[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. Genesis chapter number 50, we're getting to the close here. Excited that we're going to the book of Exodus.
[0:11] Since we're headed into captivity, it's only fair that the pastor will bring us out of it. I'm sure that's how many of you have felt. The pastor is going to bring us out of captivity and Exodus as we start on that next week together.
[0:24] As you're turning to Genesis chapter 50, particularly verse number 19, 20, and 21, we will look at, I have something. I'm just going to come out and say it. I don't like board games.
[0:35] I don't like them even a little bit. And before we had kids, the L. Ross McKinnons, we would get together and play board games, and they knew that about me. I think it's appropriately named.
[0:46] It's just misspelled. It should be B-O-R-E-D, games. They're board games. Monopoly is great for like five minutes, but it lasts like two and a half days. It's unbelievable.
[0:57] And I mean, you're about, somebody says, let's play a game Monopoly. The night's coming to the end. They don't have any, have like, you ever played Monopoly? You don't just play a quick game Monopoly on your way out the door. And I don't like it.
[1:08] And one of the things I least like about a game like Monopoly is when you get stuck in the prison or you go to jail in Monopoly. And you have to wait your turn or you're playing skip bow or something and somebody skips you.
[1:22] And you have to just watch everybody take their turn and then you miss out on it and it goes around. I hate that. I hate that in life. You know, Joseph goes into jail when he comes out and we can see how that happens.
[1:36] But the fact that he emotionally did not stay in jail, he got to a point where he could forgive his brothers, worship the Lord, and he didn't stay in bondage to it is amazing. Just as amazing as the miracles that God did in getting them out of Egypt and part of the Red Sea.
[1:51] When you think about what they did to him, it's amazing he didn't just take many years and say, pass, it's not my turn because I'm still in jail for this thing. So I have a get out of jail free card here tonight.
[2:05] Sergio, what are you doing sitting down, man? Do we know we have a message to preach together? All right. So we've used Sergio's Joseph tonight. You just have to hand these cards out. Maybe if you'll get Ben, everybody tonight compliments of the chef will get a get out of jail free card for you.
[2:22] And I want you to take it home with you and to take extra ones if you want. I don't know why I choose Sergio's the slowest man I've ever met. All right. But take this with you and it has three points on here for you and the scripture.
[2:34] When you thank your brother Jeff, you got to call out our director of missions to get this one done. This is a serious project. But when you think about a lesson, I know that the invitation for a message is often in different places.
[2:47] Let me tell you where I think the invitation for this message is going to hit you. And I'd like for you to take the card and put it there. I'd like you to put it in your car maybe right there among the visor.
[2:58] Because it's at the end of the day after your co-workers made you mad. It's after the fight with your wife and you decide you want to run to the store because you forgot the milk. And she reminded you to get the milk.
[3:08] But you always forget the milk because you don't love her or the kids. All right. Or whatever it is. As you get into that moment and you sit in your car and you look at this card, I want to challenge you.
[3:20] You have a get out of jail free card. Don't go to jail for a minute. Sometimes I tell teenagers talking to them that I went to jail for a short time in my teenage life.
[3:31] Usually gets everybody's attention, doesn't it? That I went to jail for a short time. And the time that I went to jail happened like this. My father, who abused drugs and was a drunkard, who oftentimes would be very loving to me and other times would just be very hateful to me.
[3:50] It felt like a can of beer was a can of mean or a can of hate. Because the day would start out and everything was fun, but I knew that every can, the fun was about the end. And I hated it because it would be the funnest day of my life and it would be the most miserable day of my life as well.
[4:06] But there came a time when he was so caught up in his addiction and what he wanted that he told me, you're not my son. He said, you don't like the things I like. You don't do the things I like.
[4:17] And you don't care for me. You don't want to help me drive out of the dry county to a wet county, help him get alcohol. And at that point, after all that time in my life, I took a prison door and I threw the door closed to find out that I was going to be left in it and he was still going to go about his selfish ways.
[4:36] And I stayed there for so long in my life, in that prison and not able to let go. It affected my relationship with my wife and so many people.
[4:47] Pastor helped me with it so much. That ability, there was that door there that I wasn't aware of. And I'm thankful tonight that I have a get out of jail free card and I'm offering it to you as well.
[4:58] And Joseph found it in his life. So as we look at verses 19, 20 and 21, I want to remind you of the fact that most people reject God, not on an intellectual basis, but on an emotional basis.
[5:12] Me and David, a boy talk about this all the time. I believe I agree with you. And he shares the gospel with some very intellectual people. But after they've given you their spiel, it really comes down to, I don't believe in God because my 12-year-old niece died of cancer and he didn't save her.
[5:27] Or I don't believe and then it's always something emotional. Meaning that based on what I see in life, I do not believe in God and the God I don't believe in, I hate Him.
[5:38] That's how they put it. It's this emotional response that God cannot be alive and working and good because if He did, then things would go much different than I see that they're going with right now.
[5:50] And can I tell you that that is at the heart of foolishness. It's at the heart of atheism. It's like God is not playing by my rules so He cannot be God. It's at the heart of Pharisees. Jesus is not the Son of God because He doesn't follow our rules.
[6:03] Can I tell you that same mindset comes into our lives as Christians? That God is not good because life is bad. Or that God does not love me because these unloving things have happened to me.
[6:13] And you're adopting the mindset of an unbeliever. If you're looking at a problem in life and you can look at it the same way because you're an unbeliever, then you haven't allowed the gospel to transform you in your way of thinking the way that it should.
[6:26] But Joseph did. Brother Ty read it to us. It did a great job. I always choose him to read the hard names of the Bible. And so he read Genesis chapter number 15. And as he did, he said there in verse number 17, they sent a messenger and they sent to Joseph, they said, Dad says you have to be nice to us, Joseph.
[6:45] Dad died, but he said you got to be nice to us. And it's grown men and the dad is dead and they're still saying, Dad said you have to be nice to us, so please don't kill us and throw us out of your kingdom.
[6:58] And they sent a messenger to them. What is Joseph's response? He cries. But he weeps. Brothers, why do you feel that way to me?
[7:09] Why can't we be reconciled? Don't you understand? Don't you see how I see this whole thing that went down? Don't you see it from the same point of view now? And it broke Joseph's heart that they didn't see that reconciliation had been made complete there.
[7:26] And so I'm not going to be nice to you because Dad said I had to be nice to you. I want to be nice to you because the God of heaven has done a work in my life and I'm going to forgive you. And he completes the reconciliation.
[7:38] Verses 19. And Joseph said to them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God? For as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring the pass that is this day to save much people alive.
[7:51] Now therefore, fear ye not, I will nourish you and your little ones. And he comforted them and he spake kindly to them. Then in verse number 22, what's it say? He does, it says, And Joseph dwelt at ease of his father's house and Joseph lived 110 years.
[8:08] We don't find that he backtracked on it. It wasn't just an emotional time at the funeral. He forgave his brothers for a little bit. This was a deep-seated conviction that he had forgiven his brothers and only a way that people that experience grace can do completely to the point that now he looked at them and he wanted God's best for them.
[8:28] He didn't want evil, but he wanted God's very best for them. So you'll find on your get-out-of-free, get-out-of-jail-free card, I'm speaking dyslexic, mixing up my words today.
[8:40] But you'll see here, first of all, it says that to leave all the writings of wrong to God. Verse number 19. He left all the writings of wrong to God.
[8:51] He said, God, I'm not sitting in your chair. Am I God? Do I deserve that spot? Secondly, to see God's providing hand in man's malice, despite man's malice.
[9:02] He said that I see, despite your wickedness towards me, the hand of the Almighty God. If you interview Jonah, ask Jonah who threw him into the well, into the water.
[9:13] He said it was God threw me off that boat. And it was God's protection that caught him in the well. And it wasn't punishment. Punishment would have been the water and the well. For the Schmidt talked about that, why he was here.
[9:24] But he said it was the hand of God that did that. And Joseph saw that as well. And then lastly, getting out of jail says, to repay evil with forgiveness and love.
[9:35] To show God's love. So we leave all the writings of wrong to God because we won't want to take his chair. We'll see God's providing hand despite their malice because we take God's view on the subject.
[9:46] And then lastly, we're going to repay evil with forgiveness and love because we're going to show God's love to this world. And that is the marks of a changed heart. That's the character of a man who can live in peace.
[9:58] And this is how you do not stay locked in a prison, is that those three things that are found in Joseph will be found in your life as well. Can I tell you that in forgiveness may be your greatest evangelistic campaign of your entire life.
[10:11] That in forgiveness you may find the greatest depths of joy that you've ever looked for. That in forgiveness there's so many wonderful things as a Christian that you just can't get and reach when you're holding that grudge from somebody.
[10:25] So let's dive into the first one. Verse number 19. It says, And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for am I in the place of God? He said, I'm not going to put myself in the place of God because putting myself in the place of God is at the heart of all problems.
[10:43] How do we do that? We assume that we are the moral authority. Let me back that up with scripture. In the very beginning, Adam and Eve were given a command of authority.
[10:54] Do not eat the tree. Talk about being able to read through the Bible. The Bible was the size of a fortune cookie back then. They could have read through it daily. Do not eat the tree. Okay. Do not eat the tree.
[11:06] Hey, where are you at in your Bible reading? Do not. That's where I'm at today. Do not eat the tree. They finished it every day. One command. Do not eat the tree. Don't eat it. What did they do? They said, I will become the moral authority.
[11:18] Satan was right to them. You will become as God if you do that. You will decide right and wrong if you eat of that tree. You become the moral authority for yourself.
[11:29] It seems like something magical happens. They eat the tree and they become God. No, it's when they made a decision that they would be the ones that make the decision and not God. They became God to themselves in that very moment.
[11:42] If you decide right and wrong, you become your own God. You and I are more subtle than that. We do not accept, oftentimes, people don't accept all the Bible. We say parts of it are primitive, parts of it are wrong, or that we just don't like how it feels in our lives.
[11:58] It's not really comfortable. So we decide in this area or that area, yeah, I know what the Bible says, but I am the moral authority on that issue in my family.
[12:09] And that is a dangerous place to sit. That is not where you want to be sitting in life. That throne was not made for you, and you should never place yourself on it. So we do that by assuming this moral authority that we become God in choosing right and wrong, and we don't say, thus saith the Lord, and we live and let the Bible dictate it.
[12:27] Another way we do it is when we let people look to us to meet their deepest needs. Husbands, do not let your wife look to you to meet the deepest needs.
[12:39] Because if you've done that, then you've sat in a throne that you don't belong in. You've sat in a throne in her life that wasn't meant for you either. There's a story of a Syrian general. He had leprosy.
[12:52] He goes to the king of Israel and says, hey, I hear you guys do miracles around here. I will take one. Maybe you went through the drive-thru. King of Israel, I have leprosy. Don't really like cabinet. Kind of uncomfortable. Can you help me?
[13:02] And the king of Israel rinses clothes and tears it, and he says, don't you understand? I'm just the king. I can't do anything like that. That is outside of my power.
[13:13] That's only something that God can do for you. Can I tell you that every teacher, every politician, every minister, every counselor, every husband, every dad, at some point should let people know that only God can help them with the deep things that really matter.
[13:30] I'm sorry, but I cannot help you. Only God of heaven can help you. And I will pray for you during this time. I will show you in scripture how to turn the helm.
[13:42] But if you're trying to be the lone ranger and handle everything by yourself, you have taken a seat that does not belong to you. Whether it's the husband to the wife, the dad to the children, you as a mentor to somebody, counseling them, you cannot sit there because that is putting yourself in a place you do not belong, and it's not a place that you want to sit at.
[14:03] And then being sinfully worried. Sometimes we sit on that throne because we think, I can handle what's going on in this world pretty good. I'm pretty good multitasker.
[14:14] I will handle it. And Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount there, he says, why do you worry about what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear and about these things? He's saying that you are being worried about things because you think it's in your power to take care of them.
[14:28] If you're living with anxiety all the time because there's things in your life that you want to control, can I tell you that it may be that you need to move over. You've accidentally sat in somebody else's seat and you'll never be comfortable there.
[14:42] When you think you know exactly what should happen, you're afraid that God and others will get it wrong. Heavenly Father, I know what's supposed to happen in this situation. I know what you want done.
[14:52] Please don't mess up. That's our prayer, and that's what we're thinking. And we're watching God to see if he will take cues from what we think should happen. And that is not where we should be sitting.
[15:04] Lastly, the one that's just most clear here is what Joseph is doing. He's simply keeping a grudge. This is what Joseph is saying here. Every person that holds a grudge and stays bitter is sitting in God's seat because only God can control visits there.
[15:21] He is the only one that can administer the people what they need and they repay as only he knows what they need in their lives. Only God has all power and knowledge to be judged.
[15:32] And only he can judge someone and not become evil himself. You know that? You judge somebody and the evil that they pulled you down with, you are now beginning in it. You're getting it on yourself as well.
[15:44] By repaying evil with evil, you act evil and you should just take it and throw it into the fire and say, God, I would have that you would take care of this. You know what the fastest way to become like Satan is?
[15:57] It's try to be God. The fastest way to be like Satan is try to be God. Not to be like God and not to be Christ-like, but to be God. There is too many people trying to be God.
[16:10] This is not India, but we in America, we have too many people running around saying they're God. The burdens that you're carrying because you think you can handle everything you're about, that's not your seat. The things that you want to control, that's not your seat.
[16:22] The grudge that you're holding because you're trying to get just a little bit more vengeance on that person, that is not your seat. The decisions that you're making that are against the Bible because you've become the authority, that is not your seat.
[16:34] And you should get out of it because that seat is not made for you and it will put you in a prison. That's verse 19. Verse number 20 tells us here that we should see God's providing hand despite man's malice.
[16:48] But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring the pass as it is this day to save much people alive.
[16:58] So as we see man's malice here, but we also must see God's hand. How do you look at trouble in your life? Are you looking at it from God's perspective?
[17:10] Are you seeing it from his ways or not my ways or they're above our ways? Because, once again, if you're looking at it the way an unbeliever looks at it, you're looking at it from the valley where things don't seem to make sense.
[17:21] But have you asked God to elevate the way you see this thing and see it from his perspective? In the valley, it says life is good, so God is good. But when life is bad, God is bad.
[17:34] That's how we look at it in the valley. So the pessimist, the one that sees things bad, says life is bad and God must be bad. And the optimist says life is really good and so God must be good. But there's a problem, isn't there?
[17:46] Because life is bad, but God is still good. That's the Christian perspective. Life is hard. And all of you, if you're sitting up, you're old enough in here to understand that by now.
[17:57] And I don't know if anybody warned you earlier, but life is hard. And if you don't notice that it is, stick around just for a little bit. The next act will get a little bit harder. So on the mountain, life is hard, but our God is awesome.
[18:10] And that's where Job sit. But his friends in the middle of Job, they came around and they told him all this craziness. But he said, I don't care about what you said. Even though life is hard and life is bad, I'm still certain that God is good.
[18:23] You know what the problem with footprints in the sand, that poem is for me? It's a great poem. Especially if you have it at your house. God bless you, okay? But the problem for me about footprints in the sand and about how there's only one set of footprints and when there's one set of footprints that God is carrying us is that life isn't on the beach, okay?
[18:40] Life is not a walk on the beach for anybody. So if you want to make a footprint in the sand, you need to make one where it's really messed up and we're not walking on the beach casually and there's one set of footprints.
[18:51] Life is crazy at times. And it's there in those crazy times that we must depend upon him and look and see his hands. And can I tell you in here that Jesus was not born from plan B.
[19:05] Jesus was not born in a genealogy of plan B's coming from David. It is just another demonstration that even though we mess up and we are in sin, that God and his wisdom.
[19:17] Matthew chapter number 1 is exactly the way that God wanted it to happen. And yes, all those messed up stories, those people sinned against God and they had a choice to make. But God was not plan B and he was not born of plan B people.
[19:30] And you're in here, you're not on plan B, you're not on plan C. You're children of God and God's working in your life and you're where he wants you to be and you should respond to what he's bringing in your life.
[19:41] And don't fall for that. There's no plan B parenting going on by our God. Verse 21 says that we should repay evil with forgiveness and love. So point number 3 is only possible because number 1 and number 2.
[19:55] First one is that we're going to leave all the writings wrong with God because that's above our pay grade. We can't sit in that seat. We don't know what he knows. We can't see what he knows. We can't repay evil with evil without becoming evil ourselves.
[20:07] So we're going to trust God with it. Point number 2 is that we see God's hand despite man's evil malice and what they're doing. We see that our God is loving no matter how evil and hateful our brothers are that sold us into slavery or whatever it is.
[20:22] We see that God did a wonderful thing. Our pastor shares it in his life. You share it in your life. There are so many dark hours in my life that God has used when I minister with you people here.
[20:35] There's so many things that I feel deeply because I experienced it myself and God's using it and redeeming it. And you have it too. Because there's no boring testimonies, Paul.
[20:47] There's no boring testimonies of dead people coming alive. I mean, God bounced you around to Clemson and different schools and brought you here today. And it's a wonderful story. And I know that you know that. But every one of you, none of you have a boring story in here.
[21:01] Now, all of us aren't Brian Johnson back there who has the craziest stories in the world. But we still have wonderful stories that God has brought us through. So if we're going to repay evil with forgiveness and love, we're going to do that.
[21:17] But point number one, which means humility to love our enemies by not sitting in God's seat. So we are going to be humble enough, which should be easy, that we wouldn't sit in God's seat because we don't belong there.
[21:29] It's easy. And second, I want to see somebody that belonged to the seat who could have sat there but chose not to. But none of us belong. We can't crawl up in that seat. And if you'll sit in that seat, you'll realize it's oversized.
[21:40] It does not belong to you. So humility to love our enemies by not sitting in God's seat. And then secondly, confidence needed to love our enemies because we have God's perspective.
[21:52] We're humble enough not to sit on his throne. And we're confident enough that God did a wonderful work that we can now love our enemies because he did something wonderful with the evil things that they did.
[22:05] So you think you cannot be like Joseph, right? Joseph's a giant. I mean, we talked about him for all these days and we see him and he is just so far above us that there's no way that we can be like Joseph.
[22:17] But there's a problem with that when we get to the New Testament. Because Jesus points over to John the Baptist one day in Matthew chapter number 11. You say, you see that guy? He's greater than all of them. He's greater than all of them that have ever come before.
[22:29] And none of them ask that it's recorded in the Bible. But if they said, is he better than Joseph? Because that Joseph, he was a really super dude, all right? Trying to be culturally relevant to the older generation. He was just a super guy, okay?
[22:41] And so they would ask that and he would say, yes, even greater than Joseph. And then here comes the kicker. He says, every one of you that understand the gospel, you are greater than John the Baptist.
[22:55] All of you that have the gospel have a greater resource than John the Baptist that was pointing and waiting for the time that Jesus would come. You have no idea the resource that you have in the gospel.
[23:09] If you are holding a grudge, if you're not forgiving inside your family, immediate family, extended family with somebody else over money, over whatever it is, then I can tell you that you have undervalued the gospel in your life.
[23:23] You have everything that you need to solve this problem starting from the inside out. Anyone who understands the gospel has a resource that is greater than imaginable to those in the Old Testament.
[23:36] A good time in life to remember God's grace in your life. So when you get to a point where the people have put you into slavery or maybe like the butler, they just forgot about you and they slighted you, and I can't take the time to name it.
[23:50] I pray that the Holy Spirit names it in your heart right now. But when you get to that point and you know that somebody has done you wrong, can you just realize that it's a good free field trip to you going back to the time that God forgave you?
[24:04] The story of the two debtors, the one that owed the unbelievable amount and he would have to work life after life after life, was forgiven, but then he didn't have the ability to forgive the person of the small amount.
[24:16] That is you when you're holding a grudge. And you say, but you don't understand what my dad did, or you don't understand how this person treated me, or you don't know what my spouse is like, you know, whatever.
[24:28] I tell you, it does not matter because you cannot bring a problem to the gospel that intimidates it. Every time the gospel is bigger and can do that.
[24:40] So Jesus Christ, as I said, it should be easy for us not to sit on that chair, to not sit on that throne, because it wasn't made for us. Who was it made for? It was made for the Son of God.
[24:52] Jesus, the greater Joseph, deserved to sit on that throne. He had every right to stay on that throne, but he came to earth and he drank a cup of suffering that he didn't deserve, your cup of suffering.
[25:04] He was in the place of God here. He died for you. He had the right to look at us however he wanted. Joseph chose not to look at those brothers and not to glare at them and say, this evil thing you did ruined my life.
[25:19] He chose to look at them lovingly, and so the evil things you did do not compare to the great things God did. But God had the right to look at us however he wanted, and he would have been just for every one of us to suffer eternal damnation without ever hearing the gospel.
[25:36] And it's such a hard fact to stare at, that people that do not have the gospel, they deserve eternal damnation because every one of us have rebelled against the holy God.
[25:48] And he deserved to look at us however he wanted to, and he deserved to stay on that throne, but he did not. So you can't choose what's going to happen to you in life, but you can choose how you're going to respond.
[26:00] And those transformed by the gospel won't try to take God's chair and sit there, and we'll see things from a proper perspective, and we will not repay evil with evil.
[26:11] Can I challenge you, church, tonight? Stay out of that prison. Stay out of that emotional prison that could have been so easy for Joseph, but the gospel transformed his way of acting and thinking and everything he did in here.
[26:25] I have a strong desire just to name a million things in here hoping it would land exactly where you're at tonight, but I don't have the foreknowledge to do that, and I pray that the Holy Spirit does.
[26:38] It could be through sickness. It could be from being done wrong. It could be from things not lining up the way that you thought they were going to. There's a million things in life where you could say, God, I don't think that you're good because things aren't going good right now.
[26:53] But can I tell you, that is not the case. Joseph said, am I God? Do I have the right to judge you? And he wept and cried. He embraces and he loves his brothers, and he gives that forgiveness.
[27:05] And you're able to do that as well. And you're also able to help other people. You can go to work tomorrow. You can call up a family member. And it may not be you that's in the prison of bitterness, but you know somebody there.
[27:18] Write them a letter, all right? Take the Bible verses and write them a letter and send it to them. And say, I know that you've decided to keep yourself in that prison. I am going to send you a way out of there.
[27:30] And take the Word of God and show them how they don't need to live there on that throne, looking at people in that way. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your Word, how it's clear.
[27:43] Lord, you are so much more clear than I could dare do justice to the Scripture. I pray that the Word has reached deep into the hearts of people. I pray that nobody in here would mostly be in prison, but we will have the same transformed life that Joseph has.
[28:00] As I'm praying, Lord, I pray that people will find a place at their seat here at the altar, and they'll say, I'm getting off that throne, that I don't want to pretend to be God anymore. I pray that there's people right now saying, I'm going to stop looking at that person the way that I've been looking.
[28:13] And I pray that there's people in here that will stop repaying evil with evil, but they'll repay evil with forgiveness and love. This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia.
[28:26] For more information, log on to www.visionbaptist.com, where you can find our service times, location, contact information, and more audio and video recordings.