Peace/Anxiety | Part 3

morning. Welcome to you watching online. It's good to be here. It's awesome to hear. But hey, you know we're talking about anxiety? And you wanna know something that could cause anxiety? What Mario was just talking about,

I I I knew we were hosting this dance, but he didn't even say the number. There's there's actually they open up to 1,300

students are gonna be over here. I didn't know that till last night when he when he said it. And I was like, wait, wait, 1,300 students? That's a lot of anxiety. Like like this building over here is not done yet. This building might not be here after that dance. I I

who knows? But that you know who's really anxious right now is our facilities team. Because when we do that on Saturday night, the second service Saturday night ends, we have one hour to turn the place over from church to dance place.

That's gonna be crazy. They'll do it. They're like they're like the special forces unit of all. But it'll be awesome. But there's a lot of anxiety in that. So good timing that they got to listen to this this message series so they'll be prepared for it. But we are talking about anxiety.

And how do we handle these things? Like you know, the first week we talked about peace is is a person not a place. It's not the absence of problems, it's the presence of Jesus. And then last week we said, so if I'm gonna have that peace

that comes from the Lord that even in my problems, it doesn't matter. I will not have peace where I am

until I have peace with who I am. And we talked about our identities, how it should be found in Jesus and not in something else. And today, wanna talk about go a little bit deeper in into this idea of what does that look like to to really how do we how do we process

feeling anxiety because we're always gonna have those moments we feel it without following it. And I learned a lot about today's topic was well back when I was in seminary.

We had a class the first semester that we had to basically, they made every first year seminary student take this class where you one day a week, you had to go to counseling.

And they they did that because they discovered when they made you go to counseling and unpack your stuff, they found out that fifty percent of the seminary students wanting to be pastors shouldn't be pastors.

Then they would drop out. And some of them would be wait a little while, get some more counseling maybe in the future. Some were, you should never, never. You're doing it for all the wrong reasons. You're not wired. You should not do this. You're just doing it out of guilt or whatever. And and so I had to go to counseling and I and I was, you know, I was one of the ones they said you should never be a pastor but I ignored them and here we are. So just

kidding. I didn't. They didn't tell me that. But but one of the interesting things was we got talking about stuff about

one of the massive battery of personality profiles and stuff they they gave me showed that I have a potential for slightly depressive qualities. When the the counselor told me that, I'm like, do I make people sad? Is that what he goes? No. No. You can probably have moments where you just feel a little bit off and and you're not in an unhealthy range, but if you don't it scored in a range that this is a potential problem if you get unhealthy. It could get really bad.

Do you agree? Do you ever notice that? I go, oh, I know what you're talking about. I go, I called it my funk. And he goes, wait, what is that? I go, I get in these funks. It just happens. It can be a day to week, maybe two weeks max where it's it's it's not like I get massively depressed. I just lose all the joy of stuff. Like, know, food is bland. Life is bland. You just get kinda blah.

And and I get a little bit more anxious. It's like that background anxiety turns up a notch or two. And and you feel like foreboding, like something's wrong even if there's nothing wrong and you just kind of blah. You feel anybody else feel like that?

Good. I just didn't wanna be super vulnerable all by myself. So thank you. And so then he goes, well, how do you handle it? And I said, I've kind of had good mentors in my life and people around me, so here's what I've learned to do.

First of all, I don't make any major decisions when I feel this way. I'm not gonna come home and say, honey, we're selling everything and moving to Montana. That's not gonna happen.

I I I don't I lean into healthier habits. Like I go ahead and staying up too late or I'm not eating. I try to focus on that a little bit. Tighten batten down the hatches on that.

The the other thing I do is I people instead of not peopleing. Because I don't know if you're like me, when but you get a little anxious, you don't wanna people anymore, you just wanna get by yourself. That is a bad idea. But what I do is I avoid people that bother me and I lean into the people I like the most.

So I I leave my family and I go somewhere else for a while. No. No. I'm just kidding. They're the ones I hang out with. But I I I I I people intentionally.

And then the last most important thing I said is I always make sure I'm praying and spending time with God. And most importantly, the thing I learned to do, and I learned it really from the pastors we're gonna look at today is is I I just totally focus. Remember that we talked about the first week, adjust what you focus on. I embrace the idea that I know God is with me. I

know that he's with me in the pain, in the fear, in the anxiety. In other words, I I know that he is faithful to me even even if it doesn't feel like that.

And and and the counselor said, well that's pretty good. Because at first he just stared at me and I thought, alright, tell me what's wrong with me. He said, know, people spend thousands of dollars and years in counseling and never figure that out. And he said, especially that last one.

That last one. And that's what I wanna talk about today. To help us find peace even in the midst of anxiety,

the big idea I wanna unpackage is we have to embrace this concept. God is faithful to the end even when it feels like it's the end of me.

God is faithful. So when you're in your moments where you go, hey, God may be faithful to the end, but it feels like this is the end of me. I got nothing left. I don't know why I'm in this situation. Really, God is faithful and he is with you even in those moments where it feels like he's almost against you.

And and I and I wanna unpackage that and talk what does that look like and what would it be like if we embraced that. And we're gonna be looking at the story of a guy in the Old Testament named Joseph. He's the son of the guy we talked about and looked at last week, Jacob.

And he's a guy that embraced this concept. God was with him and he knew it and he embraced it. And because he embraced God being with him even in these dark moments, his whole story just seems like where is God? Where is God? What's going on? Where is God? But he stayed faithful to what God called him to do. Even in those dark moments, he did not follow the anxiety. That's what we've been talking the whole week. We will never have a cure all to not feel anxiety.

But we can trust the Lord and take the proper steps to not follow the path of anxiety. The path of anxiety always makes you wanna make decisions out of fear or frustration and not do the faith decision. The decision says, how am I gonna trust God? What does God call me to do despite how I feel

or how angry I am or how sad or scared I am. Makes sense? So here, Joseph is is is one of Jacob's sons. He's one of the youngest. Big family. Has all these brothers. And and and he's,

his dad's favorite, which doesn't really help him out with his brothers. And his dad gave him some coat. Some may call it a amazing technicolor dream coat, if you've if you've seen the play. But, but he grew up and and God gave him a vision

of what he was called to do to serve him in the kingdom. Now now God still comes and gives visions, but this was a dream he gave him. We don't need those. We're all we all have been called to serve God. We can just read about it.

But he had this this this time where he he had this vision and he couldn't help. He's 17 years old. He tells his brothers and it's it's this weird vision of their like stocks of wheat, the olive more. And he says, mine rose up and all of yours bowed down to me including dad.

Now now think about if you're one of the youngest of a big family of brothers and you just told them I'm gonna rule you all. They're not gonna handle that too well. So

so he gets this vision of God wants them to do something. He speaks up about it. He's probably a little cocky and he probably didn't do it all that great. But then they beat the snot out of him, throw him into a pit, they're gonna leave him for dead. But then one of the brothers says, we shouldn't kill him.

Dad would be really bummed. So instead, let's sell him to those slave traders that are heading to Egypt and then go tell daddy's dead. Great idea. So so the story picks up where he gets turned on by his own family when he shares what God has for him and gets beat up and then gets sold out

and gets taken out to another country to Egypt. And that's where we're gonna pick up the story. But think about this. Some of you are already wondering like, where is God in that?

And some of you are in those moments that you're like, hey, I've tried to to to lean into what God's called me to do and I feel like I've been beat up and sold out. And and so this this what we're gonna look at here is for those moments when you have those questions like, where is God in this? Or if he is,

why did he allow this? Or if you're saying, okay, I understand him allowing this. Why is this taking so long? Because that's one. Sometimes we say, hey, I know God's gonna take me through tough times. You get that. But I don't think we understand God's sense of time.

Because this story from when he gets sold into slavery till there's some resolution of this this vision God gave him finally comes is over twenty years. Over twenty years. So it's a long time. And maybe you've been real just I just wanted to say dealing and wrestling.

You've been real sting with something for a while. I just make up words. And and and and and so here we go. Genesis 39.

When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer.

Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord was with Joseph. See, tells you right now, the Lord's with him even though he's been beat up and sold as a slave. And it says, so he succeeded in everything he did. Oh, see? Good story. It's awesome. So he's a slave but man, he just had nothing but good times. Right? He says he succeeded but look what how he succeeded.

He succeeded everything he did as he served in the home of his just his master.

Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord with Joseph giving him success and everything did. This pleased Potiphar so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of the entire household and everything else. He got the castanza raised. He got more responsibility, more work, no more pay.

From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master's household and property, the Lord began to bless Potiphar's household for Joseph's sake. All of his household affairs ran smoothly and his crops and livestock flourished. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative

responsibility over everything he owned. So he's like, I'm gonna give you nothing. You take care of everything. And it says, with Joseph there, he didn't worry about a thing except what kind of food to eat. Wow. So who has the peace and lack of worry in this part of the story? Potiphar. Who's doing all the work? So

it said the Lord was with him and blessed him. Who reaped all the benefits of that? Not him. Potiphar. Right there, you'd go, wow. Where is God in that? Said he was with them and he blessed them? You know, I didn't I don't know I don't know if if God knows what that word means. Right? Bless?

It seems like he's getting host. He seems like he's getting the opposite of blessed. Doesn't it? It's like he's not even he's blessing people around him, but not him.

Some of you might be in that moment right now. You you might be in one of those moments where you feel like I'm working hard, I'm being honorable, I'm doing the right thing, and it seems like other people are reaping the benefit of this. Moms, you get it. You

pour into your kids, you take care of them, you you make sure they don't die and starve to death and go to school and get educated. Dad comes home, lets them do two dangerous things and watches their favorite show with them and he's the hero. Every time I say that it's like muted laughter.

Because all the moms know it's true, but they know they can't laugh too loud at that because then it's just gonna be a fight when they leave here. So think about it. Have you been in those situations where it's like people around you are getting blessed instead of you?

Well, you think, okay, he stayed faithful. He's learned his lesson or whatever. Now it gets good. Right? Says the next verse. Joseph was a very handsome and well built young man. That the Hebrew translate to he looked like Bill Bush. I can't take credit. It's my wife that told me that.

Now I'm gonna be in a fight when I leave. Now it says he's a good looking guy and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. Come and sleep with me, she demanded. So now it goes from, okay, you're working hard, you're being faithful, other people are getting the benefit on your behalf.

Now he's getting challenged and demanded, commanded to do something that would be against what God would want him to do. But think about this moment. He's a 17 year old boy. What's he gonna do? I mean, how is he gonna respond? You realize this temptation right here is the Garden of Eden all over again.

Did you catch that? In the Garden of Eden where man and Adam and Eve fell into sin. What sin is, sin really at his heart is saying, God can't be trusted. I need to do something to make myself happy. That's the lie that Satan sold.

That still is at the heart of every sin we do today. When the God says, if you're new to church and says you're a sinner, it's not like God just took this random list. I don't like you doing that. That's too fun. That's a sin. That's too fun. That's a sin. I just don't like that. That's a sin. I don't like you. That's a sin. You know, that's not what it is. It's it's it's sin is it's the very nature of God. We're supposed to be in his create he created in his image. We're supposed to be like him. We're supposed to follow him in the morals and values and all that. But the reality is what causes us to sin is that the very heart we believe a lie that God is holding out on us.

And that I can't trust what God wants me to do in this moment because that would make me not happy. That would cause pain. And I think and I think I can get to happiness quicker if I go around God. That's what Satan was tempting. And look at this temptation there. He's in that same moment because here he is struggling. Someone else is benefiting. He's not getting anything out of it. And all a sudden, this this woman who owns him demands that he that he sleep with him. Well, he could do a lot of things that are fear or frustration based in this moment and not faith.

He could just say, okay, she commanded me. It's God's fault. He put me in this situation. I'm the property here. So fine. I'll just do it.

Or he could have out of frustration said, this is my way out. This is the way I'll get a benefit. I'll I'll I'll, you know, go be with her and then she's gonna take care of me and I'll manipulate and use this. Somehow, this is the way I'm gonna get to what God's called me to do. I'm gonna, you know, sleep my way to the top, so to speak. I'm gonna do it this way.

Or he's a 17 year old boy. Maybe he just wanted to do it. He's like, yeah, at least it'll be fun. You you what does he do? We're gonna see in a moment he does what any normal 17 year old boy would do in this situation. If that 17 year old boy absolutely embraced and believed God was with him, and that God was faithful to him

even in moments like this. But here's why it would have been so easy to go after that and so tempted. Many of us in these situations where life seems to be unfair and and and it's not a box of chocolates, someone ate all the chocolates and you're just stuck with the wrappers. And and you feel like you're in a situation

that that's tough and it's darker and you're like, hey, is God in this? Where is he? We are so tempted to fall for that original sin. I gotta go make this happen. Matter of fact, there was a book I read a few years ago and it was it was kind of a secular book at the sign of this, but they studied all biological

creatures, all animal life forms on on the planet and stuff. And they came to this conclusion that all biological creatures on this planet really live in this mentality. There's three things that are their values and goals in life. Everything they do is about these three things. It's avoid pain, acquire pleasure,

and conserve energy.

And you go, I get that. I can see that on animal planet. Like, course, avoid pain. They don't wanna get hurt because then they'll die. That's why they also conserve energy. Don't spend more energy than you can take in. You can starve to death and they wanna have as much pleasure as possible, which to them is eating stuff and and making babies. You know? And and and that that's it. You know, having pleasure. I mean, get that. That makes sense. That's talking about the animal world. That that that, you know, you know, acquire, avoid pain, acquire pleasure, and conserve energy. That's the animal planet. That's you're watching animal planet. Then you switch over to bachelor in paradise.

Or any reality TV show and watch the news. And you're like, it's the same thing. We as humans, we we we we we we church it up a bit in in the things we do. But but still, you really think about it, we are drawn to that. That's not this evolution. That's a result of the fall. That brokenness,

the fall is what Adam and Eve went for was, hey, I wanna avoid pain. I wanna have more pleasure. And man, would be really easy to just not listen to God and take the fruit needed. And we still do that. And if you don't think you do, think about the things you pray about. Are

your prayers all about your will, not my will, God? How can I serve you? How am I supposed to take all that you've given me and sacrifice? How am I gonna go out into this world and have you be with me and let you bless others through me. They get the blessing, not just me. Is that what you prayed about?

What are most of our prayers if we really pull out our prayer list? It's Lord,

help me avoid this pain or stop this pain I'm in. Or Lord, give me this blessing. We don't call it pleasure in church. We call it blessing. And blessing is always something that makes you happy. Isn't that funny? Everything we think about a blessing is all about feeling good and happy. So stop this, give me this,

and give it to me now and make it easy. And because if the path is hard, I don't wanna do it. That's really what we do a lot. And then and here's the thing. Joseph saw God's call in his life. And he trusted that God was faithful anyways. And he chooses to act in a way

that that that believes that he's supposed to move towards God's call. He understands what his life is supposed to be about. So we get stuck in making fear based and frustration based decisions all the time because we try to to to live life through the what I call this, the falling instead of our calling.

And and we come to church and all we do is sprinkle Jesus over this fallen

kind of way of living. And the Bible says we're new creatures. We're new creatures. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are now supposed to go back to the image he created us and be about what he wants us to be about. But I come to church and I say, hey, sprinkle Jesus over my desire to avoid pain, acquire pleasure,

and and conserve energy. And here's the problem. You come to church, especially church like this, you know, oh, he's getting louder. Here comes a throw punch. And and he's starting to go in here and he's like saying, hey, guys, you realize what we need to be is we need to be people that people out there are blessed because of God being with us.

And that's what our goal is.

The whole the New Testament explains it more clear. We're supposed to point people to Jesus by loving them like Jesus. So if but if I think knowing Jesus is give me less pain, give me more, don't harsh my mellow, give me pleasure, and and help me to do it easily and not make it hard. Stuff like, hey,

we need to commit financially to building this building because this building is gonna bless the community around us.

And a lot of you get it. Well, I'm blessed in this church. The reason Mario was out here talking was because we were able to bring on a staff person that no other church has. A guy that's basically a missionary to a high school. And the reason we're able to do it because so many of you get this.

You have faithfully committed to the call and you give, you serve even when it's hard. But if I try to sprinkle Jesus over this falling that we have, you know what you'll do? You'll say you love Jesus and you'll I'll give when I have enough. I'll serve when I have more time.

I'll share my faith when the opportunity is just perfect. But you wanna do it in the way that uses the least amount of energy, causes the least amount of pain, and provides the most amount of pleasure. And and and if that's you, you probably haven't been here very long because I

beat on this all the time. So you're probably gonna get mad and leave and go find a church that leaves you alone. But I wouldn't love you if we didn't say, what does God really want for us? And so what I'm saying is a lot of the anxieties we deal with as Christians aren't really the thing you're afraid of doing,

trusting God. Like right now, said serve, give and some of you like, oh my gosh, here it comes again. And you get so anxiety filled over that. You know why? Because you're stuck with the fall mentality instead of your call mentality. And when you get stuck in that moment, you lock up and you're terrified

of doing what God has asked you to do. And the anxiety is not coming from actually what's gonna happen. The anxiety isn't even coming from the fact they go, I can't give. I don't have any money. I can't serve. I I I don't have any time. I can't do this. And they're expect that's not the anxiety.

The anxiety is you don't trust that if you trust God, it'll work.

What if you chose to trust God? Instead of getting mad, well, if God loves me so much and wants me to do this, why doesn't he just He's always with you. The question is, you got to decide, are you with him? So what does the 17 year old do in this scenario? He takes the what would seem like the very anxiety riddled scary road.

He chooses to trust God and do the scriptural thing. He says in verse eight, but Joseph refused. Look, he told her, my master trusts me with everything in his entire household.

No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you because you're his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be such a great sin against God. So he takes this road that says, no, I'm not gonna do it that way. It would be easy to go that way. It would be simple. He could almost justify why would God put me in this scenario and I can't do I have to do this.

God's forced me to do this in order to get what I think I need to have. And that's really what what sucks us into that downside. We have those that this this model of, know, avoid pain, acquire pleasure,

and and conserve energy. And then the other thing we do that like some psychologists were talking about is they studied psychological disturbances, which means what we're talking about. Anxiety, anger, depression. And they found out that a ton,

there's physical causes to it, but a ton of in our culture of causing a lot of anxiety in in in in us is we take preferences and make them must haves. We take preferences and make them must haves. You know why we take preferences and make them must haves? Because we want to avoid pain, acquire pleasure, and conserve energy.

So we really look at things in life and we start to think, well, if God loves me and he loves me, this is a must have. This is a non negotiable. This is what I need in life. And if I don't get that, there's something either God hates me or God is a jerk. And we wrestle with that. One of the examples they gave was health.

You realize good health is a preference. It's not a non negotiable must have to be loved by God and to actually live a meaningful life. It would be nicer to have health,

but you don't have to have it. We live in a broken world. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes there's accidents. Sometimes I was born with asthma as a sickly little kid. I knew I wasn't gonna be an astronaut.

Supermodel maybe. I don't know. Lots of options. But I knew. But does that mean because I was so sickly, my life was less than?

When you say it that way, everyone goes, no, it's not. But in your own heart, you believe it is. What are your must haves that are actually just preferences? Because a lot of our anxiety and a lot of our wondering where is God in all this is God will give you the real must haves.

But if I elevate a bunch of preferences to must haves, I'm gonna be very anxious. I'm gonna be very frustrated. I'm gonna be very fearful. And when God says, here's what I want you to do to serve me. I want you to go be in the world and be a blessing to the world. I am with you in order to bless them.

You're gonna fight that. You're gonna fight it. And you say, if God wants me to that, he needs to give me this, this, this, this, and it's this list that you think is must when it's only a preference. Does that make sense?

So he chooses to just go, you know what? I could have made the choice. I could have went for a must have, made a preference. His preference would be this not happening. His preference would be my brothers didn't sell me to slavery. His preference would probably be I would like to reap more of the benefit of my hard work.

But that's not a must have. So he does the right thing. Now God's gonna bless him.

He does, but not how you think. It says, she kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day in verse 10, but he refused to sleep with her and he kept out of her way as much as possible. That's pretty smart. One day, however, no one else was around when he went to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak. So this is happening for a long time. This could have been happening for years actually.

And she finally grabbed his cloak demanding, come on sleep with me. Joseph tore himself away but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house. So he's like, I'm just gonna run away. I'm not going to give into this.

When she saw that he was holding his cloak and she he had fled, she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. Look, she said, my husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us. He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he felt left his cloak behind with me. She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home, then she told him her story. That Hebrew slave you brought into her house tried to come in and fool around with me, she said. But when I screamed, he ran outside leaving his cloak with me. She got spurned. She got mad. She got dramatic. She made up stories.

Bachelor in paradise.

It's like a train wreck. Daughter was watching and so I said and I walked by and go, is the dumbest thing I've ever said. An hour later, I'm still sitting there going, this is the dumbest thing I've ever looked. Where's the popcorn?

Like why are these people so stupid? You know why? Look in the mirror. It's because we're people. So

she wrongfully accuses him when he does the right thing. Potiphar, verse 19, was furious when he heard his wife's story about how Joseph had treated her. So he took Joseph and threw him in a prison where the king's prisoners were held and there he remained. He remained there for years. Years.

So he does the right thing and now it gets worse. Gets worse. But look what it says in verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love.

So whatever's happening, God's with him and showing faithful love to him. So you think, oh, so he's gonna get released. It's gonna be all awesome. No. What does it mean when he says the Lord was with him and showed him his faithful love? It says, and the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries

because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed. Man, this is the second verse the same as the first, a little bit longer, a little bit That's the depth of my

theological commentary right there. It's like it's the same thing all over again. Now, instead of just running a household, he's running an entire prison for free from the inside. And the wardens, you know, reaping all the benefits. And and it said the Lord was with him with his faithful love.

You know why that sounds freaky to us? Is if you lean into that falling instead of the calling. How could that be God with you? There's pain, there's no pleasure, and this is taking a long time. Well, what if that's not God's purpose and mission for us in the first place?

Could that be where a lot of your anxiety is coming from? How do you know what it's like? See, you go to work. Something right now is so frustrating because at your work, you're probably the straw that stirs the drink, but you don't get to drink the drink. Your boss does or someone else does. And you can be so frustrated.

How could you handle that if you just knew God was right there with you being faithful and showing his love? Even though how you think his love should be shown is different. Because maybe he has a plan. But what what does Joseph do? He keeps doing what any normal 17 year old boy would do. If he believed God was with him. If

he embraced that God was faithful to the end, even if it felt like the end of him. What about you? What's your view?

Well, he gets thrown in his prison. I'd encourage you go read the whole story of Joseph. I'm stopping there. But what happens next? He ends up in prison for years. And but God gives him a gift to to kind of interpret dreams.

And he starts interpreting dreams of prisoners. One, didn't probably want the dream interpreter. He's like, you're gonna die. And he does. But then one, says, you're gonna get your position back in in the pharaoh's court. And he does. And you think, okay, that's his way out. That that guy's gonna go tell, hey, this guy was great. You should bring him in. He ran the whole prison. Nope. This guy forgot about him. Pretty typical. So he's still in prison for years. And then years later, pharaoh has a disturbing dream and he can't understand it. No one can help him understand it. And now all a sudden this guy remembers, oh, I knew a guy in prison. So you think about that. Did he really do him a favor at that moment? Because you drag a prisoner before Pharaoh. What he if you can't interpret the dream, he's gonna kill you. If you interpret the dream and he doesn't like you're interpreting the dream, you're gonna kill you. He's not helping you get out of prison. He's like, I'm gonna give you a death sentence maybe. Thanks for the help, bro. You know, so so he he goes in, he hears this dream, and and he knows what it means.

And now he knows what it means, he says, there's gonna he says, there's gonna be a great famine in all the world. And you can be prepared. God's given you a gift. You can be prepared. We can do this thing and prepare, he has a whole plan. And so what does Pharaoh do?

Puts him in charge of it. Only this time, not as a slave or not as a prisoner. He's promoted to number two. He's like the second in command of all of Egypt.

This this former slave and prisoner is now the number two in all the land and he puts him in charge and he and he and he and he and he gets to make this plan that brings food and and saves millions of Egyptians lives as this fair as this famine hits and destroy the world, he didn't just save Egyptians lives. Guess who came to Egypt

to move and and and and receive food?

Joseph's family. The family that God says, I'm gonna bless the whole world through. This nation of Israel and he brought them to Egypt to be protected and saved. And when they came before their brother, it's been over twenty years. They don't even recognize him. Guess what the family does when they come into his presence?

Take a guess. They bow. Just like his vision. Twenty some odd years later. And the way he ruled over them was a twenty year journey that seemed like where is God in all of this? The other thing that's crazy is, okay, why did God have to do that? Looking back, where do you think Joseph learned

how to administrate a plan like that?

Leading a household? Running a prison? Doing it all in unfairness? So he developed this ability to keep going even when it doesn't feel like you wanna keep going. It gave him stamina. It gave him perseverance. It gave him skill set. It gave him the joy and he knew the Lord was with him the whole time and boom.

Saves the whole land including his whole family and he's a part of rescuing the whole plan of what God's gonna do to save all of us to bring Jesus. And if you think about it, this story, all these old testament stories are pictures of a greater thing coming. Joseph is one of the clearest pictures of Jesus.

He's telling the story of how we're gonna be saved. Jesus, God's son, God the son, comes to his people with a story of I'm the king. I'm gonna save you. I'm gonna rescue. And his family beats him up and rejects him. He's imprisoned.

He but he stays faithful. He lives the faithful life. Doesn't sin. Walks through life. Goes to the cross for his own people. They're the ones that beat him. In the end, he saves him. And just like his dad, Jacob, thought he was dead and then found out he's alive.

Jesus actually died. And when all hope was thought to be lost, bam, he came back to life and he beat death. Joseph is a picture

of Jesus of what he's done for us. And we are called to be like Jesus. So we are called to kinda live a life like Joseph does, go through the highs and the lows. God is with us in the pleasure and in the pain. Matter of fact, he's probably with us more in the in the pain and some of our pleasures, he's probably not with you with that. He's probably like hard pass. You should probably hard pass that also. And and and and and but in the pain, he is there with you. He's right besides me when I watch the cardinals go three and thirteen.

He's right there with me ripping on the Seahawks because he knows he's God of all the universe. Sorry.

But if he didn't go through all of that,

that plan doesn't unfold at the other end. I get it. I can relate to his story because I I told you guys last week,

about my dad in an identity kinda issue and how loved my dad, looked up to my dad. And I end up with a little bit of a struggle of identity I looked at my dad in so many admirable qualities. Great athlete, war hero, just a good man. People liked men where they wanted to be like him. He's just everywhere he went. He didn't I never had to say I'm the leader.

He just was. And and and and I just always loved that. But don't hear what I didn't want you to hear something I didn't say. My struggle was not I still admire those qualities and wanna be like that. What I struggled with is I looked at him and thought I'm never gonna be exactly what he did so maybe I I I can't be.

My problem was I was trying to be not me who God's created me to be. But I loved him and he's a good role model. But how did he get there? Did he just birth into the world and say, follow me? No. His story is like Joseph's. He was born back in the twenties. Literally, was born two years before sliced bread.

His formative years, childhood until he became a teenager was the great depression.

And it was tough. His family didn't lose everything, but they had to work hard. All of his brothers, he was the last. He was the youngest of seven brothers. Talk about in the depression, all the hand me downs, all the stuff, all to do without. He used to say that at dinner, we always had food. But you got a little bit amount and the only way, whatever little was left, whoever got to it first got. I thought he learned how to eat fast because he's in the military. He learned how to eat fast when he was six years old because if he wanted seconds, you had to get there before everyone else. And

that was tough. You never knew. His dad ran a little printing, business that struggled along. He had to undercut, do stuff cheaper than it cost. So all of them, him and all of his brothers had to work every day after school,

end of the night. Now his all older brothers rebelled and got him to be able to play sports because he was so good at sports. But he still had to go to school, do the homework, play the sport, eat dinner, and then he had to go work until about 11:00 at night at the printer. As a kid, all the way through his teen years.

It was tough. It was hard. It was difficult. Then he signed a Major League Baseball contract when he was 17. Pittsburgh Pirates gave him $5,000 signing bonus. The average salary in the whole United States then was like $3,100 a year.

His signing bonus was what his dad had made in the last two and a half years combined. He gave it to his parents. He's a good guy. And then while he was playing, he felt led to serve this country. So he had his dad sign a waiver and he went off to World War two as a 17 year old, became a war hero.

I tell those stories people like, wow, that's noble. I love it. But anyone in here who's been in combat knows it's okay to be a war hero, but you never wanna go through the process of becoming a war hero. At 17, he saw things you can never unforget. Never forget. Unsee. Yes. Unsee. Yeah. There you go.

And when he came home, he he he wrestled with those things, married his high school sweetheart,

played baseball, thought he was gonna go back. And the problem is some of the stuff he saw he made the non faith based decision. He kind of felt like where is God? He'd kind of walked away from his childhood faith and wrestled with these things. So you know how he tried to handle him? Drinking and fighting. Drinking to forget, fighting because he couldn't.

Led to an injury, he lost his dream of baseball.

So he joins the military again. So I was learning some cool stuff. I'll just go back in the military. The war of all wars is pretty much done. It'll be a good job. Within months of enjoying the military, a war breaks out in Korea. He gets shipped off and spends three years in combat never coming home.

Actually got more medals in that war. And here's the hard part. His high school sweetheart he had married, she thought she'd married a professional athlete that was done being a soldier. And when he got shipped out, he ended up getting a letter.

Dear John letter said, can't handle this. I'm sorry but by the time you read this letter, I'll already have moved out. I'm gone. He was in so much thick combat at the time that letter didn't find him for nine months. So now he's sitting in the middle of a combat zone having lost his career, having lost this and he's

crying through the fact that his wife left him over nine months ago and he can't do anything about it. You don't have cell phones. You don't call. He doesn't get leave. He doesn't go back. He could write a letter but he doesn't know where she is.

He lives through that. Goes on, had one more war in there.

But as as he as he moved along, he he he came along a little bit later and and and and had a chance. He had a chance. He was playing baseball games for a minor league team that a friend of his was now coaching. And he just came $50 to play a game when he had needed a player.

And he couldn't pitch anymore, but he was a great hitter. Dodger scouts saw him, and they offered him a contract to go play for Los Angeles Dodgers. You know that doesn't end well. Otherwise, would be talking highly of the Dodgers.

Before his enlistment comes up and he's gonna get out of the military and go go do the same two weeks before, he gets in a car wreck and loses an eye. Baseball gone again. Now his only career is on the line. He still needed six he still needed like six more years to get to 20.

And back then, you know, you're in the middle, you lose an eye, you're like discharged. The one good thing that went for him was he had saved the life of someone in World War two that's now a general. They pulled some strings and they let him reenlist two more times actually.

But at the end of his career, he couldn't do the radar anymore. So he gets shipped out to a dumpy little place to buy this time. War hero athlete. He's just off in this dumpy little air base biding his time.

He was in a place called Ajo, Arizona. Some of you know, it's two blocks past hell on the right hand side. If you keep going, you get to Rocky Point, Mexico though.

And while he was just sitting there having gone through all these things, lost his dreams, lost his stuff. He walked into a shop one day and a girl working there he thought was the most beautiful woman in the world, courted her and married her. It's my mom.

Her story I could spend a whole long time on too. Needless to say, one of the most tragic things on her story was the reason she was back in her small town where she came from is she recently had a husband leave her because she could not have children and he couldn't handle it. He came from a big family.

She tells then he's like, I don't care. I'm 39 years old. I pretty much didn't think I was gonna have kids anyways. They get married. Nine and a half months later, my sister's born. My dad used to brag about that.

He's like, you may not been have kids but I'm good enough for both of us. So there you go. Three years later, I'm born.

My mom, my sister and I, my dad considered the greatest blessings God ever gave him. Still didn't get easy. He picked up another sport he used do bowling because with one eye he didn't care. He actually was gonna bowl and he actually was good enough. He he joined the professional bowlers tour.

But he needed a sponsor because he had a family now. So he couldn't just go out there on his own. So he had a sponsor lined up, but they didn't know he was 42 years old and had one eye until they sat down to sign paperwork and when he told him his birth date, they're like, that would make you, yeah, 42. And then he goes,

you have a false eye? And he goes, yeah. And they go, we can't do this. So he didn't get the contract and he wasn't gonna do it without that because he had a family now. So they moved up to Phoenix, bought a house at a he got a job in computers and all the stuff he'd learned in the military.

It's turned out to be a pretty good gig. Was able to move into a nice family neighborhood and across the street our neighbors went to this little Baptist church and started inviting us to church. And my dad walked down in an altar call one time and put his faith in Jesus and nothing changed

because none of the rest of us wanted to go. So he stopped going. He knew Jesus was with him. He just wasn't with Jesus. But then fast forward to where I'm in high school, I end up coming to know Jesus through a friend of mine. And him and I start having conversations.

And he starts sharing with me every question like what we just preached about. If God's so good, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did my mom die when I was in Korea after my wife left me and I never got to say goodbye to Why did my dad die a year before when I was in Korea? Why did they both die when I was at war? Why did that happen? Why did this happen? Why did you get asthma? Why did that you know, all these things. It was why this? Why that? Where is God in that? And I kept answering the best I could. I was 15. I mean, I didn't I didn't know. I I knew Jesus. And then I started to learn something. Maybe I wasn't too different from my dad. I had the courage to stand toe to toe to him and just talk to him about the love of Jesus and say, dad, I don't know, but I know this. And I did the best I could for over a year.

And then one day, get up to go to church by myself on a Sunday morning. I'll see him already up with his tie on. And I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, I'm going to church with you. I go, why? He goes, I've spent over a year trying to beat you. You won. I gotta join you.

I gotta come back to church. So he goes back to church. And this time, he not only knew God was with him, he chose to be with God. And he went all in. And his last fifteen years of his life, it was a different story.

He wasn't just a man, a mentor to me as a man. He was a mentor to me as a Christian. He when he decided to engage, he engaged. He went all in like he always did with other things in his life. And it changed my life. It changed our family. It just it was just amazing. And when and and when we talked,

I had a conversation with him the night before he died. He didn't know he's gonna die the next day. He just did. And we were talking and he's reflecting and he walked through all of this stuff. He said, son, look at this. I I realized now that God was with me the whole way. And if I didn't go through all of that,

I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

David back here wouldn't have a wife because he's married to my daughter who wouldn't exist. We might have a wife but she'd be way less cool.

And he says, realized God was always with me, but things changed when I realized I could be with him too.

And then he looked at me and he said, thank you for being courageous enough to go to war with me on this and loving me.

And he goes, I may have fought physical wars I'm proud of. It saved some people's lives, but son, you have chosen to engage in a battle. And he quotes scripture on me. I was a Christian first basically. And he would said, because the battle we fight is not against flesh and blood. Blood against the spiritual things and the principalities of this world. There's a deeper war going on. He goes, son, you have engaged. You are a mighty warrior in that and I am proud of you and I love you, and thank you for doing that.

None of that happens

if you didn't go through all that crud. How about you? How about you? Do you know God's with you? But also more importantly, can you choose to be with him? I wanna pray and we're gonna sing a song. I know it's a little bit late. I do this sometimes. Sorry.

But I wanna pray because some of you in this room can go, okay, I can understand God's always been with me. But you need to give your heart to Jesus right now. You need to choose to be with him. You need to surrender to that. So

would you just pray with me if that may be you, you've never put your faith in the fact that Jesus died for you. He was the Joseph. He lived this life. We're blessed because of him.

And he died in our place and then he came back to life and that's what saves us. That's what we need to have faith in. Not our own ability to avoid pain, acquire pleasure, and and and conserve energy. It's about him.

And if you're that in this moment that maybe you hear God like, you know what's cool is? I would love more than anything that if God is speaking to you and you've never put your faith that my dad's story was just used to lead you to Jesus. Because that's what he would prefer his life been about.

But he didn't figure that out to the last fifteen years.

So could you pray? If that's you, if you've never put your faith in Jesus and you feel that holy spirit drawing you just just pray with me. But pray some make it your own words, but pray something like this, dear Jesus, thank you for dying for me. Thank you for coming back to life proving that you can give me life.

So right now I wanna turn from my way and turn to you. And in the best way I know how, I I put my faith in you and what you did for me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for bringing me life. Thank you for always being with me. And thank you for allowing me to be with you. Thank you.

I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey, if you just prayed with me, hope you'd let someone know.

But hey, here's what I wanna do. I wanna close with a song because I wanna encourage all of us in this moment. It's one song we're just gonna sing and this is our closing prayer. And I want this close prayer to be what the point of the message was. The song is called faithful to the end.

God is faithful to the end. Do you realize that even if it feels like you're at your end, God is faithful to the end? Can you embrace that? Because that's what's really gonna help give us peace. That's gonna get you through those tough times. When you feel like you're at the end, you're just at the beginning of God. Sometimes he puts you at the end so you realize you can start with him. And if you can embrace that moment, you can get past the anxiety. You can get to a peace even if your situation doesn't change. All you have to do is embrace these words. Make them the cry of your heart. God is faithful to the end. Amen?

God is faithful to the end. Amen? God is faithful to the end. Amen.

End.

Amen, church? Amen. Our God is faithful. He promises to never leave and never forsake us. And remember that there was never a day that he was not by our side. Amen? Amen.