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So we are in the middle of a series, a summer series, coming from Hebrews chapter 11. So if you happen to have a Bible, I encourage you to go ahead and pull out your Bible and look at Hebrews chapter 11. It's in the New Testament. And the verses will actually be on the screen above me, but we encourage you to see it for yourself. And there's even some Bibles underneath the chairs around the room. And if you want to pick up one of those, you can do that as well. They're not the nicest Bibles, but they're a Bible, and you can even take one with you if you don't own a Bible. We'd love for you to have that. And as we've been working through Hebrews chapter 11, this chapter has really kind of been tagged the Hall of Faith. So rather than uh the Hall of Fame, it's the Hall of Faith, and it's these characters from the Old Testament, uh, the Old Testament in the Bible that tell us a little bit about how they walked and operated in faith in God in hard circumstances in their everyday lives. And now we look back to them as examples, as heroes, if you will, of the faith. And so we think about these men and even some women that are listening to this chapter and go, wow, like they had such great faith. I mean, look at what they did. Guys like Noah, who we talked about the first week, who God told him to build a big boat. He didn't even know what a boat was. Uh he hadn't have a lake around. He still tells him to build this uh big boat and that there's a flood coming. And so for you know 120 years, he's like cranking away working on a boat, uh, and then God brings a flood and he floods the earth, and and Noah is saved along with his family. Crazy story, huh? Last week Harley kind of walked us through um the father Abraham, a man of faith who led his family to follow God, and they ended up uh going on this journey, his whole family pack it up, and they just start walking and following God and trusting God and saying, God, we're gonna we're gonna obey you. And God says you're gonna have a baby, and uh He's gonna be, you're gonna have a you're gonna have uh you're gonna be blessed, and God, all the nations are gonna be blessed through you. And he's like, I'm an old man, we don't have any children, how's this gonna happen? But by faith, uh he believed, and God uh gave them a child named Isaac, who then, of course, all of the nation of Israel comes from. And so I want to read just one verse from Hebrews chapter 11 today, verse 22 to be exact, because this tells us about our next character we're gonna look at today. And uh this is just a simple verse that maybe when you read it, you're like, okay, well, what does this have to do with faith, or how does this actually work? And we're gonna unpack that together if that's okay with you guys. But let's read it together. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 22. It says this by faith, Joseph, as he was nearing the end of his life, mentioned the Exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions concerning his bones. The end. That's it. That's what we get on Joseph in Hebrews chapter 11. And it's an interesting verse if you don't know the context, or maybe you don't know the Bible that well, and that's okay. Like I said, that's okay. Uh but we're gonna jump now from there back to Genesis chapter 37. And as you're going there, let me ask you a question in Genesis chapter 37, which is where Joseph's life begins, or at least we see him and come onto the scene. Have you ever gone through hardship and difficulty to the degree that you questioned God's goodness in your life? Have you ever been through circumstances and situations, maybe on the home front, maybe in your health, maybe at work, maybe just in life in general, that made you question whether God was real? Or whether God was good? Or that God existed or God uh cares? Any of those questions ever roll around your mind? I think if you are honest, if I'm honest, as human beings, we've all gone through days like that, moments like that, where we've questioned, is God real? Does he care? Is he good? Do I matter to him? Does this Bible that tells us about him is it true? Do these stories really reflect who God is? Because let's be honest, the hardship of life can really press us and can cause us to move towards fear rather than faith. Right? We go through difficult circumstances, our our marriage is crumbling, our children are rebelling, our work, we are getting laid off, uh, our health fails us, and in those moments we discover that our humanity causes us to doubt God. And for those of you who maybe don't believe in God or maybe have struggled to even believe in God, those moments just almost solidify in your mind there can't be a good God, or this wouldn't be happening. Well, if there's anyone who could really fit that bill in terms of understanding what hardship does to you, it would be Joseph. It would be the story of Joseph. And some of you who are familiar with this story already get this, because maybe you remember some of the tragic things he had to deal with, the difficulties he had to face. But I want to unpack four chapters in Joseph's life that show us some of this, and then we're gonna come full circle back to this verse in Hebrews, verse 22 and 11, chapter 11, because you understand why Joseph was such a man of faith. You see, in chapter 37 of Genesis, we start to get to know Joseph a little bit, and the scene doesn't really start out well. Uh actually, our ideas about who Joseph is typically don't include this part of the story, at least don't include um kind of the negative aspects of the of the introduction to Joseph. Now, let me explain what I mean. When you meet Joseph, he's 17 years old. Any 17-year-olds in here? Uh there's some teenagers probably in here, and all of us in our lives, if we're honest, uh at teenage years, uh, we probably weren't as mature. Agreed? Um now again, some of you maybe were more mature than others at that age, but in general, maturity isn't uh necessarily a high quality or high trait, I guess I say, of a teenager. And so I've worked with teens for a lot of years, and I tend to watch teenagers make decisions that are that are short-term decisions that have long-term consequences, right? And they don't really they don't really think logically at that moment. Maybe it's hormones, maybe it's just feelings and emotions driving these decisions rather than truth. And we can do the same thing as adults, but as a teenager, there's a lot of times a lack of wisdom that's there. And so Joseph is no different. And in this section of the scripture, it tells us that as a 17-year-old, he was a shepherd, and he had a lot of brothers, eleven brothers, and that these brothers uh and he didn't really get along with them, and there's a few reasons why he didn't get along with them, but even in chapter 37, it tells us that Joseph was the tattletale. Now, any of you guys like tattletales? Probably not, right? Uh, my kids, when they come to me and they're like, my brother or my sister, when they start that way, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, just a second. Are you telling me this because you care about your brother or your sister and you want to help them? Or are you telling me this because you're angry at them and you want you know vengeance? You want me to like step in and hurt them for you, right? That's what it's it's interesting, and most of the time for my kids, it's like, I want you to do something, dad. This is injustice, right? And I need you to fix this problem. Well, here's Joseph, and he is tattling on his brothers because the Hebrew language, which is a little bit hard to understand in the English here, literally, it's not just that he's giving a report that his brothers are doing the wrong thing, it's that he's actually embellishing that, and he's saying, My brothers, man, they are they are evil dudes. They are bad dudes, dad. And you need to you need to get on them. You need to get on their case, you need to take care of them. They're doing these bad things. And so that's kind of where Joseph is. In his immaturity, he is determined to get his brothers in trouble. He's determined to get his dad's heart turned against them, and which is interesting considering that in the text it tells us that Joseph was the favorite son. Now, I don't want to create any, you know, undue, unnecessary tension in the room, but you know, again, maybe these people aren't here today. But if you grew up in a home where there was a favorite child, that that's not a cool situation, is it? That is not fun when there is a favorite son or daughter, and all the rest of the kids know it. I mean, nobody will really necessarily say it out loud, or mom and dad may not say this is my favorite son, but you know there's something going on. Now, there's a whole sermon here because Jacob has some major daddy wounds. Like he has some issues going on in his past, and he hasn't exactly been a great guy because Abraham had that son Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob, and Jacob is now Joseph's father, so that's kind of the trajectory we've been on. And there's some issues between Isaac and Jacob, and now Jacob's got this favorite son named Joseph, and he shows that he's his favorite son by giving him this really cool coat. Now, I don't mean to mess up your Sunday school if you grew up in church, but we're not completely sure that that's that coat that he was given was a coat of many colors, but we do know it was fancy. Okay, it was like really sweet. And when he got it, his brothers were not happy. It was not cool that their brother got this really nice coat, this robe, uh, whatever it was, and they were they were very frustrated that, hey, dad is just proving what we already know to be true, which is that Joseph is the favorite. And so in the story, there's this tension growing. In fact, four times in these first 11 verses, it says his brothers are hating him. Like they are growing. It's not just like they're angry, they're frustrated, like they hate him. That's a strong word, right? They're growing in hatred towards the brother. And to make matters worse, Joseph in scene one of this in his immaturity, he has these dreams that, you know, we believe are from God because we know where they end up going, but he has these dreams, and one of them, these sheaves of wheat, uh, are all there and they're circled around and they bow down to him in the dream. And even more, he has another dream where the sun, moon, and the stars bow down to him. And so, in essence, he, rather than being humble and being like, wow, God, I don't know what you're doing, but I'm just gonna hold on to this and just see what happens. What does he do? He goes straight to his family and says, Hey, listen, guys, you guys are all gonna bow down in front of me. It's gonna be awesome. You guys are all gonna be on your knees before me, right? Now, again, we know that actually did come to pass, but his arrogance, right? His naivety, his inability to see in that moment, his lack of self-awareness, he goes and he just tells his brothers, well, of course, that just increases their hatred for him. So much so that here he goes out to be with his brothers, he's hanging out with them while they're doing what they were supposed to be doing or not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we don't know. But there they are, and the brothers are like, Look, we're gonna kill this guy. I mean, this is our brother here, but some of the brothers just say, we're gonna just kill him, we're just taking him out. And one of the brothers speaks up and says, Hey, look, this is our own flesh and blood. Let's don't kill him. Let's let's throw him in a pit. So they take a well that's dry, they throw him in there. And so now here he is in a pit, and the brothers are trying to decide what they're gonna do. They're eating and hanging out, and all the while he's down there in this pit, I'm sure he's crying, he's sad. And these this caravan of individuals comes by, and these slave traders and other doing other things, and when they say, Well, look, let's not kill him, let's just sell him. And so I know I've gotten angry with my brother before, and he's gotten angry with me, but we never sold each other into slavery. Right? We thought about it, but we never did it. Okay, but literally his brothers say, Look, we're just gonna sell him, and so for some pieces of silver, they sell their brother into slavery. That's pretty intense. I mean, that's pretty crazy that they had that much hatred, that much angst, that much frustration that they literally sold him into slavery. So here goes Joseph now, off into slavery. The second scene, or the second chapter, I should say, really includes three scenes where we find Joseph showing incredible resolve and hardship. Now I know that Joseph egged on his brothers. I know that in his immaturity he caused some of those issues, and he caused his brothers to be angry at him and frustrated at him. And I know Jacob fed into that with the coat of many colors, but I mean, to be thrown into a pit, that's pretty intense, right? So we see that story that literally his brothers reject him and and they kick him out of the family. They take, they actually shred the coat and put blood on it, and they take it back to the dad and say, Look, a wild animal got him. That's a pretty intense story that they would make up so that they could get by with this horrible action that they've done. And so now you see Joseph dealing with this. And so from that point, he gets sold into a rich man's house in Egypt called named Potiphar. Maybe you know this story. And he goes into his house and it says that God is with him, and then that Joseph is very uh adept, and that he he learns and he does what he needs to do, and he's very wise, and pretty soon he's moved all the way up to second in command in Potiphar's house. Like he's under Potiphar. And he's basically doing all these things, managing Potiphar's household. And in the text it literally says that Potiphar's giving him access to everything except one thing: his wife. That's a good thing, right? And so here he is. He's got access to all of Potiphar's stuff because he's been a trustworthy servant. So now he's been entrusted to steward all of Potiphar's things. And at this point, an interesting turn, twist in the plot, because Potiphar's wife has been eyeing Joseph, who seems to be a, according to scripture, a handsome young man. And in her perverted, messed up view, she sees him as an object of lust, and she actually tries to pursue an inappropriate relationship with him. And it says literally in the story that over time Joseph just kept saying, no, no, no, no. This wasn't like a one-time thing, but like literally Joseph's saying, no, I'm not going to give in to temptation. I'm not going to sleep with you. I'm not going to dishonor my master. And finally, she literally like catches him one day in private and tries to get him to sleep with her. Come with me. And he literally runs out of the room. It says that she strips his outer garments off. We don't even know what happened beyond that, but basically he runs out of the room sort of naked, okay? Because he was so determined to avoid temptation that he just ran out of the room. Now there's that right there will preach, won't it? When you see temptation, like that's what should be our response is to run the other way. Okay, that that right there in and of itself is a whole message on how we deal with temptation. Because when you stay, you're giving yourself a chance to do something you know you don't really want to do as a Christ follower. And so we we need to run from temptation. But beyond that, we see in the story that Joseph says something really, really important. And this is another big piece of how we see Joseph's character being shaped in the midst of this hardship, his resolve. And this is in chapter 39, and it says in verse 9, No one in this house is greater than I am. This is Joseph talking about himself in front of our two, Potiphar's wife. He has, as in Potiphar, has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil? Catch this last sentence, this last phrase, and sin against who? Against God. You see, Joseph understood that if he sinned, he wasn't just offending his earthly master, he was offending his heavenly father. He was offending God. When we sin, when we blow up, we're not just offending people. We're there's a vertical consequence to our actions too, right? And Joseph said, I'm not gonna give up on my God, I'm not gonna disobey my God, even though you keep trying to pull me into this inappropriate relationship. And so that's where he finds himself. The third scene is actually because now she accuses him falsely. Uh this Potiphar's wife steps up and says, Hey, he actually came after me, trying to cover her own self, and she says, Look, he even left his clothes in here, which she had them. And so they say, Well, um, we got to go with Potiphar's wife. She's the one with the reputable, uh, credible, uh, you know, she's the person who we can listen to. We can that she's she must be right. And so therefore, what do they do? Throw Joseph into prison. Did he do anything wrong? No. And yet, what happens? He's in prison. So he gets thrown into prison, and while he's in prison, he starts to slowly rise again in responsibility to the degree that he literally becomes like second in command in the jail. You see a trend here? He's second in command in the jail. And now the jailer's like, hey, look, Joseph, you just manage everything. My job's easy now. I got this guy, Joseph, he's just taking care of everything going on in the prison. He's he's taking care of all the prisoners and planning and all that stuff. And so two people that get thrown into jail while he's in there are the cupbearer or the pharaoh and the baker. The cook and the cupbearer end up in prison with Joseph. And Joseph builds a relationship with them. And they have these strange dreams. And these dreams are really unusual and mysterious, and they can't figure out what they mean. And Joseph says, I can tell you what they mean. And he does, he tells them what they mean. In essence, what happens is that the baker dies after that Pharaoh restores him, but the cupbearer lives. Okay? It's a real short version of that, but that's what happens, is that Joseph says, This is what's gonna transpire, and sure enough, that's exactly what happens. Baker dies, cupbearer lives. But before they leave, Joseph says something to them. He says, Don't forget me. And what does the cupbearer do? Forgets them. Human nature, right? You bless me, thank you, but then now I'm gonna forget and move on. And so he forgets, and he actually starts just serving for Pharaoh again, who's restored to his position. And in the story, here's Joseph left in prison. What's he gonna do? So three things that have happened to Joseph that he has had to deal with. First, his own brothers reject him and throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery. Then Potiphar's wife comes after him, he resists, but she falsely accuses him, and now he ends up in prison. Then, while he's in prison, he actually interprets the dreams of two guys, and those two guys, one of them dies, but the other one who doesn't die forgets him and he gets left in prison. And there he is, hanging out, just waiting. And this is all before he's age 30. But then the last chapter we see, or the next chapter we see, is his rise to leadership. Genesis chapter 41. And in this Genesis 41 section, uh Pharaoh has a dream. He has two dreams, two visions and dreams that basically talk about some cows and some fat cows and some skinny cows. I'm not going to talk about the whole thing right now. You should go read it. It's pretty funny. And he reads this the story about the fat cows and skinny cows and the fat heads of wheat and the thin heads of wheat. And in essence, what it ultimately boils down to is that no one can interpret this dream for Pharaoh, but they're asking, and the cupbearer says, I know somebody. He remembers. And so he remembers Joseph. Joseph then comes to the Pharaoh. And what's cool is that Joseph, every time he gets ready to interpret a dream or talk about what these things mean, you know what he always says? He says, I can't do this, but my God can. God is the revealer of dreams. That's humility, isn't it? I mean, you think he could just say, Well, I yeah, I'll tell you what your dream is. I'm good like that. He's changed a little bit since he was that 17-year-old back then. And now he says, No, my God can reveal because he's the God of mysteries. And so he does. He tells him there's going to be seven years of abundance, and then there's going to be seven years of famine. And Pharaoh says, Well, what do you think we should do? And Joseph says, I think what you should do is you should harvest extra in the seven years of abundance and store it up, and then in the seven years of famine, you're going to be good. You got enough, you got enough to feed everyone. And Pharaoh says, Man, that's brilliant. You guys, you jump in there, you're going to be the second in command in all the land. And it's interesting that the Pharaoh, who's not a believer in God, right? Pharaoh was actually viewed as God in the Egyptian world. He says to this about Joseph, he said, Because God's hand is on you, because God is with you, I'm going to make you second in command. And so he does that. Now, here's Joseph at age 30 and made second in command of all of Egypt, which was at that time the strongest, most powerful nation on the planet. But then the fourth chapter that we see is Joseph's reconciliation with his family. His reconciliation with his family. What happened to those brothers? What happened to his dad and all the family that you know sold him into slavery and then he's back, they're back there in their land. What happened? Well, eventually, because Joseph has his plan in place, when the famine strikes, they need food too. And so they show up on the scene. You guys know the story? They show up on the scene and they're saying, We need food. Joseph immediately recognizes them, but they have no clue who he is. Can you imagine what was going through Joseph's mind in that moment? Oh yeah. Got him right where I want him, right? I mean, here he is, he's there, and his brothers are there. They're what are they doing? Bowing down. That sounds like a dream he had. And they're in front of him and they're asking for some food. And so he does give them some food, and there's some crazy stories that happen where he tries to mess with them a little bit, and he puts uh objects that belong to him into their sacks, and then he tracks them down, he ends up throwing them in prison, and a couple of them in prison. It's just this crazy story, but eventually they all end up in Egypt. All that family ends up in Egypt. And if you don't know the story of the Bible, this is how the people of Israel. Israel ultimately ended up in Egypt and eventually becoming slaves to the Pharaoh in Egypt. In the coming weeks, we're going to talk about Moses, who is going to help deliver the people from slavery and bondage in Egypt. So this is how it all fits together, okay? And in the story, there's a moment where Joseph finally breaks. He just sends all of his servants out of the room. Again, I encourage you to go read it for yourself. And he breaks down and he just he loves his brothers, he loves on his brothers. He hugs them, he weeps, and he's he just tells them he loves them and he's so sorry. And he just cares for them. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure that that would be my initial response to people who sold me into slavery. But that's Joseph's response. And so he's then reconciled to his brother. And he invites the whole family to come and live, and they're given one of the best pieces of land called Goshen in all of Egypt. Because God protected and worked through Joseph to provide for his people, which is a pretty awesome thought. But Joseph had to struggle through all that to get there. So to culmination of Joseph's story is in Genesis chapter 50, and this is where we're going to camp out for the remainder of our time. If you have a Bible, if you're already there, just turn over to Genesis chapter 50, and I want to look at three verses. Because my initial question to you guys was have you ever struggled to believe in a good God? Have you ever struggled to believe that God loves you and cares about you? Have you ever struggled to feel like God was for you when you were going through hard circumstances? Now do you see why Joseph could say, man, I understand what that's like. I get that. Because he's gone through these three difficult circumstances in his life, gone through years of waiting, and then God raises him up for a perfect position in a perfect point in time to save his people. But basically what happens is that Jacob, Joseph's dad, passes away. He dies. And all the brothers think now that dad's gone, Joseph's really going to let it all hang out. He's going to come after us. He was just basically being kind to us because Dad was still alive. There's a lot of truth in what happens in families when parents pass away, right? Some of the nastiness that can come out. And in this situation, that's what the sons are expecting, the brothers are expecting that Joseph's going to go off on them. But he pulls them in and notice what he says here. Verse 19, just let me read three verses. 19 through 21. But Joseph said to them, Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me. God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people. Therefore don't be afraid. I will take care of you and your little ones. And he comfort them and he spoke kindly to them. Three verses which I think culminate all the life of Joseph and what they do is they specifically give us some handles on how we deal with hardship in our lives how we can deal with hardship in our lives because Joseph demonstrates marks of a mature faith. He demonstrates for us marks of a mature faith that I hope are true in my life and I hope are true in your life as you grow in your walk with God. Here's the first one you ready? Number one Joseph resists the temptation to take God's place this one is very, very hard. You know why? Because this is the root of our sin issues. You know what sin is right? Sin is when we do things that displease and dishonor God and we do those things because we want to be God. We would rather call the shots in our life. We would rather have control. We would rather be in charge I see this in my own life I see this in my children's life. I see it in the lives of people all the time when people come to me and they have marriage problems and they're saying I had this issue and I'm like well have you listened to what God says about this issue? Well yeah but I don't want to try that we want to fix it ourselves. We want to call the shots we want to be God I think about this in terms of how we view life so much of the time we if it doesn't make sense to us then we say well that can't be God. We want to be God of our lives. We want to be in charge and Joseph says very plainly in verse 19 he says am I in the place of God? A rhetorical question to his brothers am I in God's seat? And the answer is no you're not in God's seat. God is sovereign he's in control. You may think you are for a little while but you are sorely mistaken if you think that you've taken God's place. If you are sorely mistaken if you think you're sitting on God's throne because the Bible will prove us wrong time and time again that God is God. God is the one in charge his plan is never thwarted. It's never going to going to be knocked off track it ultimately will always conclude the way God plans and intends for it to conclude. That's our God. You know there's three kinds of ways that we see this reveal itself in our life the first one is that we do decide that God should see things the way we see things. We say God the injustice or the suffering or the hardship that we're going through right now like you should fix this in my time and in my way I've been there and I felt like God you're being unfair this is not right but I am not God. And I'm glad I'm not God and you better be glad I'm not God. It'd be dangerous right and Joseph says I'm not going to get in God's place I'm not going to get in God's seat. I'm not the ultimate judge. I don't know all of people's hearts I don't see the big picture I'm not God. We are not God next thing um we can tend to think that we can solve all of our problems on our own or that we can fix everybody else's problems for them. We're really good at that. And I want to tell you as a pastor that many church leaders and pastors people come to them and they say I have this issue and we're like well let me tell you how to fix that. And we take the place of God in their life there's an interesting story in the Old Testament where there's a man named Naaman who has leprosy and he comes to the prophet of God and he says Naaman only you can heal me. I need you to heal me only you can heal me you know what the prophet says the prophet literally rips his clothes and he says oh God forgive us only you can save only you can rescue you know in our lives when people come to us and they approach us and they're wanting us to fix our problems you know what we have the opportunity to do in that moment? To say there is a God who can save you and can rescue you. I can't fix you. I can give you some advice some of it's good some of it's not so good. But God can heal you He can restore you He can fix you because he's a God who is good and he is powerful. He is mighty that's right the second thing we see in this passage that's so powerful is verse 20. This is really the theme verse for Joseph's life. This is really a theme verse for him I mean if you want to kind of capsule everything that's going on and what is happening in him in this maturing process from that age 17 to that age 30 and even beyond look what happens in verse 20 you planned evil against me. He's saying brothers I know you meant evil for me but even in your best attempts to plan evil guess what? God still worked good. That's good to know right there. That is good news because Romans 8 tells us that all things work together for the good not in our timeframe not in the way that feels right to us but in God's big plan, his eternal purpose if we love God and if we're following God if we are pursuing him and submitting our lives to him we can take that bank that check to the bank and it will cash every time that God is good and he will always take care of us as his children. He will. And so in this story Joseph says you planned for evil but God planned it for good in fact many people survived a famine. Why? Because Joseph suffered to be in a position where he could help save God's people rescue them provide for them. We can't see the full picture of all that God's doing but I want you to hear this this is really really important this morning God's hiddenness in our life does not equate with God's absence in our life are you hearing that when God doesn't appear to be there. And I know sometimes we feel like he's abandoned us and I think because Jesus was human being and you remember what he cried from the cross one of the last things he said My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Reminding us again of his humanity I'm sure in that moment he felt the depths of that despair of being in his ultimate moment of suffering and feeling abandoned. But I want you to know God's word says he will never leave us and never forsake us. And we need to cling to that truth today. We need to cling to that hope that he will not leave us nor forsake us we can't see him but he is there. And here's the thing his silence is not indifference. And his lack of moving in our agenda is not his impotence doesn't mean he's not powerful means he's got a bigger plan. He sees the bigger picture and we need to ask him for that don't we? God would you help me see the bigger picture I may not see it all here and now but I'm going to ask you God would you help me to see the bigger picture? God why did I lose my job? God why is my spouse being such a jerk? God why are my kids rebelling? God why is my bank account not having more money in it? God why did that person run into me and wreck my car? God why did I have cancer? God why do I have all the listen we could go on and on the list can go on and on because we all have issues right we all have struggles. We all have suffering we don't know but we know God has a plan. If we're his children he loves us and we can trust him. He sees the bigger picture. This third thing I think is huge from this passage. And it it really applies big big time in this particular setting for Joseph because it was relational I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand but how many of you in the room have been hurt, wounded deeply some of your deepest hurts and suffering has come from other people their sin against you things that they have said out of their mouths that have been so painful and hurtful. Things that they have done and actions maybe that favoritism thing I said earlier you're like man I just you should not have said that now I'm going to have to like oh man you've been marinating on that listen all of us have areas in our life where we've been wounded by others and Joseph was there and if anyone had the right to be angry at these brothers it was him but notice what he says he tells them don't be afraid I'm not going to kill you. I want to but I'm not going to noes and he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. That's powerful we need to treat others like God has treated us. We need to treat others you're like what are you talking about Nick? How's God done that? Because the Bible tells us that we are all God's enemies by nature. We all rebel against him we reject him let me make a connection for you just real fast okay because when you read the Bible I want you to know that every page on the Bible every chapter every verse all of the Bible screams not here is a religion to follow but here is a relationship you desperately need a redeemer that you desperately need to trust and put your hope in his name is Jesus okay and every story in the Old Testament Joseph and Noah and Abraham and David and all these great characters they are all pointing us to a bigger reality that we need Jesus to rescue us. And in this passage we see Joseph demonstrating just a little bit of what Jesus has done for us because the scripture says we all are rebellious. We are sinners we are broken and if we were left to ourselves we would reject God and run away from him but he pursues us and instead of striking us down he speaks kindly to us he welcomes us in he forgives us he loves us man that's powerful stuff because I don't deserve that you don't deserve that but Christ is that good because he is the greater Joseph you see in the big picture seeing the bigger picture Joseph was sold for some pieces of silver by his brothers Jesus was sold for some pieces of silver by one of his closest compadres in Judas we see how in the story that Joseph was falsely accused Jesus was falsely accused he did nothing wrong but he was falsely accused we see in the story that Joseph was tempted we see how Jesus was tempted but was without sin we see how that Joseph had every reason to want to be angry and yet he forgave we see how Jesus had every right to be angry and give up on humanity but he chose to love and to forgive. And it goes on and on and on in the story here's the truth for us today. If you're not a believer in Christ know this there is a God who wants you to know him and he offers reconciliation not judgment. He offers salvation not condemnation I don't know what your view of God is but I want you to know that we have a God who saves a God who is waiting for us to humbly come to him and say I receive your grace and your forgiveness he offers that. And so if you never put your trust in Christ my prayer is that today you would put your trust in Christ you would put your hope in him because you can never be good enough to get God to like you or to let you into heaven he loves you and he offers you a gift of salvation a gift a gift and it's a beautiful thing. But if you're a believer then we get to follow the example we see in Joseph even more in Christ we get to follow that example and we get to honor God by honoring our brothers. We get to choose to say well God we're not going to put ourselves in your place we're going to let you call the shots in my life we get to say God instead of trying to just see it my way I'm going to ask you to give me the perspective to see it your way we get to say to our brothers instead of being angry at you I'm going to forgive you do you think some things would change in our families if we stepped up and said we're going to be the the most mature and lead out in forgiveness I think some things would happen. I think men in the room if you took the lead and started to seek your wife's forgiveness those of you that are married women step up and say I I I want to I want to forgive I know you don't deserve it just like I don't deserve God's forgiveness but I'm going to forgive you think that would transform some relationships absolutely not saying it's easy but I'm saying because Christ has done it for us we know what it looks like and we now have the power by his Holy Spirit to do it. When Joseph in Hebrews 1122 says that he was aware that they were going to go eventually to the promised land remember what I said because they all came there now they're in slavery. And Joseph says look when you guys get to the promised land I want you to take my bones and you want to bury them there. You know the kind of faith that it took to say that after all the journey that he had been on but Joseph knew what you and I can know and that is God keeps his promises that he takes care of us. So Joseph knew if Exodus is going to happen you guys take my bones when you get there. And you you you you make sure that I I go with you guys. That was huge faith. But it was huge faith in a God who had shown himself faithful.