Rags to Riches Genesis 41:37-57

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We all love those stories where people go from rags to riches.
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Many of you know that I'm a runner, and so you get a lot of running stories from me. So I'm going to tell you one right now, a brief story about a runner who went from rags to riches.
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I mentioned this runner briefly in a sermon a while back, but I'm going to give you more of a bigger, starting from the beginning of the story and taking you from there.
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A young man from Wisetta named Dick Beardsley decided to go out for the cross -country team in high school because he was too small to play football.
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He wanted to earn a letter jacket so that he could get a date for the dance, so he figured this was the way to do it, join a sports team.
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His running career in high school was unspectacular. He was a good runner, but he didn't really get anyone's attention or stand out.
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He then went to college in southern Minnesota to a school that doesn't even exist anymore.
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As he tells the story, the school is now a prison. And while there, he started to get faster, but again, he didn't really stand out.
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And then he transferred to South Dakota State and got a little bit faster, but not really to the point where he was going to become a professional runner.
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After college, he went up to Hurley, Wisconsin, which many of you are familiar with, to run in a marathon.
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He ran a time just under three hours, which is over a six -minute pace per mile.
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And you may say, that's fast. And while it is, it's nowhere near where one would need to be to be a professional runner.
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From this point forward, Beardsley kept running marathons. Over the next couple of years, every marathon he ran, he got faster.
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And he got significantly faster. He went from running over a six -minute pace per mile in a marathon to a 5 .30
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pace. He got fast enough to earn a shoe deal with New Balance, and they saw him as one who had potential and they just wanted to give him a chance.
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And between the help he got from them and the races that he ran where he won money, that's what he did for a living.
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He became a runner. Then in 1980, at the age of 24, he ran a five -minute pace per mile and was becoming one of the fastest marathoners in the world.
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In June of 1981, he ran Grandma's Marathon, which many of you are familiar with, and he went sub -five minutes per mile for the 26 .2
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mile race. And in the process, he set the course record. And it's interesting, this course record was snapped just a few years ago.
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It stood for 33 years. But then the 1982
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Boston Marathon came, and this is where he became world famous. In this race,
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Beardsley would go against the top marathoner in the world, Alberto Salazar. Salazar did not have a rags -to -riches story.
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He was top -notch and the best from the beginning, from high school. And at this marathon, this is the most prestigious marathon in the world.
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And this race in 1982, that has over a hundred -year history, would go down as the most famous of them all.
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These two men dueled for 26 miles, and Salazar edged Beardsley by 1 .5
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seconds for 26 .2 miles. Can you imagine how close of a race that is? And Beardsley and Salazar in this race both set an
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American record for the marathon distance. And Beardsley would go in the Guinness Book of World Records for most marathons of consecutively running faster.
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And I think he still holds that to this day. I can't remember the number, but it's a lot. So you might be wondering, why am
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I telling you this story? Am I just telling you because it's an interesting story? Well, it has something to do with our sermon today. We are going to see a rags -to -riches story this morning.
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And as we continue our sermon series through Genesis, we are going to see a young Hebrew man who spent many years in prison quickly climb the ladder of importance in Egypt.
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So I encourage you to turn with me to Genesis 41. We'll be looking at verses 37 through 57.
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And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 41. This sermon is titled
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Rags to Riches. And our big idea, our proposition, is the
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Lord sufficiently provides help in times of need. The Lord sufficiently provides help in times of need.
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And we're going to see two ways how He provides this sufficient help. The first way how is by equipping
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His people to handle weighty responsibilities. And we'll see this in verses 37 through 45 of chapter 41.
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But before we jump into the text, I want to give a little recap of last week's sermon to jog your memory, or if you weren't here, so that you would understand where we're coming from.
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We looked at Joseph interpret more dreams last Sunday. Two Sundays ago, we saw that he interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and his chief baker.
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Last week, he interpreted the dream of the most powerful man in Egypt, the Pharaoh. What we saw is
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Pharaoh was so troubled in the morning because he had these two dreams. These dreams were unlike anything he had ever experienced.
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And these dreams had two things happening that had the number seven in them. And this was a vivid and terrifying dream, so he needed to find out the meaning.
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And this led Pharaoh to turn to the people he would normally turn to for help. He turned to the magicians and wise men of Egypt.
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And in both cases, these people had no true supernatural ability and were unable to tell
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Pharaoh the meaning of these dreams. Pharaoh was helpless, and he knew he needed to get to the bottom of figuring out what this was all about.
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Now this is where the opportunity for help came to Pharaoh. In chapter 40, the chief cupbearer had his dream interpreted by Joseph while he was in prison.
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And Joseph told him that the meaning of his dream was in three days he would be restored to his position as chief cupbearer for Pharaoh.
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And this is precisely what happened. So the chief cupbearer, while he was with Pharaoh and Pharaoh was troubled, he told him,
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I know a man who can help you. I know a young Hebrew who can help you.
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And this would have been humbling for Pharaoh because none of his own people, none of his Egyptians could help him.
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So he had to turn to this unspectacular Hebrew young man to do it.
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And Joseph was brought out of prison, and Pharaoh told him his two dreams, and Joseph interpreted these two dreams to him.
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And what he explained is that the seven healthy cows being swallowed up by the seven unhealthy, and the seven ears on the crop that were healthy being swallowed up by the seven unhealthy ears on the crop, this was meant to symbolize that there were going to be seven years of plenty that were going to come on Egypt, where things were going to go great.
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But then the bottom was going to fall out, and then there was going to be seven years of famine.
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And that's what the seven unhealthy swallowing the seven healthy represented.
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And when Joseph told Pharaoh this interpretation, he believed him. And we are going to see this today.
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Joseph also told Pharaoh that he needed to appoint a wise man who was going to be able to help
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Egypt during this time of crisis. So this sets the stage for where we are today.
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Pharaoh is impressed, and he's about to put a wise man in that position. And you may be able to guess who that is.
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So let's look at our text this morning. Let's begin by reading verses 37 through 41.
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This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants,
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Can we find a man like this in whom is the spirit of God? Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are.
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You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command.
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Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.
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Now let's stop right there. So he believed the chief cupbearer that this man had an ability that no one else in Egypt had.
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He was also impressed by the way he confidently told the interpretation. Pharaoh truly believed that what
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Joseph said was going to come true. And he believed his God gave him this ability. Pharaoh also liked the recommendation that he should appoint a wise man to be able to help in this time of crisis.
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And so what we read in verse 37 is that this proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants.
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And as Pharaoh ponders what wise man he will put in this position, he draws a blank as he thinks about the talented people in Egypt.
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Last week we saw that the magicians and the wise people were useless to him.
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And now Pharaoh is concerned that none of these men have the ability to help him. So Pharaoh says to his servants in verse 38,
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Can we find a man like this in whom is the Spirit of God?
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And this is a rhetorical question. The answer is no, of course not. So Pharaoh desires to put the best man in this position.
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And he's willing to swallow his pride looking past his own people in order to look to Joseph to fill this important role.
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Pharaoh tells Joseph that no one is as wise as him and that he knows that his
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God supernaturally showed him this. Now Pharaoh believed in the
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Egyptian gods. We talked about this last week. This was a polytheistic environment which means that they believed in many gods.
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And Pharaoh probably would have seen Joseph's God as just another God that existed.
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And he had to admit that Joseph's God is greater than his God that we know were false.
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And we don't know if Pharaoh believed in the one true God, but at least we know he respected him.
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How could he not after hearing his reputation? And since this God was with Joseph, Pharaoh knew that this young Hebrew was up for this task.
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He tells Joseph in verse 40 that he would be over his house and all the people would be under his authority.
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The only person above Joseph would be Pharaoh. Of course he's not going to give that up, right?
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And this would kind of be like, in our context, this would kind of be like being appointed to being the
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Vice President of the United States almost out of nowhere. I enjoy studying history and I love
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American history. One story that really fascinates me is the story of Harry Truman. He was our president from 1945 to 1953.
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And before he became a politician in his 40s, in his 30s he was a failed businessman from Missouri.
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And no one, of course, at that time knew who he was. And then he got into politics more at the local level and he kept rising the ladder and then eventually he became a senator in Missouri.
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And when FDR was president, of course FDR served three terms consecutively, and then he ran for president for a fourth term.
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And as he was running for president, he wanted to get someone who would help him win re -election. And since Truman was from the central part of the
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United States, he got him as his running mate. He didn't know much about him, but he figured, well, this man from Missouri is going to help me win re -election.
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And so he picked Truman and they ended up winning re -election. This was a fourth term for FDR. And a couple months after they won re -election and FDR started his fourth term, he died in office.
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And what's interesting about this story is that FDR and Truman only had met a few times while he was vice president.
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They didn't even know each other that well. And all of a sudden, Truman is plunged into this important position of being president.
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And remember, at this time in history, this is World War II. The entire world is in chaos and he's put into this role.
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It's a funny story. He goes to the White House when he heard the news that FDR had passed and Eleanor Roosevelt is there.
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And he says to her, I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do for you? And she famously said to him, is there anything we can do for you?
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You're the one in trouble now. And just feeling the weight of the responsibility that he had.
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And shortly after taking the oath of office, Truman said to reporters, he said, boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now.
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I don't know if you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday,
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I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me. So Truman knew that he needed
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God's help to govern the United States, especially at a troubling time in history as World War II was still taking place.
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And in our text, Joseph also knew how much he needed God's help to govern
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Egypt through this crisis. And we have to put ourselves in Joseph's shoes to see this rise that had taken place.
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He would have been blown away by this. Similar to Truman, this all happened so fast.
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He was the second youngest brother of 12 brothers. He was left for dead by his brothers and sold into slavery because of their hatred and jealousy toward him.
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He was taken to Egypt where he was given a prominent position in Potiphar's house because the
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Lord blessed his work. Then he was falsely accused of assault by Potiphar's wife and then thrown into prison after spending a few years there.
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And even to stand before Pharaoh after spending that time in prison, the text says he was brought out of the pit.
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He had to put new clothes on. He had to shave himself because he was at the bottom of the barrel of society.
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And now, by God's amazing providence, after he interprets these dreams and they see how wise he is and how useful he is, he's brought to be the number two man in Egypt.
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Joseph would have wondered, what happened? This was a whirlwind. And he, like Truman, may have felt like an avalanche fell on him, but he knew that God was with him and he was up for the task.
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And this brings up an important application for each of us. We have important responsibilities in our lives.
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Do you feel the weight of them? And I'm mostly speaking to adults here, but any young kids, you're going to have responsibilities as you grow up, too.
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To be a husband or wife is a weighty responsibility. To be a parent is a weighty responsibility.
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To run your own business or to have a leadership role in your job is a weighty responsibility.
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And you might wonder, am I up for this? How should I think of this? And you should think of this like Joseph, who knew how capable
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God is to handle our weighty responsibilities. Barb shared a quote in our
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Sunday school class last week. She said something along the lines of, God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called.
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Is that about right, Barb? I think I got that right. Qualified. Okay. The way
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I'm saying it, though, is God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. And this is so true. Without the
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Lord, Joseph is nothing. But with him, he has accomplished great things by interpreting these dreams.
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The Lord has equipped him to be ready and qualified to govern Egypt through this crisis of famine.
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And the Lord was with him, and so he was able. And as you walk with the
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Lord, you are also up for the task of whatever leadership responsibility he has given you, whatever important responsibility.
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The Lord is with you as he equips you. And as a personal story, I feel the weight of this as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor, to think, how am
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I going to do this? There are some days where I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm doing here. But then I realize, you know what?
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On my own, I'm not qualified. But with the Lord, I am. And I can do this. And we must always remind ourselves of that in our lives.
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So as we put ourselves in Joseph's shoes, he would have felt the weight. But he would have also had confidence in God.
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God had already proven himself to him over and over through his faithfulness in his life.
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Now in verses 42 through 45, Pharaoh made sure that Joseph looked like an Egyptian so that he could leave the
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Egyptians. So let's read that here in verses 42 through 45. Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck.
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And he made him ride in his second chariot, and they called out before him, Bow the knee!
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Thus he set him over all the land of Egypt. Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I am Pharaoh.
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And without your consent, no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh called
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Joseph's name Zaphonath -Paneah, and he gave him in marriage
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Asenath, the daughter of Potiphar, priest of On. So Joseph went out over the land of Egypt.
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So one way we can describe this is this is cultural assimilation. And Mark has been trying to make me look like a
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Eureka. Ever since I've moved here, he's taken me fishing. He hasn't taken me catching yet.
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He's only taken me fishing. Catching is going to come later, hopefully. He's taught me how to shoot a gun, and he's taught me how to shoot a bow.
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And so I'm more one of you than when I came here. By the way, we went to Minneapolis yesterday, and when we came home, I was like, I'm so glad we live here.
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It's so much quieter out here. So yeah, I'm definitely much closer to a
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Eureka night. You probably never even used that word. I use that word, but I'm much closer than I ever have been,
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I would say. But all joking aside, it makes sense that Joseph had to take on the
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Egyptian way for the people to respect him and listen to him. He put a ring on his hand, fine linen garments with a gold chain around his neck.
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He rode on the second chariot as Pharaoh rode on the first, and people even bowed to Joseph.
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And verse 44 tells us that Pharaoh gave him complete authority, as he told him, without your consent, no one shall lift a hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.
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Pharaoh called Joseph the Egyptian name Zaphonath -Paneah. A little bit harder to say than Joseph.
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And lastly, the Pharaoh gave Joseph away in marriage to the Egyptian woman Asenath, who was married to a prominent priest in Egypt.
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So this is the new chapter for Joseph. My, how his life has changed. But the
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Lord is with him through this enormous responsibility ahead of him to lead this nation of Egypt through this crisis of famine.
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And he's with each of us, too, in the responsibilities that we face in our lives.
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So this is the first way how the Lord sufficiently provides help in times of need by equipping his people to handle weighty responsibilities.
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The second way how the Lord provides help in times of need is by answering the call of those in distress.
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And we'll see this in verses 46 through 57. As we might expect now that Joseph is in this position, he does what he told
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Pharaoh before needed to be done. Let's see this in verses 46 through 49.
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Joseph was 30 years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
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And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt. During the seven plentiful years, the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the food of these seven years which occurred in the land of Egypt and put the food in the cities.
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He put in every city the food from the fields around it, and Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.
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Let's stop right there. Now we read in verse 46 that Joseph was 30 years old when the rise happened.
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That's not very old to be the second man in power in a land like Egypt.
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And the narrative on Joseph began when he was 17 years old. That was when his father
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Jacob made a beautiful colt and his brothers were jealous. And not long after that, when
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Joseph went to look for his brothers in the field, way to the north in Shechem, that's when they plotted to kill him.
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And we know what happened after that. We know the story from 17 to 30 and all the adversity that he faced to be to this place as the number two man in Egypt.
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And now that he has arrived at the age of 30, the Lord has given him great authority. As I mentioned above,
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Pharaoh did what he told Pharaoh a wise man would do. Remember when he interpreted his dreams to him? He told him, this is what a wise man would do.
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Store up everything for seven years, in the years of plenty, so that the seven years of famine we will have enough food to be able to feed everybody.
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And as I was reading this and thinking about how Egypt has seven years of plenty and then seven years of famine, it made me think of the time in American history before the stock market crashed in 1929.
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The 1920's were known as the Rurian 20's. Things were good in America. It was a time of great prosperity and people could not have foreseen the suffering that was going to come on the world in the 1930's.
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And Elvin and Susan, you may remember, have some memories from your childhood. The Great Depression in the 1930's and that would be fascinating to hear those as well.
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But in our narrative here, there wasn't a man like Joseph in the 1920's to tell people this is what's going to happen so that you're ready.
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They weren't prepared for it and great suffering happened as a result. But in this case, in this text, in Egypt, they were prepared for it because the man of God, Joseph, was ready.
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And the Lord put him there to help this nation.
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So once the years of plenty ended, they were ready for the famine. The Lord equipped them for this.
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Now in the remainder of this chapter, we get an overview of what happened in the years of the famine and specifically how
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Joseph saved the day. So let's read verses 50 -57 and then we'll see how this is relevant to each of our lives.
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Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Paraphera, the priest of On, bore them to him.
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Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my hardship at all my father's house.
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The name of the second he called Ephraim, for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.
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The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end. And the seven years of famine began to come.
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As Joseph had said, there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread.
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Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do. So when the famine had spread over all the land,
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Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
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Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.
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Now before these verses describe what the years of famine looked like and what Joseph's role was in that, we see that Joseph had two sons born to him before the famine came.
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In verses 50 -52, we learn that through his wife Asenath, he had two sons,
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Manasseh and Ephraim. Manasseh sounds like the Hebrew word forget. What this means is that the
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Lord helped Joseph forget all the hardship he faced when he was in the land of Canaan in his father's house.
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The second name, Ephraim, sounds like the Hebrew words making fruitful, and this describes
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Joseph's journey from rags to riches. The Lord brought him from adversity and he's made him fruitful in his life and turned things around for him.
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Before Joseph was appointed to be the number two man under Pharaoh, his time in Egypt was non -stop affliction.
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So he's gone from nothing but adversity and low positions to royalty in just a matter of a few years.
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But even though the famine was hard, as we see in the remaining verses of this chapter, and there was no rain, they were ready for it.
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There was no sun to produce these crops. The Lord prepared the people of Egypt for this because he gave them
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Joseph. Verse 55 says that the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said to the
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Egyptians, go to Joseph. What he says to you, do. Another way of thinking of this is go to God's representative here.
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He's been sent on behalf to help you. Joseph acts like a savior figure here.
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Whenever we hear the word savior, the first person that comes to mind is Jesus Christ. In our narrative,
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Joseph saves Egypt by wisely planning ahead and storing up all this food for the nation to survive the famine.
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And so Joseph is God's vessel for this. And when I said the name
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Jesus comes to mind, that's appropriate, right? Because he is the savior of the world. As we think about physical deliverance, we should also think of spiritual deliverance.
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In John 4 .42, the Samaritans said this concerning Jesus when they met him. It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.
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Romans 10 .13 says, anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So we see here, as the people cry out in distress,
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God answers. And He delivers. Now we know that when
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Scripture refers to Jesus as the savior, it's not talking about physical, but spiritual help.
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Just as the Egyptians cried out to God's man, Joseph, for help, so does anyone who believes in Jesus cry out to help for salvation.
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Just think about this. When you're overtaken by your sin, and you're thinking, I am a wretched sinner. I deserve
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God's just punishment for my sins. And you say, Lord, help me. God's saying,
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Yes. Here's Jesus. He sufficiently paid the price for my sins.
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God sufficiently provides help when we call to Him. And He does this by saving us, and He also sufficiently provides help for the life of faith as you go and you walk with the
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Lord. Psalm 46 .1 says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
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God is in the business of helping those who cry out to Him, and He always provides the sufficient help.
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His help is never lacking in any way. In Egypt, the
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Lord gives this pagan nation Joseph so that all this food can be stored up, and they have enough food to survive the seven years of famine.
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And we think about the cross of Jesus Christ, and we talk about spiritual deliverance. The cross of Christ sufficiently pays the penalty for our sins.
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So when we come to Christ and we say, Lord, I need You. Would You save me?
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We don't have to do anything. We just believe. The work's already been done for us, and it's been done in full.
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It's sufficient. And that's what's so remarkable, and it's so common for false religions to say, you know what, we need to do this, we need to do that, we need to work to get to heaven.
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But the Bible says, you need to stop working, and you need to rest, and you need to believe in Jesus Christ.
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That's what believing is. When you're trusting Christ, what you're doing is you're saying, I don't trust myself.
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I trust another. I trust Him, because He did everything for me when He went to the cross and rose from the dead.
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And you may be looking at this text and say, the text is talking about the
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Lord helping those who do not know Him. And that's true. But if the text is saying that the
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Lord helps those who aren't His people, then why am I saying from this text that the
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Lord helps His people when they cry out? If we're being diligent students of the text, we want to dry out the meaning of the text here.
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I say this because if the Lord helps those who aren't His people when they cry out, as He did with Egypt, how much more will
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He help us? Stay with me, everyone. Stay with me, please. God is so gracious that He helps those who aren't
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His when physical needs arrive. But how much more does He abundantly provide for His children in the life of faith?
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This is God's character. This is what He does. He's in the business of helping those who are in times of need.
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And as we look at our life, as we look at our life, the Lord always sufficiently provides help.
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You need financial help? He provides that. You need encouragement? He provides that. You need a friend?
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He provides that. I'm thinking about our church as I was writing this sermon this week, and when
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I came here, obviously I'm very grateful for everyone who is here, but I was thinking, you know, we could use some help in trying to build this church, and the
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Lord has done that. And some of you are new faces. Many of you are new faces from when we first came here, and the
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Lord has provided help in so many ways, and I'm just amazed at God. And what
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He has done just in a little over two years at this church. And when we think about the life of faith too, when you fight your sin,
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He provides sufficient help to win that battle. He gives the Spirit and the Word of God to fight the fight of faith and to grow in holiness.
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And not only to fight over your own sinful flesh, but also to fend off the attacks from the devil.
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The Lord, through the Word of God and through the help of the Holy Spirit, has given us all the resources we need to live the life of faith.
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And so when we find ourselves in trouble, which we will, we must go to Him and say,
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Lord, help me. We can never say as believers that God does not sufficiently provide help for us when we sincerely cry out to Him.
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Romans 8 .32 is one of the most beautiful verses in Scripture. It says, He who did not spare
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His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not graciously give us all things?
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He was willing to give up His Son for you. How much more will He be willing to help you out as you go through the journey of the life of faith?
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The Lord never fails to provide what people need in times of trouble. And we see it here with how
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He helps the Egyptians by giving them Joseph. And He does the same for us, His children, in so many ways.
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And He does it when we cry out to Him with our physical needs and our spiritual needs. He's a Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us.
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So this is the second way how the Lord sufficiently provides help in times of need by answering the call of those in distress.
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So to summarize our sermon this morning, the Lord sufficiently provides help in times of need.
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And we see two ways how in this text. The first is by equipping His people to handle weighty responsibilities.
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And the second way is by answering the call of those in distress. We have a wonderful God who is always there to provide for us.
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And so we should not feel overwhelmed with the important roles He has given us or the difficult circumstances that we might be facing in our lives.
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And like a caring Father, He's always there to give us just what we need. And if you've walked with Him long enough, you know this to be true.
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Now next week, we are going to remain in the period of famine here. The seven years of famine.
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And we're going to see that over the next several chapters in Genesis. And what we saw at the end of our text in verse 57 is not only was this famine in Egypt, but it had spread far beyond Egypt.
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It says in that verse, it spread over the whole earth. So we will see His brothers come to Egypt, the same brothers who plotted to kill
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Him and thought He was somewhere in Egypt because they sold Him to those who were passing by.
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We're going to see this encounter. And of course, they're not going to know that this powerful man in Egypt is their brother.
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So I look forward to looking at that with you. Let's pray together. Father in Heaven, I thank
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You for the Word of God. Lord, every passage of Scripture has so much to speak to us.
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Every passage is practical. You're telling us something about how this should impact our lives.
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And I thank You, Lord, for what this text teaches us. It shows us how abundant You are, how gracious You are in helping
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Your people. I've experienced that in my own life, and I know many here have experienced that as well.
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And so we praise You for that, Lord. How wonderful You are to help us with our weighty responsibilities in life.
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And if we think, Lord, I'm not up for this, that's the right way to think. But if we think
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I can't do it, that's the wrong way to think. We should say I can do it with God's help. And so,
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Lord, I thank You for showing us that today. And I thank You, Lord, that You always provide sufficient help for Your people in times of need.
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And may we understand this and live this and go to You, Lord. That we would not go to other places, but that we would go to You to help.