The After Sermon /// How can we embrace the painful situations in life?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

What is God doing when nothing seems to be happening?

Eric sits down with Doug to continue the Flannelgraph series and explore the story of Joseph. Together, they talk about the thread of God’s presence through the pit, Potiphar’s house, and prison—and why difficult circumstances are not necessarily evidence that God has abandoned us.

They also discuss the “crucible” of transformation, our cultural obsession with comfort, and how God may use painful seasons to shape us into people who are capable of humility, forgiveness, and faithfulness.

Joseph could only see one moment at a time. God was writing a much larger story.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full sermon that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, welcome to the after party. Ah, it's not the after party, but based on this hat, it might be. Oh, there we go. This is the after sermon where we catch up with this weekend's communicator and we talk about maybe some stuff that you left on the cutting room floor or some things that you're thinking about. And um, this week we're in a really cool sermon series called Flannelgraph, where you've been scolding former Sunday school teachers for their lack of teaching out the full story. But I think you know don't be offended, Sunday school teachers. We love you. Um, but in fairness, you you really did draw some conclusions around, hey, some things I wished I knew. I w I wish we would say this more often. Would you just sort of like Doug talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, I think it's one thing to know the narrative, the people involved in the story and the twists and the turns of the plot of their lives, it's another thing to really pay close attention to this thread of God at work in people's life.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

If there's a bigger story, yeah, like like it's not just that story, which the story was Joseph. We were looking at Joseph in Genesis 39, 37, 30, 39. Um so if you were to pull the thread real quick and say, all right, what is that thread? How'd you describe that?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, I think if you would take a snapshot of any of these um scenes, so to speak, in Joseph's life, it would have felt like God had abandoned him. Um yet, if you're to see the thread carefully, and scriptures communicated as well, that God was with Joseph in each of these different scenes of his life, where from an outsider looking in, we might think, boy, it feels like God was not involved at all here. God abandoned him, God forgot about him, or God was busy doing something else that day, and he ended up in each of these different scenarios that were really difficult. Uh, but we can see uh God's faithfulness, and we can see Joseph doing his best to maintain faithfulness to the Lord in the middle of all of that, too.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

It's interesting. I heard someone say this about God sitting outside the construct of time. That he he sits outside his construct. We don't. And because of that, wherever we're at, that's where we're at.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

So God's already worked the whole thing out. Yeah, it's already done. So he's it's almost like he's up there going, hey, hey, hey, just chill out for a minute. Like I know what you're sitting in right now, but I've worked this whole thing out. There's a whole thing at play, and you can't see it because you're stuck where you're at. But that's where faith comes in. The ability to sort of know that God's doing something.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And I think sometimes we we get lost in the narrative of our own lives and the things that we have to face to forget, God is actually at work in all of that. Totally. Not and and sometimes we think that that's about our stuff. Like that's huge, but it's bigger, and God's at work. And so as we navigate difficult circumstances, situations, uh, relational things, all the things that God puts us into other moments of his bigger plan unfolding. And it's it's really hard. I've been there, it's really hard to sometimes see beyond the challenge of my circumstance to see God still there and God's still at work. Well, so this is key.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

You made this line in the message, and I think it's really key. You said this. You said the man, this is Joseph, who walked out of that prison, right, was not the same 17-year-old boy who had been thrown in the pit. Yeah, right. He was different. And sometimes, oftentimes, the work isn't just about some of the external stuff. God is using these waiting rooms, as you put it, to do something in me. Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, I mean, we definitely see it in Joseph's story, but I think we've experienced in our stories too. And the problem is that all too often we're not like looking deep enough into what God's doing because we're so consumed by our circumstance and just getting out of whatever's painful that we're missing some of the things that God is wanting to do in us. And unfortunately, all too often it's only in hindsight that we look back and see God's hand at work. And maybe some for some of us, we never see it. Like we quit, we bail, we run, whatever, uh, and try and get out of the situation and we focus all our energies there instead of you know letting one of our first prayers be, God, yes, I will really want this circumstance to change. And would you please, X, Y, or Z? But at the same time, I want to pay close attention to what you're doing in me. Will you help me not miss it? See, this is huge.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I actually had a conversation with Dr. Harv Powers this week, and he has a I mean, he literally is he's unreal. Unreal. But he talks about the process of transformation and his process, you cannot do it outside what he calls the crucible. Yeah, the crucible is the place that changes you from the caterpillar to structural change, and I think that's what you're getting at. Like this was a crucible, like he was being put into this thing to be shaped into something different. Yeah. And I think we why is it that we resist the crucible so much if if indeed that's where transformation happens?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Because it hurts. And we want out when it hurts. We we have an expectation, and that's part of what I tried to address too, that like we think if we can just do all the things right, then my life is gonna work out right. And that's just not that's not the Bible that we have. Like, there we do try and do things right.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Um, we try and remain faithful, even in difficult times. But when the difficulties hit, we can become so consumed about that and just getting out of it that we're missing what God's doing in it. And it it hurts, it's hard to navigate tough times. We've all been through them, and all we want is reprieve.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Well, I think too, we've talked a ton about this in the teaching team, and you mention it. So we have like this teaching team that meets every week, and I think it's all about understanding what the goal of your life is to be. And we live in a culture where we've engineered discomfort out, and the primary goal is to be comfortable. So, like a crucible is probably like on the other end of comfort. Oh, for sure. Right? So it's like, oh well, I shouldn't be in here. It's not that I don't even want to be in here, I shouldn't be in here because isn't the goal of our whole life to be comfortable? So, how how do we fight against that? Like, what do we do with it?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

I I think part it's what you said, you know, if if God was if the scriptures are true, that God was with Joseph in the pit, in Potiphar's house, and while he was in prison, um, then we we need to we need to understand that he's at work in those things in our and those seasons in our life too. It's really powerful. And I love the end of my message because at the end, you know, we're talking about a much bigger, grander picture of what God was doing. Yeah, I did. I love that. And it's, you know, like his brother, this is a big deal. His brother's name was Judah, and one of the tribes of the nation of Israel is the tribe of Judah, which is also the tribe that Jesus comes from. And if these things hadn't happened and his brothers would have died in a famine, um, then this whole plan of God would have got circumvented somehow. And so, you know, Joseph would never know that. He would never know. I mean, he know he'll know in heaven, he he didn't know in his lifetime that part of what was happening was the literal redemptive plan of God unfolding. And that's like us too. We don't know what God's redemptive plan in someone else's life looks like. And maybe if we wouldn't have been in certain like I can remember when Josh was so sick and we were at the hospital, I'd have never met any of those people had we not um been in that environment. And the Lord used that in instrumentally in people's lives, and people came to faith. And um I mean, it's just powerful to see God's hand at work in so many unique and powerful ways, even when we're not paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Well, and he he did something in you too, Doug. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like he shaped you in Beth through this, and I thought about that and I and I thought about Joseph. So here he is in his family, the same, some of the same people who really, really hurt him, like hurt him deeply, betrayed him deeply, are standing in front of him. And in that moment, he could have exacted revenge, done what the world like the good, that's how the movie wipe him off the planet. And this is how I know that something was happening in the prison, it was happening in the palace, it was happening in him because it shaped him into a man that could look at people who absolutely crushed him and forgive them. That's amazing, and not only forgive them, usher them into his goodness. And that to me, that's the point of the crucible. Yeah, like it shapes you to be the kind of person that when you have a chance to retro have retribution, you do now. Fast forward to Matthew and all that Jesus says about forgiveness and reconciliation. You can see the threat even there. It's like, here's a guy who's staying there living it out. It's amazing, it's amazing. It's a great story.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I know, man. I'm so glad you preached. We probably should have done a whole series on Joseph's. Well, we could someday. We could I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

You know the boss. We could do it. Well, on that note, you should listen to this. Um, you can go to any of your podcasting platforms, come to YouTube, the Plum Creek uh YouTube channel. You can watch it, listen to it, and um I think I think it's worth the listen. So thanks, bro. Pretty you all right. Love you guys until next time.