Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what in awesome privilege? Let
Speaker 1: us know right now in the chat. Where are you?
Speaker 1: Where are you? Are you in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Speaker 1: Are you in the grocery store? Are you in the walmart?
Speaker 1: Are you in Target? Where are you at? Where are
Speaker 1: you at? I'm in my car, so I'm typing while
Speaker 1: I'm driving. Stop that, Put the phone down and just listen.
Speaker 1: We need you alive, all right, see the goodness of
Speaker 1: the Lord in the land of the Living. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you where I am. That's a little different. I'm
Speaker 1: with my staff today. I'm with my Elevation Church staff,
Speaker 1: my co laborers in the Gospel, my partners, my partners,
Speaker 1: my partners. You know, God is so good at his job.
Speaker 1: Bible says, if you're trust in Him with all your heart,
Speaker 1: I lean not on your own understanding. He will direct
Speaker 1: your past. When I got done preaching last week, I
Speaker 1: preached about Joseph. It took me listen an hour to
Speaker 1: get in the car after I preached because I couldn't
Speaker 1: stop writing down what I wanted to say next. And
Speaker 1: I was telling the Lord, You're gonna make me wait
Speaker 1: seven days to say all of this that is cruel
Speaker 1: and unusual punishment, Father, Daddy, Aba God. And then I
Speaker 1: remember that we had a staff team day with all
Speaker 1: of our amazing, amazing staff, and I said, y'all got
Speaker 1: to turn on the cameras and I'll preach to them
Speaker 1: for the whole church and for the whole E fam.
Speaker 1: So that's where I'm at today. I'm not excited, I'm
Speaker 1: fired off. I am, I am, I am so again. Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to every location, Welcome to the staff, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the graphic designers, e kids, campus pastors, associate campus pastors, debutantes, derelics, delinquents,
Speaker 1: and all points in between. God has a word for
Speaker 1: you today. That's the person next to you. Do you
Speaker 1: want your word, because I'll take yours too if you
Speaker 1: don't want it. Like Chunks always looks at my plate
Speaker 1: and says, you're gonna eat that. People who are hungry
Speaker 1: for the word is like a you're gonna eat that,
Speaker 1: I'll eat it at you know. But we want to
Speaker 1: pick up today and thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: attendance today, and thank you for the privilege of ministering
Speaker 1: the Word of God to you. It's going to be amazing,
Speaker 1: and y'all one reason I wanted to do it this
Speaker 1: way because you know, normally I'm preaching the sermon live
Speaker 1: on Sunday mornings, and that's great, that's great. But back
Speaker 1: in the the days of the plague, right after Moses
Speaker 1: brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai and the
Speaker 1: plague had put it where I could only have staff
Speaker 1: in the room for months and months and months. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say I missed that at all because it was,
Speaker 1: you know, tough time, but there was something special about
Speaker 1: those moments. I mean, I haven't had Larry Bryan in
Speaker 1: the room with me in six months. So when you
Speaker 1: when you hear this, that's that's LB. LB is back
Speaker 1: and oh man, So wherever you are, I pray that
Speaker 1: God would bless you in a great way today. Why
Speaker 1: don't we do this. Let's go, let's go to Genesis
Speaker 1: forty nine. It's hard to call this a part two
Speaker 1: for what I shared last week about bent Knee's break chains.
Speaker 1: If you didn't hear it, I can give you the
Speaker 1: whole message. Humility brings freedom when you stop trying to
Speaker 1: control everything and manipulate everything and change everyone. But ask
Speaker 1: God change me, change the way I see it. Then
Speaker 1: it frees you in amazing ways. So that was the message.
Speaker 1: It was a lot better than that. You can go
Speaker 1: watch it. So now I want to back up to
Speaker 1: Genesis forty nine and give you a picture of the
Speaker 1: Bible character we spoke about last week. Who was Joseph
Speaker 1: and what his father Jacob said to him before he died.
Speaker 1: Now listen to this. Jacob has been speaking to all
Speaker 1: of his sons, all twelve of them. You know him
Speaker 1: as the tribes of Israel, because those went on to
Speaker 1: be the patriarchs that God built his nation through. But
Speaker 1: they were also troublemakers. And I'm telling you not only
Speaker 1: did they push Joseph in a pit because they were
Speaker 1: jealous of him, but they were crazy and so I
Speaker 1: mean they attacked whole cities, whole villages. And so when
Speaker 1: Jacob started talking to them, the Bible says something cool
Speaker 1: that he gave them each the blessing that was appropriate
Speaker 1: to them, and he went one by one, so he
Speaker 1: gave them each a personal word, and it concerned their
Speaker 1: future and their purpose. But it wasn't always this polished
Speaker 1: kind of thing. One of his sons he called a
Speaker 1: raw bone donkey. Isn't that crazy? He said, you're a
Speaker 1: raw bone donkey. I think that was Isakar. He said
Speaker 1: that too, you're a raw bone donkey. And one of them,
Speaker 1: he said you're a snake by thee to one of
Speaker 1: his sons. All right, So when he gets to Joseph,
Speaker 1: you can tell how much he likes Joseph. He liked
Speaker 1: Joseph's mom. He loved Rachel, and Rachel is no longer.
Speaker 1: But I think he sees a little bit of Rachel
Speaker 1: in Joseph's eyes because he gives him an extra long blessing. Now,
Speaker 1: first point, the one who went through the most, the
Speaker 1: one who had gone through the most, the one who
Speaker 1: endured the most, was blessed the most. So listen to this.
Speaker 1: This is what he said about Joseph. Just listen, just listen,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have you seated in a moment. But
Speaker 1: he said in Genesis forty nine to twenty two, Joseph
Speaker 1: is a fruitful vine, fruitful vine near a spring, whose
Speaker 1: branches climb over a wall. With bitterness. Archers attacked him.
Speaker 1: They shot at him with hostility, but his bow remain steady,
Speaker 1: his strong arms stayed limber because of the hand of
Speaker 1: the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the
Speaker 1: Rock of Israel, because of your Father's God, who helps you,
Speaker 1: Because of the Almighty, who blesses you with blessings of
Speaker 1: the skies above, blessings of the deep springs below, blessings
Speaker 1: of the breast and womb. Your father's blessings are greater.
Speaker 1: Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the
Speaker 1: ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age old hills.
Speaker 1: Let all these rest on the head of Joseph. Let
Speaker 1: all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the
Speaker 1: brow of the prince among his brothers. Say, Amen, I
Speaker 1: want to speak to you today. God gave me a
Speaker 1: word for you, and you could say it out loud,
Speaker 1: to say, my future is my focus. Say it again,
Speaker 1: my future is my focus. Now look all around you,
Speaker 1: Look all around you, look all around you, and now
Speaker 1: look straight ahead. Say my future is my focus. Amen,
Speaker 1: you may be seated. I'm gonna teach a little bit today,
Speaker 1: can I teach? I teach a little bit too. I
Speaker 1: might preach a little too. I might preach a little teach,
Speaker 1: a little dance, a little shout a little, I might
Speaker 1: sing a little. You may hear that different than I
Speaker 1: mean it. By the way, my future is my focus,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I think we use the future as an
Speaker 1: excuse to waste today. It is possible to look so
Speaker 1: far ahead you can wreck your car looking too far
Speaker 1: just as easily as not looking far enough. So when
Speaker 1: I say my future is my focus, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about that that worrying spirit that tries to keep you
Speaker 1: playing out every what if scenario, like you can think
Speaker 1: of every contingency. When you get kids, you'll understand this.
Speaker 1: Those of you who are maybe hoping to have kids,
Speaker 1: you'll understand that. You will begin to plan who they're
Speaker 1: going to marry the moment you find out what sex
Speaker 1: they are. When I married Holly, her mom pulled me
Speaker 1: aside and I love you, DDI, but she said, I've
Speaker 1: been praying for you since Holly was born. I told
Speaker 1: the Lord what kind of man to send for my
Speaker 1: daughter since the day she was born. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: did I fit the list? I am too bad? Because
Speaker 1: now I am, so you might have to adjust the
Speaker 1: list because here I am. Send me you know anyway,
Speaker 1: that's good, But you can take it too far. Getting
Speaker 1: so focused on me and Holly will go on a
Speaker 1: walk sometimes and we'll start thinking about what if our
Speaker 1: kids marry somebody that we don't like. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: all right, Abby is eleven. She's got at least fifty
Speaker 1: more years before we let her date. Say it again.
Speaker 1: My future is my focus, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that are going on in your mind. I'm
Speaker 1: just going to be honest with you. You're trying to
Speaker 1: do too much too soon. You're trying to do too
Speaker 1: much too soon. You know that feeling you can get
Speaker 1: in a conversation where you're talking to somebody and then
Speaker 1: you take it a little too far and you can
Speaker 1: kind of back up and you say too far. This
Speaker 1: happens to me all the time because I'm a pastor
Speaker 1: and people have a certain perception of me as a pastor,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I like to let them in on what
Speaker 1: I really struggle with. And I'll say something about, you know,
Speaker 1: something that's not completely sanitized, and I'll get this sense like, oh,
Speaker 1: too far. They can't handle that, that's too far. I
Speaker 1: get that sometimes when I'm preaching. Sometimes when i'm preaching,
Speaker 1: I'll start digging at something and I can tell Oh,
Speaker 1: this is a little too too deep, too quick. This
Speaker 1: is not a Sunday morning, This is not a Sunday morning. Point,
Speaker 1: this is something for a Bible study. This for a
Speaker 1: men's Bible study. Back it up, back it up, back
Speaker 1: it up. This is for a men's only Bible study.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, too far, and then there's too soon, and
Speaker 1: so that's a real danger. It's a real danger when
Speaker 1: you start trying to use today's faith to forecast tomorrow's problems.
Speaker 1: Remember the hymn writer said strength for today and bright
Speaker 1: hope for tomorrow. God will never give you strength for
Speaker 1: tomorrow and hope for today. He will give you strength
Speaker 1: for today hope for tomorrow. But a lot of us
Speaker 1: get it backwards. So we want hope for today and
Speaker 1: strength for tomorrow. What do I mean? We kind of
Speaker 1: get in our minds that what's next will be better.
Speaker 1: We get that in our minds. To a certain degree.
Speaker 1: We do the opposite of Joseph in the Bible. Joseph
Speaker 1: did not wait until he was in a position of influence,
Speaker 1: like we talked about last week, to begin to serve
Speaker 1: God with integrity. Watch this. His integrity led to his influence.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a byproduct of the influence. It wasn't when
Speaker 1: others were watching him that he started working hard. It
Speaker 1: wasn't when a great opportunity to relieve each of the
Speaker 1: famine appeared that he submitted his job application to be
Speaker 1: the second in charge to the Pharaoh. So we see,
Speaker 1: and we saw last week. If you saw the message
Speaker 1: last week, that message last week, we covered forty years
Speaker 1: of faithfulness in Joseph's life that led him to this
Speaker 1: point of forgiveness for everything that had happened to him
Speaker 1: in his past, for everything that had happened to him
Speaker 1: at the hands of others, for everything that Joseph couldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily let go, but God helped him get over what
Speaker 1: he couldn't let go of. There's something in your life
Speaker 1: right now that you can't let go of. But the
Speaker 1: word God is going to give you today is going
Speaker 1: to help you to get over what you can't let
Speaker 1: go of. I don't necessarily mean something that somebody did
Speaker 1: to you, although it very well could be that it
Speaker 1: could be your idea of what somebody did to you,
Speaker 1: But if we asked them, they would see it differently.
Speaker 1: So we're not talking about what somebody else did we're
Speaker 1: talking about what is happening on the inside of you say,
Speaker 1: my future is my focus now. To get us to
Speaker 1: this place, I want to revisit Genesis fifty from last
Speaker 1: week and kind of take it a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: than what I was able to share. Let's go beneath
Speaker 1: the surface of this conversation, just to remind you. And
Speaker 1: I was telling my friend. My friend said, uh, I
Speaker 1: liked the sermon and it made me mad. I said,
Speaker 1: I did it right. I did that one right. Because
Speaker 1: if you could hear this idea that you are not
Speaker 1: in the place of God, what Joseph said, what you're
Speaker 1: going to see in a moment. If you can hear
Speaker 1: that and it doesn't challenge you, you didn't really hear it.
Speaker 1: If you hear you are not God. And all you
Speaker 1: hear is so I have no responsibility because God's gonna
Speaker 1: do it. Then you didn't hear the message. You didn't
Speaker 1: hear the scripture. You turned the scripture into a sedative.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't strengthen you if it only sedates you. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not God. So I'm just gonna let God work
Speaker 1: it out. I'm just gonna let God do it y'all. God, God,
Speaker 1: God did not preach this sermon to me. Today. I
Speaker 1: studied it. Lord, give me the message. You know. The
Speaker 1: next thing the Lord said, open your books, you know
Speaker 1: those big books. If you don't like to read your message,
Speaker 1: your blessing is in your books. So when she said
Speaker 1: I liked it, it made me mad. I said, good,
Speaker 1: because it's going to do you some good if it
Speaker 1: If it irritated you a little bit, look at this.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna go through it slowly today. You ready, Concord,
Speaker 1: Are you ready? Gaston? Are you ready? All right? Right?
Speaker 1: All right, all right, make it sure. Listen to Joseph
Speaker 1: at age fifty six, in the halftime of his life,
Speaker 1: making a decision about what he's going to do with
Speaker 1: his brothers who betrayed him, who are now kneeling before him,
Speaker 1: begging him be good to us. Remember they haven't changed,
Speaker 1: because they are still lying to him, saying, your dad
Speaker 1: wanted you to forgive us. It was Dad's idea, it was.
Speaker 1: That's like staff members who say, Pastor wants you to
Speaker 1: be on time? Pastor, do I want you to be
Speaker 1: on time? God wants you to be on time? Not
Speaker 1: to do it pastor. But they did that, and so
Speaker 1: have you ever been here? He is having to forgive them,
Speaker 1: but they are still doing the thing that hurt him.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to forgive him. And they've been dead
Speaker 1: twenty three years. It's one thing to forgive them. And
Speaker 1: they moved to Alabama, and now that they're living in
Speaker 1: another country, I mean another state, you don't ever have
Speaker 1: to see him again. But now he's having to deal
Speaker 1: with it in the face of his present. He's having
Speaker 1: to make a decision about his future. Let's go you ready.
Speaker 1: When Joseph's brothers verse fifteen saw that their father was dead,
Speaker 1: they said, when they saw that their father was dead,
Speaker 1: they said, come back to that in a minute. What
Speaker 1: if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us
Speaker 1: back for all the wrongs we did to him. So
Speaker 1: they sent word to Joseph, say it, your father left
Speaker 1: these instructions before he died. I can't resist telling you this.
Speaker 1: I want to save it, but I can't. He already
Speaker 1: heard from his father in chapter forty nine. He doesn't
Speaker 1: need a second hand explanation of what his father said
Speaker 1: from his dysfunctional brothers. That's why I'm glad. I have
Speaker 1: direct access to God. I have a direct line to Heaven.
Speaker 1: I have a direct connection to the heart of my father.
Speaker 1: He knipped me together, made me, stitch me, and sustains me.
Speaker 1: So I know what he said, so I'll have to
Speaker 1: hear it secondhand. That means you don't get to dilute
Speaker 1: it or pollute it, or mix it up or twist it,
Speaker 1: because I know what he said, because he told me.
Speaker 1: Verse seventeen. This is what you are to say to Joseph.
Speaker 1: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and
Speaker 1: wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now, please
Speaker 1: forgive the sins of the servant of the God of
Speaker 1: your father. And he didn't even have the guts to
Speaker 1: do it face to face. They sent a messenger, and
Speaker 1: when their message came to him, Joseph wept. Remember he
Speaker 1: noticed his emotions, but he was not controlled by his emotions.
Speaker 1: That's where you've got to get That's where I've got
Speaker 1: to get that you notice the emotions if you want
Speaker 1: to be free, but you are not controlled by the emotions.
Speaker 1: Being controlled by your emotions will always limit your future
Speaker 1: to the level of your feelings. So you will only
Speaker 1: do what's right if you feel like doing what's right. Oh,
Speaker 1: I just wasn't feeling it today. Well, those are the
Speaker 1: times to faith it all right. So I didn't place
Speaker 1: my feelings in Christ. I placed my faith in Cross,
Speaker 1: who's greater than my feelings. And Joseph said, after he
Speaker 1: finished weeping, they came and said, we are your slaves.
Speaker 1: And he said to them Verse nineteen, don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: Am I in the place of God? Obvious answers no.
Speaker 1: But now to the naked eye, he kind of is
Speaker 1: because he's so powerful at this point in his life.
Speaker 1: He's not the little brother that they picked on anymore.
Speaker 1: This boy is so blessed that they didn't even recognize him.
Speaker 1: The first trip they made to Egypt to get food,
Speaker 1: he stood right in front of them, dressed in Pharaoh's coat,
Speaker 1: not the one his father gave him. The one that
Speaker 1: they stripped from him was still in the house of
Speaker 1: the Father. But God always has a coat for me somewhere.
Speaker 1: If I I keep my character, somebody say, my future
Speaker 1: is my focus. So if I keep my character, you
Speaker 1: can have my coat. If I keep my sense of
Speaker 1: who I am, I can go through things that would
Speaker 1: have killed somebody else's character. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yea yeah, yea yeah yeah. This is the word.
Speaker 1: This is the word. This is the word, and this
Speaker 1: is the verse that we focused on last week. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna break it down again. He said, you intended
Speaker 1: to harm me, but God intended it for good to
Speaker 1: accomplish what is now being done, saving them any life.
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to illustrate this, all right,
Speaker 1: who can I use? I need three strong men, three
Speaker 1: strong brothers. I need three. There we go, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: One two three, perfect, perfect perfect. Now I want you'll
Speaker 1: you'll come on up here and help me. This will
Speaker 1: be fun. This will be fun because I want you
Speaker 1: to see it like last week when I got on
Speaker 1: my knees in that sermon that wasn't for a show,
Speaker 1: that was so that the word of God, that you
Speaker 1: could carry it forward so that it would have an
Speaker 1: imprint in your life and you could ask the question,
Speaker 1: am I in the position to make the decision? Or
Speaker 1: am I letting my pain get the best of me?
Speaker 1: So okay, So y'all line up from strongest to weakest,
Speaker 1: Come on, now, come on out, coming it right here,
Speaker 1: from strongest to weakest. Come on, come on, come in,
Speaker 1: come here, from strongest to weakest. All these campus fasters now,
Speaker 1: all right, so so stand up. I'm done with that, im.
Speaker 1: It's just a different image. I did that last week.
Speaker 1: That was last week. Y'all watch it online YouTube dot com.
Speaker 1: Put put the strongest. I want the strongest one on
Speaker 1: that side and the weakest one on this side. That's
Speaker 1: how you want it, weakest, strongest, weakest. What did I say,
Speaker 1: which one on which side? Huh, you're the strongest, You're strongest.
Speaker 1: I want. I think I want the strongest, the close. Well, no,
Speaker 1: you're the strongest. I'm mixed up weakest. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: start with you. We're gonna call him I did this
Speaker 1: last week, but now let me illustrate it. Let's call
Speaker 1: him bad bad Jeff Bates. Let's call him bad to
Speaker 1: represent not that he's bad, the bad things that happened
Speaker 1: in Joseph's life. Remember, you meant it to harm me,
Speaker 1: You intended it for evil. So let's say he's the
Speaker 1: bad thing. What I endeavor for you to see today
Speaker 1: is that, at this point in Joseph's life, when something
Speaker 1: bad happens to you, when's thing bad is done to
Speaker 1: you when the bad thing is because of you, all
Speaker 1: of it, all of it. I'm trying to get you
Speaker 1: to see that all things fall under the sovereignty of God.
Speaker 1: Say sovereignty. You don't have to spell it, put it
Speaker 1: in the chat, just say it, sovereignty. The sovereignty eye
Speaker 1: before you had sovereignty, got a g in it. Sovereignty.
Speaker 1: It means that God uses sinful men to accomplish saving purposes.
Speaker 1: That's the whole book of Genesis in a nutshell, that
Speaker 1: God uses sinful women to accomplish saving purposes. You intended
Speaker 1: to harm me. God intended it for good, for the
Speaker 1: saving salvation of many lives. So sovereignty salvation. But it
Speaker 1: was bad, and we said last week that that's so important.
Speaker 1: It was bad. Now, if Joseph spends the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, he says fifty twenty. If he spends the
Speaker 1: rest of his life in the first part of this sentence,
Speaker 1: if he spends the rest of his life, I'm looking
Speaker 1: for you. There, there you are. If he spends the
Speaker 1: rest of his life in the first part of this sentence,
Speaker 1: you intended to harm me, Then the bad thing that
Speaker 1: happened becomes just link arms becomes a chain to who
Speaker 1: he blames for it. Check your blame, you intended to
Speaker 1: harm me. And then he starts name checking him, Ruben Simeon,
Speaker 1: Isa Car, you rob bone donkey. He starts calling the names.
Speaker 1: He didn't call is a raw bone donkey. And I'm
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure it was Isa Car that
Speaker 1: he called a rob boone donkey. So somebody's fact checking
Speaker 1: me right now. But he didn't. He didn't call any
Speaker 1: of them it was good. It was is Car. He
Speaker 1: didn't call him that good app He could have spent
Speaker 1: the rest of his life put it back up p
Speaker 1: describing how they harmed him. Such a small thing to say,
Speaker 1: harm me? How much? How much time do you get
Speaker 1: to that? Because I'm telling you keep your arms light.
Speaker 1: Some of us would have spent the next fifty five
Speaker 1: years describing the first part of that sentence. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you what it was like. First, I had
Speaker 1: to go down to I had to go down and
Speaker 1: be enslaved by the Midianites. I was picked up by
Speaker 1: the caravan. I was shoved in the back. He would
Speaker 1: have spent the rest of his life if he would,
Speaker 1: because if you start there, then you got to talk
Speaker 1: about and then I excelled in the house of Potterphar,
Speaker 1: who I served, But then his wife was crazy and
Speaker 1: his wife was kept on trying to get with me.
Speaker 1: And I mean, who can blame her? I am well
Speaker 1: built and handsome. The Bible says that The Bible says
Speaker 1: that he was well built and handsome. He was well
Speaker 1: built and handsome, but he he didn't go into any
Speaker 1: details about Potterphar's house. He didn't go into any details
Speaker 1: about what happened after Potiphar's house, which was prison. He
Speaker 1: didn't go into any details about being forgotten in prison
Speaker 1: when he was the key to one man's freedom. He
Speaker 1: didn't rehearse the lack of reciprocation. Now coming to the
Speaker 1: story with me, coming to don't just don't just sit there.
Speaker 1: I know Jeff and Chedd are handsome together, you know,
Speaker 1: like that and all that, But I want you to
Speaker 1: see yourself shaned to whatever you blame. You gave your
Speaker 1: power away. You gave your power away, because now watch
Speaker 1: try to get away from chet Ah. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be that easy. It's not gonna be that easy. You
Speaker 1: are now this creates what we called last week the
Speaker 1: shame of events that could have defined Joseph's life. You
Speaker 1: feel me. Oh, and even even sometimes I think you
Speaker 1: can blame yourself and think that that is somehow honoring
Speaker 1: to God. I thought you weren't God. Telling God you're
Speaker 1: worthless is an insult to the word that he spoke
Speaker 1: over you. And it is the opposite of worshiping God
Speaker 1: to tell him how worthless you are, because the focus
Speaker 1: is on you. So watch this, Watch this. This is
Speaker 1: a chain and what it becomes is terrible, but it
Speaker 1: becomes bitterness. And now you got bondage. Walk with it
Speaker 1: for me. In your own life, something bad happens. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's horrible. I didn't get to finish because of them.
Speaker 1: They weren't there for me. I mean, if we just
Speaker 1: named everything that's in this room, forget about all over
Speaker 1: the world. If we just named everything that's in this room,
Speaker 1: if we name everything bad that happened in this room,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get to preach another sermon until twenty sixty four,
Speaker 1: all right, I wouldn't get to preach. And if we
Speaker 1: spent the rest of this day, we would still over
Speaker 1: into tomorrow. And then Yet Joseph, after after everything he's
Speaker 1: been through Genesis fifty twenty. Put it on the screen.
Speaker 1: You intended to harm me, And that's all he said
Speaker 1: about that. That's freedom. He wouldn't denial either, because he
Speaker 1: still wept. There was a process. He didn't say it
Speaker 1: the next day. He didn't say it in the pit,
Speaker 1: he didn't say it in the back of the caravan
Speaker 1: as he's being sold in chained. But at some point
Speaker 1: his perspective became, But God, so you break it with
Speaker 1: a butt. Let me show you again, y'all. I got
Speaker 1: the I got the remedial class, the summer school. In
Speaker 1: here today, I'm gonna show you again. You intended to
Speaker 1: harm me. That was bad. Now I could blame you,
Speaker 1: I could be bitter about it, and I could spend
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. But God, show you again,
Speaker 1: show you again, get back together. Let me show you again.
Speaker 1: Let me show you till you see yourself interrupting what
Speaker 1: the enemy said to destroy you. And you could break
Speaker 1: it with a butt. God, you can break it. So
Speaker 1: so I'm looking now. Now I'm looking. My future is
Speaker 1: my focus. So I'm looking for everything in my life
Speaker 1: that has me in bondage, and I'm looking to put
Speaker 1: a butt right here to see what God is gonna
Speaker 1: do next. I need thirty of doll I need thirty
Speaker 1: people in a Hammond B three to praise God, not
Speaker 1: no power to break it. He's say, in your praise,
Speaker 1: in your perspective, in your purpose, get together. That's how
Speaker 1: you break a chain. That's how they left me. But
Speaker 1: God has somebody else for me. They hurt me, but
Speaker 1: God healed me. He's healing me right now. Somebody's saying
Speaker 1: in the chat, but God, but God, I feel like
Speaker 1: preaching in this room today wright. God is breaking saying,
Speaker 1: I'm serious enough. You can break it with a foot
Speaker 1: in our sin. But God, you meant it for evil.
Speaker 1: But dah, the weapon was formed against me, but it
Speaker 1: didn't prosper because I'm still breathing, living, balking, dunking oven.
Speaker 1: But God, by God, but God, but God, Bah, break
Speaker 1: that thing. I can break that thing. You break it
Speaker 1: before it breaks you. You hear me, You break it
Speaker 1: before it breaks you. So start interrupting yourself and start
Speaker 1: you'll go, y'all go sit down. I almost played Red Rover,
Speaker 1: Red Rover, Sin Joseph right over who Red Rover, Red Rover,
Speaker 1: Red Rover, Red Rover. Y'all didn't play that game. Uh,
Speaker 1: y'all play the blame game, the blame game, the blame game. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. Let me talk to the staff for
Speaker 1: a minute. I'll be right back with the whole church
Speaker 1: if my supervisor would let me. But you didn't do
Speaker 1: the last thing they ask you. I'm gonna leave y'all alone.
Speaker 1: I promise, I promise. I'm going on my summer break soon.
Speaker 1: Y'all won't have to put up with me for a while.
Speaker 1: But I want you to begin. Let's get very practical
Speaker 1: to interrupt your self, defeating God, dethroning self talk with
Speaker 1: a butt And when you say but, it signals to
Speaker 1: your brain we're moving on. We're changing the focus, because
Speaker 1: my focus is my future. They say you can't change
Speaker 1: the past. That's not true. Certainly you can't reconstruct the events.
Speaker 1: But do you really think you remember it exactly as
Speaker 1: it was? And do you really believe that you are
Speaker 1: at the point in your life when you can fully
Speaker 1: understand why it happened how it happened. When the Bible
Speaker 1: says the Lord was with Joseph, I want you to
Speaker 1: understand that was written years after, decades after the events
Speaker 1: had transpired, after he wept forgave, wept forgave, wept forgave,
Speaker 1: wept forgave, And you have to do that sometime and
Speaker 1: every time you find yourself stuck in that first part
Speaker 1: you intended. I sometimes see these things and I don't
Speaker 1: show them like I should put Verse twenty back up.
Speaker 1: But God, that's how you break the chain. That's how
Speaker 1: you get set free to live beyond your feelings. That's
Speaker 1: how you break it. Addiction, not just forgiveness, bitterness, blame.
Speaker 1: That's how you break any cycle in your life. You
Speaker 1: have got to interrupt it every time it happens, even
Speaker 1: if you weep five times to get there. Every time,
Speaker 1: if you weep five, you worship five. If the enemy
Speaker 1: attacks five, you interrupt five. But God intended it for
Speaker 1: good to accomplish. Ah Ah, what is now being done?
Speaker 1: I thought we were appreciate about the future. Well, the
Speaker 1: only way that you can affect the future is to
Speaker 1: be faithful. Right now, let me give it to you
Speaker 1: like this. Everything God wants to do next in your
Speaker 1: life is connected to what He is calling you to
Speaker 1: do now. It took Joseph's attitude in the prison to
Speaker 1: interpret someone else's dreams while he himself was still in
Speaker 1: a dungeon to bring him to the place where he
Speaker 1: could be everything God called him to be, and not
Speaker 1: just for himself, but for others. Because some of the
Speaker 1: things that you're fighting with are not for you, they
Speaker 1: are for your children. I don't have children yet. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about I'm not talking about your view
Speaker 1: of things. I'm talking about God's view of things. He
Speaker 1: already sees them at six foot two and you're only sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how God works, right. So he says I had
Speaker 1: plans to give you a hope in a future. And
Speaker 1: when we say, but God, I just think about how
Speaker 1: this needs to operate in my life when I'm saying hm,
Speaker 1: when I'm saying and the church now is not what
Speaker 1: it was before the pandemic. But God brought people into
Speaker 1: our church through the pandemic that would have never even
Speaker 1: gone to church if there were not a pandemic. Because
Speaker 1: if you just let the enemy attack you, attack you,
Speaker 1: and you don't learn to interrupt him, it just strengthens
Speaker 1: the chain. It becomes bondage. Your belief becomes your bondage,
Speaker 1: your belief that was Joseph's belief. God is using this
Speaker 1: for good and everything that I went through that wasn't
Speaker 1: good when God, I don't know if you've ever heard
Speaker 1: a preacher say God will work it out. That's cool.
Speaker 1: Let me give you one better. God will work it in.
Speaker 1: God will work it in. Whatever happens to you, God
Speaker 1: will work it in. One time, I was preaching about
Speaker 1: the woman who worshiped Jesus, and I was talking about
Speaker 1: how she poured it on his feet, how she poured
Speaker 1: the oil on his feet to annoy him, and how
Speaker 1: everybody thought it was a waste. And I was preaching
Speaker 1: so hard. It was only about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people in the room, not even this many who are
Speaker 1: here with the staff today. It was about one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty people in the room. But I was preaching
Speaker 1: so hard, man, because I don't just preach big when
Speaker 1: the crowd's big. I don't just do it big when
Speaker 1: a lot of people are watching. Never did ask Holly.
Speaker 1: When we travel go, I don't do everything right. But
Speaker 1: I've always been passionate about this. I used to travel
Speaker 1: to little, tiny little churches, tiny little crowds, and the
Speaker 1: first place we would stop was Walmart, and go to
Speaker 1: the Walmart in that town, and I would buy a
Speaker 1: mirror for five dollars and ninety seven cents out in
Speaker 1: my pocket because they didn't pay for it out of
Speaker 1: the ministry fund at the college ministry team that we
Speaker 1: were interning with, So we would go to the walmart.
Speaker 1: I knew exactly what i'le I had to find the
Speaker 1: mirror on. I would get the mirror and I'd stand
Speaker 1: up and preach to those kids, and I've had a
Speaker 1: hammer in the van, and I'd start preaching about the
Speaker 1: image of God, and I'd hold up the mirror and
Speaker 1: I was then a get real condemnation oriented, and I'd
Speaker 1: take the mirror and I start smashing the mirror. And
Speaker 1: I did it all the way until a kid got
Speaker 1: a piece of mirror in his eye, and the parents
Speaker 1: almost sued me. But I prayed, and the Lord is faithful,
Speaker 1: all right, But so don't I don't preach, And you
Speaker 1: need to start. You need to stop waiting for it
Speaker 1: to discover what God has put in you, because if
Speaker 1: you don't have it in the prison, you won't have
Speaker 1: it in the palace. And I was preaching with a
Speaker 1: worship night and I was flailing my arms and my
Speaker 1: water fell over I was so embarrassed my water falls
Speaker 1: and spills, and it totally broke the flow my message
Speaker 1: until I realized, don't cry over spilt water. Work it in.
Speaker 1: And since I happened to be preaching about the woman
Speaker 1: who poured out or oil, the image kind of fig
Speaker 1: because it was fluid, you know, And so if you
Speaker 1: stay fluid like that, you got to be fluid in
Speaker 1: those moments. You got to be fluid in those moments.
Speaker 1: You got to be fluid in those moments. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I said, just like that, water hit
Speaker 1: that ground, and y'all are all wondering if I did
Speaker 1: it on purpose. Some of the things in your life
Speaker 1: that you're wondering, is this on purpose? You've got to
Speaker 1: turn it to worship. And other people will see it
Speaker 1: as a waste, but you got to turn it into worship. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: when I say, when I say, that was better than
Speaker 1: any illustration I ever could have planned, because I worked
Speaker 1: it in. And Joseph MA message to you today is
Speaker 1: not gotta work it out. Just future is your focus.
Speaker 1: God'll do it later, God'll send it when you need it. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he said, it is what is now being done this
Speaker 1: season of your life, this moment of your marriage, this
Speaker 1: moment of your ministry, this moment of your business, this
Speaker 1: moment in your heart, this moment where you're deciding, am
Speaker 1: I going to go see a counselor or not? Am
Speaker 1: I going to work through this or not? Am I
Speaker 1: going to keep repeating these same powerless patterns? Am I
Speaker 1: going to take my power back? You said, well, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have power. God has power, right, And in
Speaker 1: Acts one eight, he said, you will receive power when
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit comes on you, but you give your
Speaker 1: power away every time you stay focused on what happened.
Speaker 1: Genesis fifty twety is good. Oh, we could stay here
Speaker 1: all day, but we got to move. Genesis fifty twenty.
Speaker 1: You intended to harm me. You can change the past
Speaker 1: this way. I told Jared right before I came out.
Speaker 1: This came to me. Put harm on the board, Put
Speaker 1: harm on the center screen, and zoom out so everyone
Speaker 1: can see it. Oh, it's coming on that screen. That's right, Jared,
Speaker 1: I forgot. We did it like that. There it is,
Speaker 1: there is there is. You intended to harm me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let me break this down. I hope this makes
Speaker 1: sense because it's a lot. He was putting on my mic,
Speaker 1: and I told him to do this. You can change
Speaker 1: the meaning of that by what you put after it.
Speaker 1: Put the letter O in Why what comes after that?
Speaker 1: What comes after that? And now you will be reminded
Speaker 1: of the New Testament companion verse of Genesis fifty twenty.
Speaker 1: All things work together. What's harmony? What's harmony? What's harmony?
Speaker 1: What's harmony? What's harmony? It's when I take one note,
Speaker 1: play one note, play one note, and when I take
Speaker 1: another note, and it's not the same note. But when
Speaker 1: I put them together together, together, together, together, together together.
Speaker 1: You hear this. You have got to let God bring
Speaker 1: this thing together, because it's what comes after the attack.
Speaker 1: He said, he said, let me tell you what Jacob said.
Speaker 1: Let me tell what Jacob said about Joseph. He said,
Speaker 1: he is a fruitful vine. Somebody say, fruitful vine, A
Speaker 1: fruitful vine, a fruitful vine who climbed over a wall.
Speaker 1: He climbed over a wall, He climbed over a wall.
Speaker 1: I wonder what wall you think is stopping God from
Speaker 1: doing what he's doing in your life? Right now, give
Speaker 1: me my verse again in Genesis forty nine. I got
Speaker 1: to show you this. He's a fruitful vine who climbed
Speaker 1: over a wall. So question, are you going to be
Speaker 1: defined by what stood against you or how you got
Speaker 1: over it? I'll tell you something right now. I want
Speaker 1: to find out what's on the other side of the wall.
Speaker 1: Because people don't put off walls unless they're concerned about
Speaker 1: something on the other side. So whatever the devil has
Speaker 1: been fighting you with, I just wonder why he's so
Speaker 1: threatened and worried about you getting through it. What's on
Speaker 1: the other side. It's what I want to find out
Speaker 1: for Joseph. For Joseph, he saved the whole nation, He
Speaker 1: preserved his entire family and posterity, And I wonder what's
Speaker 1: on the other side of your wall. Now, we probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have called Joseph a vine, would we by our definitions,
Speaker 1: Because you know, we live in the days where everybody
Speaker 1: gets a trophy, everybody gets a ribon everybody. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. You didn't get what you wanted. You didn't
Speaker 1: get your seat, you didn't get your opportunity, you didn't
Speaker 1: get to serve where you want to serve. You didn't
Speaker 1: get the feedback you wanted. Nobody told me it was good.
Speaker 1: So if we had been Jacob, think of how we
Speaker 1: would have spoke to Joseph, because he's going through their
Speaker 1: life and he's defining their life as their father, and
Speaker 1: he's saying some things to each of them. So Genesis
Speaker 1: forty nine, twenty two, he gets to Joseph, you raw
Speaker 1: boned donkey, you snake by the road, talking to all
Speaker 1: out of the brothers, he gets to Joseph. He's a
Speaker 1: Joseph a vine. But I thought he was a victim.
Speaker 1: But his father called him a vine. But he was
Speaker 1: a victim. But he was a vine. But he was
Speaker 1: a victim. And what made him a vine was what
Speaker 1: he climbed over. You ready, what he climbed over and
Speaker 1: what he brought forth. Because he's not just any vine.
Speaker 1: He's a fruitful vibe. Tell somebody I got something to give. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not just surviving for me. I've got something special.
Speaker 1: I've got something to give. It will be the fruit
Speaker 1: of what I've been through that will preserve my purpose.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to a fruitful vine. Wow, look at that fruit.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. And he's not
Speaker 1: just a vine. He doesn't just talk about a wall
Speaker 1: and he doesn't really describe the wall. I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he care what kind of wall doesn't matter, matters more
Speaker 1: what the vine was made of than what the wall
Speaker 1: was made of. And because listen, this is this is
Speaker 1: the this is the meaning of a fruitful vine, because
Speaker 1: you are abiding in Christ, because you are choosing and
Speaker 1: deciding to focus on what He is doing, not what
Speaker 1: you have been through, but what you are bringing forth.
Speaker 1: And that's how you interrupted with a butt. Well that
Speaker 1: was horrible, but God was there with us. Did you
Speaker 1: ever watch somebody die in it? Horrible, but there was
Speaker 1: a grace that was almost more reel than the air
Speaker 1: that you breathed. And you almost feel sorry for the
Speaker 1: people who weren't there because of the grace that grew
Speaker 1: from the grief of that moment. That's what I mean
Speaker 1: by interrupting it with a butt, That's what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that you don't stay chained to the way things
Speaker 1: went down, so that you don't stay chained to what
Speaker 1: other people called you. The only reason that Joseph was
Speaker 1: able to do what he did in chapter fifty is
Speaker 1: because of what his father said in Genesis forty nine.
Speaker 1: She got to hear it firsthand from your father. Some
Speaker 1: of you didn't have an earthly father who told you this.
Speaker 1: So now God is speaking this over you. You're more
Speaker 1: than a conqueror. You're an overcomer. Is he that is
Speaker 1: in you? Then the wall that is in the world.
Speaker 1: Climb or die? Climb or die. You turn around the
Speaker 1: first wall you see, the first rejection, you get, the
Speaker 1: first know you here, the first relapse you turn around,
Speaker 1: he said, Joseph climbed over stuff that would have killed others.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm gonna say this, and if
Speaker 1: it was for you, send me a message. It's almost
Speaker 1: impossible to climb over something while you're complaining about it.
Speaker 1: Get it out of your system. Tell who you need
Speaker 1: to tell. But then start climbing and start bringing forth
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to bring forth. And ask the question,
Speaker 1: let me see how I wrote it down in my notes.
Speaker 1: I write all these notes and I never look at them,
Speaker 1: and I try to mess him up. Sometimes it was
Speaker 1: something along the line, not God, why am I going
Speaker 1: through this? But God, what are you bringing forth? Show
Speaker 1: me what you are doing through this that is for
Speaker 1: the benefit of others. Like Paul said, he comforts us
Speaker 1: with the comfort by which others may be comforted. That's
Speaker 1: a generational way of thinking about your faith. Now, faith
Speaker 1: is a fight, ye, faith is a fight. It's a
Speaker 1: fight for focus. It's a fight for focus. Not fighting
Speaker 1: against people. You're not fighting against Reuben and Simeon and all.
Speaker 1: You're fighting for your focus. And it's the fight of
Speaker 1: your life, right because how can God bring it into harmony?
Speaker 1: If you die on the vine? He said, he's a
Speaker 1: vine climbing over a wall. I had a great picture,
Speaker 1: a fruitful vine. You raw boned donkey, you snake by
Speaker 1: the road, You fruitful vine, you fruitful vine. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be defined by what stood against you. The next image
Speaker 1: is cool too. One of those images is kind of pretty,
Speaker 1: and the other one is grisly. I like this grisly image,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I like this testosterone prophecy
Speaker 1: that he gives it. Give me the next verse twenty
Speaker 1: three with bitterness. Archers attacked him. They shot at him
Speaker 1: with hostility. You intended to harm me. So, when Jacob
Speaker 1: says it's to Joseph before he dies, at the moment
Speaker 1: that Joseph is standing before his brother's making the decision
Speaker 1: about what comes next in his life, He still has
Speaker 1: this picture of the fact that every arrow that was
Speaker 1: shot at him missed. But he went to prison, but
Speaker 1: he didn't take his purpose. But he was thrown in
Speaker 1: a pit, but it didn't take his purpose. That was
Speaker 1: the word that kept comingto my mind when I said
Speaker 1: my future is my focus. I kept thinking about about
Speaker 1: preference and then purpose, and I thought that what Joseph
Speaker 1: was meaning when he said, you hit me with your
Speaker 1: best shot, but it didn't work. You tried to kill me.
Speaker 1: He didn't say it didn't hurt. He said, it didn't
Speaker 1: move me from my purpose. In fact, it was the
Speaker 1: exact thing that God used to bring me to this
Speaker 1: place where I could stand in my purpose and fulfill
Speaker 1: the promise that God gave to the nation. Isn't that awesome?
Speaker 1: So Jacob said, they shot him. They attacked him with bitterness.
Speaker 1: It was their bitterness, not his. He didn't let it in.
Speaker 1: He didn't let it in. They shot it at him,
Speaker 1: but it didn't get in. That's the challenge, y'all. Don't
Speaker 1: let it get in. Don't let it get in. Deal
Speaker 1: with it, acknowledge it, notice it, but do not let
Speaker 1: it define you. Whatever it is, let God work it
Speaker 1: in let God work it in so you could be
Speaker 1: like Joseph. I never shot a bow and arrow in
Speaker 1: my life, so I might look stupid doing this, But
Speaker 1: it said his bow Verse twenty four remained steady and
Speaker 1: his strong arms stayed limber only because the hand of
Speaker 1: the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the
Speaker 1: Rock of Israel. Now I want you to see what
Speaker 1: I saw in the spirit. It's a picture of Joseph,
Speaker 1: through all of the pain that he went through, never
Speaker 1: lost his focus. That's what you do when you aim right.
Speaker 1: You got to focus. You know how heart it is
Speaker 1: to focus when you got everything flying at you. We
Speaker 1: went out on tour a couple weeks ago. Every night
Speaker 1: was such a challenge because it was big rooms. And
Speaker 1: when I preach at our church, everybody's paying attention, taking notes,
Speaker 1: and nobody's bored. Y'all. In those arenas, there are people
Speaker 1: there that are literally praising God with one hand, eating
Speaker 1: popcorn with another, got a chicken finger in their beard,
Speaker 1: and talking about you know, oh God, my God, I
Speaker 1: need you. It's very distracting. And I'm sitting there one night,
Speaker 1: I'm about to preach in a few minutes, and I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: this is so distracting. I can't even focus on the word.
Speaker 1: Look at that guy down there. I think he has
Speaker 1: a beer. They're selling beer. No, they don't sell alcoholic.
Speaker 1: That's it looks like a beer. And I'm a it's
Speaker 1: almost like I'm I'm saying, God, I can't preach with
Speaker 1: all these distractions. And the Lord exactly. The Lord was like,
Speaker 1: whose eyeballs? Who's whose sockets are your eyeballs in? You know,
Speaker 1: at anytime you can stop watching mister chicken fingers. And
Speaker 1: if you look three seats over, look at look at
Speaker 1: those three guys right there, and and and these three big,
Speaker 1: big guys had their arms around each other. I mean big,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it You remember big guys? And I'm like, oh, yea,
Speaker 1: there's way more people worshiping God then sitting here getting
Speaker 1: a snack. But it's up to me to focus on
Speaker 1: what I want more of? Am I doing it close
Speaker 1: to right? I never shot a bow when arrow before?
Speaker 1: Does it look bad? Am I gonna get mean for this?
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to give a picture. When I read
Speaker 1: it, it it said the archers put the verse up. The
Speaker 1: archers shot at him, but his bow remains steady his bow,
Speaker 1: his bow, not their bow. It's not their bow that matters.
Speaker 1: It's not there. If you get that. I know you're
Speaker 1: twenty four, I know you haven't been through a lot
Speaker 1: of life yet. But I'm telling you you can be
Speaker 1: attacked on every side. You can be attacked by everything.
Speaker 1: You can be attacked by the worst thing Hell has
Speaker 1: to throw at you. But if your bow stays steady,
Speaker 1: if your gaze stays on God, if you let me
Speaker 1: give it to you like this, if you point toward
Speaker 1: your purpose, your purpose, your purpose. It's about purpose. It's
Speaker 1: about purpose. It's not about problems. It's about walls and weapons.
Speaker 1: It's about what you climb over. And it's about what
Speaker 1: you focus on. And that is the message God gave
Speaker 1: me to give you, is that he has put a
Speaker 1: hope in a future ahead of you. But you will
Speaker 1: not see this future by watching somebody else's bow. Your future,
Speaker 1: your fruit, your future, your focus. They do what they do,
Speaker 1: They are who they are, They say what they say,
Speaker 1: They go where they go, they leave, when they leave,
Speaker 1: they stay when they stay. They are not God. I
Speaker 1: am not God. He is the Holy One. He is
Speaker 1: my rock. He is not fortress takes my hands strong,
Speaker 1: He teaches my fingers to walk. And all I gotta do, baby,
Speaker 1: is hold that focus and point toward my purpose. To
Speaker 1: know that in all things, the good notes and the
Speaker 1: bad notes work in harmony. You mint it to harm me,
Speaker 1: But God took what you did to harm me. That
Speaker 1: was the bow and shot me to Egypt. I was
Speaker 1: the arrow, and I am where I am, not because
Speaker 1: of the schemes of men or the failed plans, but
Speaker 1: because of the purpose of God. Oh Lord, send this
Speaker 1: word where it's supposed to go today. Send it like
Speaker 1: an arrow flying through the night sky. Send it like
Speaker 1: an arrow. Send it like a weapon that they can
Speaker 1: that they can use against the enemy in the dark
Speaker 1: night of their soul. Send it, Lord, Send You sent
Speaker 1: Joseph ahead of his brothers to Egypt where they sold him.
Speaker 1: You sent him where they sold him. I want to
Speaker 1: bring before you again today, Lord, all of the things
Speaker 1: that are in all of the hearts of all of
Speaker 1: these people that they cannot name. It's too painful to name.
Speaker 1: Some of it they didn't even quite come to terms with.
Speaker 1: Yet they can't even really verbalize it. And yet I
Speaker 1: know that alongside each deep trauma and every breaking disappointment
Speaker 1: and crushing betrayal. There are those little things, those little foxes,
Speaker 1: that spoil the vine. Sometimes the wall that we can't
Speaker 1: climb over is only two inches high. Sometimes it's not
Speaker 1: the height of the wall. Sometimes it's the lack of
Speaker 1: our strength because we are not rooted in you. I
Speaker 1: would pray today, God, that on our staff and in
Speaker 1: our church, that you would raise up Joseph's that even today,
Speaker 1: as I have spoken, that you've been pointing to purpose.
Speaker 1: Now we don't always know what that purpose is. But God,
Speaker 1: we're shifting now from you intended to harm me, and
Speaker 1: we're going to what comes after that comma. But God
Speaker 1: and I thank you that you are using everything that
Speaker 1: they've been through. I speak now to childhood abandonment. I
Speaker 1: speak to the anger that you feel that you can't contain.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I speak to the isolation that is a byproduct
Speaker 1: of your insecurity. There is enough in you to climb
Speaker 1: over it. There is enough in you to climb over it, y'all.
Speaker 1: I don't have to yell to preach a powerful thing.
Speaker 1: And what I just said is worthy of your meditation.
Speaker 1: There is enough in you, the spirit of God, the
Speaker 1: fruit of the spirit. Love is joy, his peace is patience,
Speaker 1: is kindness, is goodness, is faithfulness, it's jealous his self control.
Speaker 1: All of that is yours. And you will receive power.
Speaker 1: Power to get up out of the pit, power to
Speaker 1: do what you were sent to do in the prison,
Speaker 1: power to do what you were intended to do in
Speaker 1: the palace. Power to point toward your purpose in every
Speaker 1: painful season of your life. My focus is my future.
Speaker 1: When I said that title, I intended for you to
Speaker 1: hear it two ways, And one is that you stop
Speaker 1: focusing so much on the bad things that happen and
Speaker 1: blaming people who aren't even here to pay for it anymore,
Speaker 1: and becoming bitter in your own soul, and that you
Speaker 1: would break that chain. But I also meant it as
Speaker 1: a prophecy that the future you experience is going to
Speaker 1: be based on the focus you choose right now. So
Speaker 1: if you don't get some help with this, if you
Speaker 1: don't own it, if you don't submit it to God,
Speaker 1: if you don't get like Joseph and say I will
Speaker 1: provide for you, I will do what I'm supposed to do,
Speaker 1: your future is just going to look like more and
Speaker 1: more of the same frustration you're living in right now.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be that way because the chain breaker is
Speaker 1: in the room. But God, how will you finish the sentence?
Speaker 1: How will you finish the sentence? You know first, the
Speaker 1: first eighteen years of my life were rough, but God
Speaker 1: made them up to me. But God, how will you
Speaker 1: finish the sentence? When you go to prison, they call
Speaker 1: it a prison sentence. And Joseph refuse to stay chained
Speaker 1: one more day. He said, I've been in prison long enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not going back. I'm not going back in my
Speaker 1: memory to the prison that God brought me out of.
Speaker 1: In my reality, I'm moving into my future. That's my focus.
Speaker 1: How can God use what I've been through? Oh, it
Speaker 1: gets glorious when you ask that. And I came to
Speaker 1: attack not only every devil of your past, but every
Speaker 1: devil of your own regrets, not only what happened to you,
Speaker 1: but what you keep saying to yourself about it. I
Speaker 1: came to beat every should have, could have wooded devil
Speaker 1: off your shoulder today in the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1: Every should have could have wood a devil, Every should
Speaker 1: have could have would have if you'd have done this,
Speaker 1: and if you'd have done that, it wouldn't end it
Speaker 1: like that. Why would you bow to a should have
Speaker 1: could have wood, a devil when you got a sure
Speaker 1: enough gonna God who is able to do. I got
Speaker 1: a sure enough gonna God who is sure enough gonna
Speaker 1: bless you and blessing I will bless you, and multiplied,
Speaker 1: I will multiply this. That's the promise. I stand on
Speaker 1: the Rock of Israel, on Christ, the solid rock I stand.
Speaker 1: All other ground is sinking. Same, all other ground is sinking.
Speaker 1: Sam Father, I thank you today that the boast a
Speaker 1: steady because of the strong hand of God. I want
Speaker 1: you to lift your hands right now and worship God,
Speaker 1: knowing that it's his hands that are holding up your hands,
Speaker 1: that it is His purpose that is aiming your bow.
Speaker 1: And with your hands lifted up and with your heart
Speaker 1: filled with faith, I want you to say again what
Speaker 1: we said an hour ago, but I want you to
Speaker 1: say it with faith. My future is my focus. I'm
Speaker 1: going forward in the name of the Lord. Now, let's
Speaker 1: give him thanks and praise on every location. Thanks and praise,
Speaker 1: Thanks and praise with your mouth, with your mouth, with
Speaker 1: your mouth, the fruit of Liss. That's confesses Well. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's podcast, there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to to make sure to subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review this podcast. You can also help us reach
Speaker 1: others by investing today at Elevationchurch dot org, slash give
Speaker 1: and thanks again for joining us on the Elevation Podcast.