful.

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But to be forgotten is perhaps the depths of loneliness and the breaking of hope. To know the light is at the end of the tunnel is one thing.

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To have a sentence that you know is going, you've got an end date to it. How many of you, that fuels your hope?

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Like just knowing that, if you're going through a trial, but knowing that there's an end date to it, is there a rejoicing in there?

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We can endure things with a time frame when we know it. Like this winter, some of us started to lose hope, right?

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It was kind of like, there came a point where I was like, I am not even sure if there's going to be a spring again. Like, right? I mean, by the end of the winter,

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I was just like, ugh. We need that end date. We need that hope. And he is in the depths of loneliness at the end of our text, left, forgotten, not remembered.

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And as we leave this text this week, we leave Joseph in the darkness. I like Joseph.

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Any of you getting to like Joseph? Maybe you've already liked him before, but I like him. He seems like a really good guy.

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I feel for him. But I'm not very objective at this point of the story, because again, like I said before,

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I know what's coming. Never forget that Joseph had to live through this 13 years.

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He had to endure this. If we jump to the end of the story, we miss the reality of a God who is with us in our pain.

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If we jump to the exaltation, to right hand of Pharaoh, we neglect the lessons learned in the prison.

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If we jump to the empty tomb, we miss the pain endured on the cross. If we jump to only the victories in our lives, and we are constantly trying to go from mountaintop to mountaintop, we might lose what

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God wants for us in the valleys. And so there are three application points that stood out to me this week.

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The first is simply to be ready to speak for God. Joseph did not separate his life and compartmentalize it into business and religion.

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He took an opportunity that was given to him to speak into other people's lives as a chance to show the power and glory of God.

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Sure, he did so through interpreting dreams, and I'm not recommending that tomorrow morning you go to the water cooler, find somebody who had a dream, and take a shot at interpreting it for them.

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That might not go well. My point is that people will talk to you about all kinds of things.

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You're gonna have those kinds of interactions with people where they are gonna bring all different kinds of things to your attention. And I would suggest that if you are attentive, you will have many opportunities to convey that Jesus is the answer to the problems that people are going through.

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You've got an ear to listen, and you take the time to sit and sit with people in their pain.

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Don't just try to provide the solution right away, but listen to them, feel with them, and then bring the solution.

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Things didn't turn out well for the baker, but he got what he came for, an answer, a solution.

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He didn't like it. Much like the person who might come to you and ask whether or not God wants you to get a divorce.

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The answer is going to be no. But being willing to answer the question in a truthful way is our role.

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It's likely gonna be no. The second point is closely related to the first.

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The first is to be listening, be looking for the opportunities, but the second is we should be ready to speak the truth into those situations.

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I'm sure that Joseph's message to the baker was not received with joy, right?

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The fact is that we have a message that for some is bad news, and for others is good news. For the one who will not repent, for the one who will not turn away from their own self -salvation projects to God's way, our message will strike them as bad news.

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Most people are just trying to improve their lives. That's the M .O. of the American dream, the American life is just to improve it.

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Some choose to try to improve their lives through drugs, through sex, through rules, through joining a cause, through church attendance, through giving to the poor.

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There are all different kinds of self -improvement projects that humanity tries to undertake to make themselves better.

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But some have burned out enough, have come to the end of themselves enough, when they've been trying to make their life better, that they have finally realized that they cannot do it on their own.

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And for those, the truth that God has made a way through Jesus Christ is good news.

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My last application is that we are never forgotten. We are never forgotten.

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As painful as life can get, as lonely as we may feel at times, as much as others in our lives might forget us, despite feeling forgotten or neglected,

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God is always with his children. He doesn't solve every problem for us.

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He doesn't always take us down the easiest roads. But he always goes down those roads with us.

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I'm sure that Joseph felt this lack of kindness on the part of the cupbearer. I'm sure he at times felt hopelessly forgotten in prison in Egypt.

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But God, as we know in the text, has big plans for Joseph. If you've asked

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Jesus to save you and to be your king, then please feel free during this next song to get up and to take the juice, a cup of juice to remember that Jesus' blood has been poured out for you.

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And then take the cracker to remember that he took his, that he took in his body the punishment that you and I deserved.

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He was forsaken. Jesus Christ was forgotten. Jesus was abused.

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He was beaten and rejected in our place. He who was innocent took our penalty.

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And so as we go to communion and then take off and head out into a new week ahead of us, let's remember

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Joseph, who took opportunities, even in the darkest places, to speak to others of the glory of God.

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And let's remember that God will never leave or forsake his children.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to, to just address your grace and your mercy in our lives in regards to your presence with us and that we are not forgotten.

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Even though at times in the darkness it may feel like we are being crushed on every side. And we recognize that sometimes in reality our sin has led us far from you, but you are still there, ready and eager for anyone who would turn around and embrace you and be embraced by you.

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I thank you that you do not leave us. You do not forget us. And Father, that you have plans for us, even if that is just to bring us to glory with you.

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Father, I pray that you would help us to walk through this world in a way that is listening for opportunities to glorify you to others, in a way that is identifying your presence with us, even in the dark times.

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Thank you for communion and the opportunity that we can reflect on the one who went through the darkest of times, went through hell for us, that we might be restored.

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That he who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of you and that is an astonishing reality.

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So I pray that we would rejoice, that our hearts would be moved to joy, and in that joy we would in turn have an impact on our culture, impact on our coworkers, impact on our neighborhoods, impact on Matawan, or wherever we call home.

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Father, that this church would have an impact in this community and shine out your light because of the joy that you have set in our hearts by the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ.