Waiting with Joseph

out the temp, right? There's others like my brother who will just run in no matter what.

There's no test. And I was thinking about that in worship, that God really wants us to go

in the deep end. He doesn't want us just to touch our toes in the water,

because we already know the Lord is good. So it's just a challenge, and it's a challenge even if

It's just for me to go deep.

Don't wait forever because the presence of God is just drawing us in.

Does that make sense?

So let's go ahead and get into the word.

Let me pray.

I know we've prayed before, but I think it's important,

and I just want to pray one more time that I can speak effectively

and that our hearts and our eyes are open to receive.

So, Lord, we just thank you for your presence.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the opportunity.

We thank you for a church that we can gather and worship your name.

Thank you so much for your spirit today, tonight, Lord.

And I just pray that you just move in and through us in your name. Amen.

So tonight we're going to continue on in our story. The theme or the person that we're going to

look at is Joseph. So as we look at his life, I'm going to be honest with you, you could break this

up and spend a half a year, a year talking about Joseph. So there's going to be some portions that

I just kind of summarize. And there'll be some portions where you may say, hey, I wish you'd

talk about this. Let's talk about this. And again, we can't do that. It's not enough time. So let's

kind of jump in. I want to kind of just preface what we're going to talk about and then get you

guys's interaction. But one of the many difficult lessons to learn in life is the fact that we

aren't always in control. In fact, I would beg to say this. We're probably not in control at all,

but we have the assumption or sometimes we want to think that we really are in control. We're not.

God

is ultimately in control. The problem is that we as mere humans walking in the blessing of God

have others who make choices that impact our lives, and Joseph was like that, right?

So Joseph was trying to do his thing. We talk about he's doing, you know, he's 17 years old.

We'll talk about that in a moment. He was out just tending to the sheep, but he ran into some

trouble, not on his behalf, although he stirred the pot just a little bit because he egged his

brothers on and talked to his father. But the thing that I want you to recognize is sometimes

decisions from others have an impact on us, and how we handle those things

is really, really critical, right? Either way, the difficulties and pain that is connected to

that or is associated with that. It's often part of our lives and is real as much as in many cases

it's uninvited.

I thought about this message as I was preparing and just praying through.

I've been on the receiving end of other people's choices that weren't so good,

but I've definitely been on the giving side of some really dumb choices.

Think about that for a moment.

So the big thought, I should say the big thoughts, is God shines in difficult times.

I think that's his specialty, right?

In fact, you can say, well, does he shine brighter?

I don't know that he shines brighter.

I think he shines bright, period.

He is never surprised by our mess or other people's messes.

And it's through the chaos, which is an opportunity for God to intervene,

and I love this part, demonstrate his power, his might, his grace, his mercy.