Good morning. That was awesome. You know, that's actually one of the one of the coolest things about having a relationship with with Jesus is that uh is that he promises us that his presence is a part of our lives from that point on. And it and it was it used to be that in the Old Testament God's presence stayed in a place. You know, it was in a temple and even in a room within that temple. And now his presence is in our lives. The Bible tells us that we're the temple now, and that Jesus, of all the places he wants to reside, of all the places he wants his presence to be, it's in our lives and it's in our hearts. And that's really amazing when you think that he looks at us and says, That's that's where I want to be. So if you know Jesus this morning, you know that presence, and if if you've never connected with him before, that that's that's what you get is you get the presence of God in your life every single day. When you feel it, when you can't, it's just awesome. It's awesome. So that was amazing. Um I got a few quick announcements before we're gonna finish up Joseph's story this morning. Steve was supposed to be here this morning, uh, but he came down with a very, very bad stomach bug. And when I say very bad, I mean he's got a really good friend that got the exact same thing, and the friend lost like 20-something pounds in three or four days. So let's all make sure that we pray for Steve because he's not feeling not feeling very well at all. Although you couldn't you can barely tell it from his voice this morning. Um he sounded fine. Maybe he's punking me. Is he here, Steve? Are you here? It's not funny. All right. Um first thing I want to say is just a huge thank you to everyone that came yesterday to help with our with our spring spruce up. We had a, yeah, it was awesome. We had about 20 people that came, um, spent basically the entire day just you know painting things at the church and fixing things. Uh we're really blessed to have an incredible facility here. And sometimes, sometimes it can give us kind of the false impression that it's all done, it's all finished, and that all the work is is is done. You know, it's all ready to go. But it takes an incredible amount of work uh to keep it this way. And we're a volunteer church. We don't have a big staff, we don't have people that are on staff just to maintain stuff. So we really depend on you guys, and we want to thank you guys for doing that because it was it was awesome. The church looks so great. And especially those of you that helped around the kids' areas. I'm sorry. We do our best, but they have a lot of energy and they beat stuff up. So thank you for fixing those things. Um, it's all you can do. Uh, the only other thing I want to talk about real quick is Easter. Easter Sunday is just a few weeks away. It is gonna be so exciting, guys. It really is. We're doing two services for the first time on Easter anyway. Uh, and we we're doing that because we need to. Last year we were jam-packed with no more room, and we're expecting God to do the same thing this year. So we've got an 8:30 get together, and then a 10 o'clock, both are gonna last an hour. We've got the kids' stuff will be open for both, not the junior high, but the the elementary and nursery age kids will have we'll have an Easter thing going for them. So that'll be really exciting. Uh, we could really use your help to spread the word, and there's a couple easy ways you can do that. Number one, it's the old-fashioned talking to people thing, where you just go, hey, you got plans for Easter? No, come with me. Um, it's great. You'll definitely bring some friends, they'll get a lot out of it. Uh, another way you could really help us out is is either the app that we have. We have a mobile app that's free. You can download it uh right now if you want to, and you'll see the Easter event there. You can share it on your Facebook page right from the app and all that kind of stuff. Or you can go to our website, hishandschurch.com, and you'll see Easter. It's the very first thing that'll pop up. If you click on that, uh, it'll give you the option to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or even just to invite people via email right from the website. So please help us out, do that, help us spread the word, because we want as many people in here on Easter experiencing Jesus' presence and the freedom that he gives us to worship him and know him on Easter Sunday. So thank you for that in advance. Let's pray, and then we're gonna we're gonna wrap up our uh our Joseph story this morning. Daddy, thank you so much for bringing all of us together. Thank you for your presence in our lives in this place right now. Holy Spirit, thank you for showing up this morning and reminding us how much you love us, how much you care about us, that you want to be a part of every detail of our lives, that you want to bless us. And we pray for the next few minutes that you would speak to us and encourage us, challenge us, give us exactly what we need from your word so that we can live the life that you created us to live. And we pray all this in your name. Amen. Well, though, for those of you who have been here for the last few weeks, we have been going through the story of Joseph from the Old Testament. It's an incredible story. It really is. In fact, if Joseph's life was recent and someone wrote a biography about it, it would it would easily be the best-selling biography on the market today. Fortunately for us, God did record it in fullness, and it's just in the best-selling book of all time, the Bible, but um but but we have it, and it's really a blessing that we have the history of the people that have followed God before us, because we get to we get to read about these people, we get to read the good, we get to read the bad, uh, and we get to we get to learn from them, we get to apply what God did in their lives to our lives, and it makes us all the better for it. Joseph's life is extremely interesting. If if they did a reality TV show about dysfunctional families, Joseph's family would easily be cast. And I'm not saying that just to be funny. I mean, really, when you look at Joseph's family history, you would have a hard time finding a more dysfunctional family than the family that Joseph was born into. Um he's got he's got 11 brothers. He was the 11th of 12. He also had a sister. Imagine being her, by the way. I have 12 brothers. Yeah. So he's the 11th of 12, and his younger brother Benjamin and him were the only sons that were born by Rachel. And Rachel was Joseph's, or Jacob, rather, Joseph's father, Jacob. It was his favorite wife. And so he just loved Joseph and Benjamin more than the brothers, even though they were the youngest. It created all kinds of tension. Specifically, Joseph, Joseph was showed a favoritism by his father that was just frankly not right. His father did all kinds of things to set Joseph apart and make sure that everyone knew that Joseph was his favorite. One of the most famous things is that he had a coat of many colors made for Joseph. It would look like a robe, how we would think of it today, but it was something that totally set Joseph apart from the rest of his brothers. And when his brothers would have seen him wearing that, it would have been this incredible reminder that their dad loved Joseph more than he loved them. And it was that kind of behavior over years and years that drove Joseph's brothers to hate him passionately. There was a jealousy that was there, and obviously that jealousy was on them, but it was also a result of the way that Jacob ran things in his home. And eventually it got so bad that Joseph's brothers came up with a plan to get rid of Joseph. They had an opportunity when Joseph was by himself. He had come to visit the older brothers as they were pasturing some flocks, and they threw Joseph into a well and they sold him as a slave to Egypt. And then they they took his robe, they tore it, they dipped it in blood, and they convinced Jacob that wild animals had killed his son Joseph. And this threw Jacob into a depression that lasted years. I mean, a deep, deep depression. So much so that the Bible says his own family could not comfort him. He would not be comforted because of this death of Joseph in his mind. Well, Joseph goes on to be to be purchased by a man named Potiphar. He became one of Potiphar's slaves. Potiphar was an extremely important person in Egypt. He was the head of Egypt's version of the Secret Service at that time. So he was literally in charge of keeping Pharaoh safe. That means he would have had daily access to Pharaoh. He was an incredibly well-known official. And Joseph impressed Potiphar so much that over time Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his entire estate, his entire household. In fact, the Bible says that the only thing Potiphar had to worry about was what he was going to eat that night for dinner. He didn't have to take care of a single detail. Joseph had it all down, and God really favored Joseph with Potiphar, gave Potiphar a love for Joseph. Well, Potiphar's wife also favored Joseph just in a very different way. And she had this kind of insatiable attraction to Joseph and then frequently made passes at him and he refused. He said, I could not do that to Potiphar, and I also couldn't do that to God. There was one moment where Potiphar, Potiphar's wife came on very strong to Joseph and basically demanded that he sleep with her, and he refused. He said no. And he actually ran out of the room and she grabbed his coat and kept it. And then screamed and showed the guards in that palace the coat and said that Joseph attacked her and he was thrown into prison because of that. And he spent years in prison, but just like with Potiphar, God favored Joseph with the warden of the prison, and eventually Joseph was put in charge of the entire prison. And after a while, a few very important people came to stay in that prison, not by their will, because that's the way prison works, and they were there for a little while. And they both had dreams. And these dreams really troubled them. They knew these dreams had significance. Steve talked a few weeks ago about how sometimes God speaks through dreams, and he does that. Well, God gave Joseph the ability to interpret dreams, and Joseph interpreted the dreams of these two people. For one of them, it was extremely good news, for the other, not so much. But the one who it was good news for was released from prison shortly thereafter. He was an official in Pharaoh's court as well. He went back to Pharaoh, and Joseph said, Please tell Pharaoh what I did for you. Tell him that I interpreted this dream. I'm here in prison. I didn't do anything wrong. You know, help me out. I helped you out, please help me. And the man goes and forgets about Joseph completely for two years. Well, eventually Pharaoh has a few dreams of his own that really trouble him, and he brings in all the wise men in Egypt that he knows and tries to have them interpret the dream. None of them can do it, and it's at that moment that this person Joseph interpreted a dream for, remembers Joseph. And he actually tells Pharaoh, I cannot believe I forgot about this. I made a huge mistake. You need to talk to this guy named Joseph. So Pharaoh brings Joseph to him, and Joseph interprets the dream correctly. And the dream was a big deal. It meant that Egypt was gonna have seven years of extreme prosperity, but they were gonna be followed by seven years of total famine. And they better prepare for that. So Joseph interpreted the dream, and he suggested to Pharaoh, he said, Hey, you need to find someone extremely wise, someone you can trust, someone that can be in charge of Egypt to get Egypt ready for this famine. And Pharaoh said, I will, and I'm gonna pick you. And literally, in an instant, Joseph goes from being a slave in prison to being second in command in the entire nation of Egypt. In fact, the Bible says that only Pharaoh, while sitting on his throne, was more powerful than Joseph. And so Joseph does just that. He gets Egypt ready for this famine. The famine hits and it hits hard. We were there last week, and it hits so hard and so widespread that it wasn't only Egypt that was affected, but it was the whole region around Egypt, including Canaan, which is where Joseph's family still lived. So Joseph's father Jacob sends the older brothers to get grain, and guess who they go to? They go to Joseph. And last week we talked about how Joseph tested his brothers, they've been brought back into his life. God had given Joseph a dream that his brothers were bowing before him. And that happened. That dream was 20 years before it happened, but it happened. And Joseph remembers his family and he forgives them. He forgives his brothers. He invites them back into his life. In fact, he tells them, Hey, go get my father. Tell him I'm alive. And I want all of you to come back to Egypt where you'll have food and you'll be taken care of. It's an incredible reunion. That's where we left off last week with this amazing reunion between Joseph and his brothers, but it's not quite as amazing as the reunion that we're going to start with today. When we met Joseph, he was 17 years old. When we're finished with him today, he'll be 57. He lives to be 110. And this is definitely going to be one of the greatest moments of his life. And it's in Genesis 46. At this point in time, Joseph has sent his brothers to Jacob to get Jacob and bring him back. And a little bit of context here, Jacob hears the news that his son is still alive. And the Bible says that his spirit was revived. In other words, this depression, this fog that he's been in for 20-something years that he could not get out of. As soon as he heard that his son was alive, it's like he snaps too, and he's filled with an excitement and a joy in his old age that he had he hadn't experienced in years. So that's where we get to in Genesis 46. It says, So Jacob set out for Egypt with all his possessions. And when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And during the night, God spoke to him in a vision. Jacob, Jacob, he called. Here I am, Jacob replied. I am God, the God of your father, the voice said. Jacob might have been a little bit afraid because when his ancestor Abraham was told by God that his family was going to become a great nation, one of the things that God told Abraham right out was that that family would experience slavery and would be under oppression. And you get the sense that maybe Jacob's worried about going to Egypt because he's worried about that happening, but God's reassuring him and saying, I have a plan, you need to trust me. He says, I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will bring you back again. You will die in Egypt, but Joseph will be with you to close your eyes. So Jacob left Beersheba, and his sons took him to Egypt. They carried him and their little ones, and they took their wives and the wagons Pharaoh had provided for them. They also took all their livestock, all their personal belongings they had acquired in the land of Canaan. And so Jacob and his entire family went to Egypt, sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters, all his descendants. Then it goes on a little later to say, as they neared their destination, Jacob sent Judah ahead to meet Joseph and get directions to the region of Goshen. That's the region that Pharaoh had given them. And when they finally arrived there, Joseph prepared his chariot and traveled to Goshen to meet his father, Jacob. When Joseph arrived, he embraced his father and wept, holding him for a long time. Finally, Jacob said to Joseph, Now I am ready to die since I have seen your face again, and I know that you are still alive. This is just an incredible, touching reunion. You know what this really is, is a little taste of heaven for us. To be reunited with people that we love. I have to imagine that for Jacob this was a pretty surreal experience. Even when we know, even when we know in our minds that death is not the end. And Jesus showed us that in an amazing way when he died and then got back up. Death is not the end. And we might know that, and we may have been taught that, and we may believe that, but there is still something about us naturally as people that sees death as final. And when Jacob was convinced that his son Joseph, his most beloved son, had died, you get this impression that in his mind he's never gonna see his son again. But he does. So in a way, for Jacob, death wasn't final with his son. He got to see his son again, and what a great reminder for us that death is not final ever. One of the things that C put in his notes is this really cool quote. It says that the opposite of death is birth. But life does not have an opposite because life is eternal. We can forget that sometimes. It's just because we live in a world where everything has a beginning and an end. But God promises us that life for him is everlasting. Life for him is eternal. That's one of the biggest promises he made us. And he backed that up. And what an incredible taste of heaven we get here to realize that we're going to be reunited with our loved ones one day, that we don't have to fear death. You see, in Jacob here, he says, Now I can die. He's okay with that. Now I'm ready to die since I have seen your face again and know that you are still alive. We are not supposed to fear death because it's not the end. And even when we experience sadness and loss, we we have a God that tells us and gives us these beautiful pictures of the fact that one day we are going to be reunited with the people that we love. And that's an incredible thing. So now Jacob is face to face with his son again. He hasn't seen Joseph in over 20 years. They just hold each other and cry. It's this beautiful picture. And then it goes on to talk a little bit about what Joseph does once his family gets there. And this is a really small part of this story, but it's actually really cool. It says Joseph provided food for his father and his brothers in amounts appropriate to the number of their descendants, including the smallest children. Now, this is what's what's really amazing about this, and this is a great hope and encouragement for all of us, is Joseph is doing something very big right here. He's in a way breaking this tradition of favoritism in his family. You know, for years his father has given more love to some sons than others. He's given more of his time. You know, he gave Joseph possessions that he did not give his other brothers. You can only assume that the same thing happened with with Benjamin growing up, but here it doesn't say that Joseph gave food for his father and his brothers, and he gave Benjamin a lot more because Benjamin was closer with Joseph or his only full brother. It doesn't say that he held out a little bit on Judah because Judah was the one that decided to sell him into slavery. No, it says that he gives them food to each family appropriate to the number of people in that family. In other words, he's completely fair. And what he's doing here is breaking a tradition of favoritism. One of the great things that God gives all of us the opportunity to do is to break traditions in our families that need broken. I mean, traditions are great. And some traditions we're supposed to hold on to. But we all we all have experiences with things that have happened in our family because we're human beings. It's not about judging the people that did it. It's looking at those things and saying, this needs to stop. This needs to be done differently. So if you grow up in a family where the men are harsh and the kids are terrified of hearing their name yelled, you have the opportunity to stop that. To create an environment where you can have authority in your home but still have love and still have patience and kindness and tenderness. You know, if it's a dre if it's a tradition of financial irresponsibility, you have an opportunity to stop that. God gives all of us this incredible opportunity to look at our past and say, what do I want to keep and what do I want to let go and start differently? And that's what Joseph does here. It's a really amazing moment. Because favoritism is really a curse, if anything. It leads to bitterness. We saw what it led Joseph's brothers to do, and he breaks that. And it's just another great example of the kind of man that Joseph is. We think of great leaders in government, we think of people like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Joseph should definitely be up there in the ranks of those, if not higher. He was an incredibly loyal person. And he worked hard and he was blessed for it. And he didn't just work hard because he had great bosses. I mean, one of his bosses was Pharaoh. All of us have probably had a boss, or we've had an experience with someone who's got a little bit of a big head, maybe an ego. Well, Pharaoh thought he was God. So thank God none of us work for someone that actually believes that they are God. And that's the that's the man that Joseph worked for. But he worked for that man loyally. And he worked hard and he was diligent. And just like with his brothers here, he did things with fairness. And God blessed him for it. That's just a great, a great challenge to all of us. That no matter what where we're at, no matter what our occupation is, no matter who we work for, that we can be the kind of people God calls us to be regardless of our circumstances. We don't just say, oh, well, if I had a better boss or I worked for a better company, I'd be different. We say, hey, no, I'm gonna do this the right way. I'm gonna do all things as though I'm working for God. I had a experience when I was in college. I worked for Chili's, fine institution, Chili's, baby back ribs. Um I actually really like that job. It was a lot of fun. And I remember one of the things, I've shared the story with the youth before, but I remember one of the things that we were supposed to do was never ever under any circumstances throw away silverware. That sounds like a fair thing to ask, but you have to understand is when you wait tables, I know a lot of us here have done that, you know, you have kids, they they drop silverware on the floor, and then they drop lots of other things on the floor, and and the whole day goes by, and when it's your when it's your turn to be done and you're sweeping underneath those tables, the last thing you want to do is reach down to pick up that fork or that spoon that's just covered with stuff. We'll just say that. Okay? And I remember having this one night, I was pretty new at the job, and uh, and I was sweeping underneath the table, and there was a fork, and literally I was like, I'm not, I'm not picking that up. I'm not gonna do it. And I swept it right into my my little you know trash can, my little sweeper or whatever. And then I had this thought, I was reminded of that verse that says, In all things, you know, work as though you're working for the Lord. And right then and there, I just had this moment of self-conflict, and it was like God was like, Justin, and I said, Fine, fine, I'll do it. And so I reached down and I picked it up. And you know what's crazy about that is I didn't know this, but my boss was watching that and specifically commented to me and said, Justin, that I'm real, I really appreciate you doing that. And I was like, Oh, you know, no problem, no problem. That's one at least I could do. And and you know, after that moment in time, I can look back and and and I got good sections and God really blessed me at that job. And it was a weighted tables, but God still blessed me. He He blessed He blessed me enough to be able to provide for Megan and I when we got married, working as a as a waiter, which was really hard, but but he did it. And I don't think he did it because I did that one thing, but I just think that we see in Joseph's life that God blesses us when we're loyal and when we're honest and when we're fair. He really does. And I've cut corners plenty of times in life. Plenty of times. But God blesses us when we do the right thing, and that's what Joseph did really his entire life. Well, we we could have spent a lot more time on the story. There's one thing we sort of want to get to to finish up. Jacob's final request is that he would not be buried in Egypt, uh, but be taken back to his home and be buried with his wife Rachel. And so when he passes, something really interesting happens. The entire nation of Egypt mourns with Joseph. Said Pharaoh. Agreed to Joseph's request. Go and bury your father as he made you promise, he said. So Joseph went up to bury his father. He was accompanied by all of Pharaoh's officials, all the senior members of Pharaoh's household, and all the senior officials of Egypt. Joseph also took his entire household and his brothers and their households, but they left their little children in flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. A great number of chariots and charioteers accompanied Joseph. There was such an appreciation for Joseph in all of Egypt that when his father died, even though he was a foreigner, the entire nation of Egypt mourns and supports Joseph in this moment. What's really interesting is that as soon as Jacob is dead, the brothers start to panic. They have this thought, and it's a pretty natural thought, where they go, oh no, what if the only reason that Joseph has been so good to us is because Jacob, our father, was still alive. Now that he's dead, what's going to stop Joseph from getting revenge on us? And we see that in Genesis 50. It says, After burying Jacob, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father's burial. But now that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers became fearful. Now Joseph will show his anger and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him, they said. So they sent this message to Joseph. Before your father died, he instructed us to say to you, I love this because I don't think this actually happened. Now I could have, we don't have the details on that, but I just have a feeling that the way they're they're saying this, it's not like they're telling the truth. They're saying, hey, uh, Joseph, you weren't there. Um funny thing though, right before he died, Dad was like, make sure to tell Joseph to be really good to you guys. And then he died and it was sad, but but he said that. That's kind of the impression that I get anyway. But it says, before your father died, he instructed us to say to you, please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you, for their sin in treating you so cruelly. So we, the servants of the God of your father, I just love this. It's so official. Beg you to forgive our sin. Imagine being a younger brother, those of you that are younger brothers, and have an older brother talk to you like this. That would be amazing. It's probably never gonna happen to me, though. Okay, so I have an older brother, so I'm just trying to picture this in my mind. Okay, because it says the brothers came and they threw themselves down before Joseph. Look, we are your slaves, they said. And check out Joseph's response. Do not be afraid of me. Am I God that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don't be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children. So he reassured him or them by speaking kindly to them. Genesis 5 20, or 50 20, rather, is part of that. It says, You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. The message version of that puts it this way It says, Joseph replied, Don't be afraid. Do I act for God? Don't you see you planned evil against me, but God used those same plans for my good. It's very similar to another passage that we've looked at last week. It's Romans 8.28. It says, We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. And the great news is that that's us. And I love this verse because it's not saying that when we love God, only good things happen to us. One of the things we're so blessed is to have a Savior to follow that experienced life in its fullness. Not just the good, but he experienced the bad. Jesus did not have an easy life. And he never promised us one. And God never promises that, hey, when you follow me, everything's gonna work out all the time. It's gonna be easy, you won't experience loss, you won't experience hurt. But he does say, and he does promise us that everything is going to work out in the end. God is the only person in this world, in this universe, that can take the good and the bad and he can work it into something beautiful for our lives and for the lives of those around us. God causes everything to work out. And Joseph had an amazing understanding of this. He says, hey, you meant this for evil. But don't give yourselves too much credit. Because God took it and he worked it into something good. I'm sure all of us, all of us have situations that we're either part of now or that we've been a part of, or someone did something to us, and they did it maliciously. They did it meant for evil, meant to hurt us. And we experienced that and it rocked our lives a little bit, or a lot. And so what we're left with is the same thing Joseph is left is okay, what do I do with that? How do I move forward with this? Sometimes we can hold on to those things for years and years and just dream about if I see that person again, if I ever have a chance to talk to that person. I've had people in my life like that before, and I find myself before driving in my car and arguing with them, even though they're not there, and reliving past moments in my life and kind of doing this, oh, I should have said that. Oh man, that would really get them. And the truth is we're all going to experience things like that. We can't avoid it. But if we could see the truth like Joseph saw it, that no matter what someone does to us, we have a God who is going to work it into good because we love him and he just loves us. He has a purpose for our lives. That's one of the most amazing things about Joseph's life, is that his life had purpose. God was using him to do something important. God promises us that he has a purpose for us. And whenever we experience difficult things, it can be so hard to see that purpose. Sometimes hindsight's 20-20, and it takes years. And remember for Joseph, this wasn't an instantaneous realization that he had. I very much doubt that Joseph was heading toward Egypt on a camel, bound as a slave, going, Don't worry, guys, it's all gonna work out. I got a good feeling about this. It may have happened, I don't think so. You know, in this moment, it's been almost 30 years since he was sold as a slave. So I'm saying it's okay for us to be patient with ourselves even as we get to that place, but the sooner we realize that God can take what's happened to us and turn it into something good, the better. I had an experience nowhere near, nowhere near what Joseph experienced, nowhere near what a lot of us in the room have experienced. But when I was in college, my wife and I got really involved with this church in Kansas City, Missouri. That's where we went to school. Um and it's a great church. It's a great church, and I still really have uh fond memories and a lot of good, a lot of good opinions of that church. I mean, I'm sure none of us have ever had a bad experience at a church, so this is unique. Um but uh but we love this place. And we started to help out. We got really involved, and eventually we were we were asked just to sort of lead their junior high thing. And so every Sunday morning for about two years, and and every other Wednesday night, um, we were we were at the church, we we kind of ran their junior high stuff, and we loved those kids. And I was I was particularly excited because I had really felt that that's what God wanted me to do was to work with with kids, was to work with younger people, with teenagers. And and I really felt like that was the place that that was gonna happen. I was really close to graduating college, and and the pastor there had actually pretty pretty clearly hinted, I'll say, he didn't come out and say, We are definitely gonna hire you when you graduate, but but there was a big carrot in front of my my face, if that makes any sense. And he had said several things that that were just like, Justin and Megan, you guys are doing great. We love you here, and you know, we we think you're gonna be a big part of this. And I got really excited. When we got married, my my senior year of college, um, I was convinced that we could pull it off financially. I even made a little chart for Megan's dad about what I thought life would cost and how I could cover that working as a waiter. And he was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, go for it. Yeah, go. Um but uh but I was wrong, and and it got it got really hard that first year. Um she she was student teaching, so she couldn't, she couldn't work you know full-time or anything like that. I was working in the restaurants, we were both still full-time college students trying to graduate, and and then on top of that, we were putting in about 15 to 20 hours a week at the church and loved it. And I got to the point where I was I was just at this moment where I realized something has got to give. And that's actually really hard for me to realize when that happens, but but I knew it needed to. So I went, I went to the pastor at this church and I said, I said, man, I've got to let go of something. We don't have time for all this, and and I can't quit school, and I can't quit my job because if I quit my job, I can't pay for our apartment or any of these kind of things. And so the only thing in my mind that that I can let go of is is doing this thing in the church, but I love it. I love it. And so so he just asked me, he said, how much would it take? How much would it take for for you just to work here? And that way you wouldn't have to let this go. And I thought for a second, and God is so good that that this didn't work out. Um I was very young and I wanted it so badly that I tried to think of a number. What is like the minimum number I could say? The minimum number that they would say yes to and that we could somehow make it on. And what I said was $300. I think I said $300 a week, I think is what it was. Um, which at the time would have been a huge cutback for us. We were in column, there were a lot of stuff. It maybe even $300 every two weeks. I don't really remember, that's not important. But what I said was a low number. And he came back and said, we can't afford that, we can do $150. And I just couldn't do it. And and it wasn't like they were being selfish, they were a volunteer church like us. It just wasn't, it wasn't in the cards at the time. But but here's where it all went went really bad for me, at least for that moment was that I decided to step down. And it wasn't I decided to step down because of that, I was going into that meeting to take a step back no matter what, and then he's the one that brought up and said, Hey, what if we paid you? And I had I had no idea that was even possible at the time, so I was like, wow, okay, um, well, this is what I would like, and he said, No, no big deal. But whenever whenever it started to get talked about why I was stepping back, you know, parents started to ask questions, and and what what he said was that I had asked for money and they couldn't afford it. And that and that really offended a lot of people, and it really upset me because I didn't do that. I I went in to step back, and then he said, Hey, what if we what if we paid you? And I was like, okay, well, well, here's what I think it would take. And they said, No, no big deal. But what other people had in their minds was that I had come to the church demanding money for what I was doing. And we were a volunteer church just like this church. There were tons of people pouring in hours and hours every week to make it happen. So it ruffled a lot of people, you know, their feathers the wrong way, whatever. And it gave people a really negative opinion of me, and I just didn't know what to do with that. So I was pretty angry. And we we started going to a different church, it was just kind of awkward, and and I just remember really being being knocked back by what happened because I really thought, I remember even saying to God, I thought this is what I was supposed to do. I thought I was supposed to do this. This is what I thought you called me to do, and and I really felt like this was the place. And I have no idea why this happened or why it happened this way. I'm really, I'm just at a loss. You know, and from that moment on, I was like, okay, I'm still gonna be involved in church, I'm still gonna help, but I'm not gonna be there like I wanted to. And so I started working for a marketing company and and doing some other stuff and helping out at a different place. Well, here's where it gets really interesting is that uh, you know, I've been here six years now, and I love this. This is more than than a I I work here, but this is way more than a job for me. This is a family, and and I've known, you know, some of the kids that are in the youth group now were fifth graders when I started, and now they're they're juniors and seniors in high school and they're taller than me, which is awesome. Um I love this place. But his hands started officially in September of 2005. I didn't I didn't start working here at that point in time, I came a few years later, but September of 2005 is when his hands became his hands. And when I was sitting in that meeting, talking to the pastor of that other church, that was September of 2005. And so, you know, I look at that situation now and I'm thankful. I really am. Because had he said yes, Megan and I would have actually been in a really tough financial position. I would have felt totally obligated to honor that commitment. I I never would have, I never would have been looking to leave Kansas City because I really loved that church. And it's a great church. But God wanted us here. And so so even if, even if that, and I I was 19, 20 years old at the time, 21 actually, I was 21, so I'm sure my perception of what happened was was immature in some ways too. But even if, even if what that pastor did was wrong or at the very least um unfair, God used it for something good. And my wife and I are so happy just living here and being a part of this place, and it was the same exact month that this place started. And I look at that and I see, I see good. And it's such a reminder to me, and in a connection with Joseph's story, that when other people intend things in our lives that aren't for our best, so what? God loves us and he is for us, and we can trust him. But the key is this that we forgive those people. You know, if Joseph had stayed in his family, if his brothers had never done that to him, he would have been a shepherd in a gigantically dysfunctional family his entire life. That is what he would have been. But he ends up becoming this incredibly important person, someone who is second in command in Egypt, and someone who allows his entire family to survive something they would not have survived otherwise. I mean, God had a purpose. I don't think he looked back at what happened to him and goes and went, man, I really missed out. I was robbed of something. Obviously, it hurt him, obviously it was it was painful, but but he saw the purpose behind it years later. But if he hadn't forgiven his brothers, he never would have experienced joy in that life that God made for him. He would have spent all those years still consumed with bitterness, with anger, and no matter what blessings God gave him, children, a wife, an incredible job, financial blessings, you name it, it would have all been for nothing if he would have just sat and held on to the sin that his brothers had committed against him. If he hadn't forgiven them, it would have all been pointless. He wouldn't have enjoyed a second of it. But he did forgive them. And that is something that gave him freedom to enjoy the blessings God had for him. So here's the opportunity for us this morning. It's to think about a place that we're at in life. Where either we're we're in the middle of something where someone is doing something against us, or we're thinking of a situation in the past where someone has done something to us. Could be as simple as someone saying something, could be, could be way more complicated than that, but something that we have have maybe held on to or are holding on to. And maybe we haven't experienced the good yet. Maybe we're not like Joseph, where we're like, oh, it's all come full circle, I've been blessed. Maybe we're still at the at the bottom points of that. But it took Joseph nearly 30 years to get to where we're at this morning. And the opportunity is for us to just let go of that anger, let go of the bitterness, and declare and believe that God is going to do for us what he did for Joseph. Not saying that we're all gonna become these incredibly important government officials, but he is going to bring it all to good. So we have kind of a fun thing we're gonna do to help us with that this morning. Um, you know, the background that we've had the last few weeks has been sort of meant to represent Joseph's coat, these many colors. That's just sort of indicative of who Joseph is. And so on the tables where we where we pick up Lord's Supper, we have these squares of cloth that are very similar. They're these little multicolored square cloths. And what we want to invite you guys to do this morning, before we we wrap up with one more worship song and pray, is we want to invite you to get up and go grab one. And so, actually, if we'll all go ahead and do that right now, if if you'll stand up and head, and maybe you can send people from your row or your you know where you're sitting to grab some for other people, but go grab one of those squares and come back, and we're gonna pray together and ask God to do that for us. You know, there's there's a million things that we could focus on in in Joseph's life. A million lessons that we could take from his story. There's really an endless number of points that we could kind of end on. So, since we're finishing up that that story today, we have this great opportunity to focus on one thing. What's one thing from Joseph's life that we can take with us and make sure we remember? And I and I really think that the most challenging thing is just to let stuff go. To let it go. Joseph had to let it go, and it couldn't have been easy. His brothers betrayed him, they sold him as a slave, and he endured 20 plus years of just absolute hardship. He was wronged in so many ways, but he let it go. So, so here's what I'd like us to do this morning. It's kind of symbolic of what Joseph did. And honestly, it's symbolic of what Jesus did. When he was on the cross, he had the uh the incredible ability to forgive and to let stuff go. He sat on the cross in front of the people who were mocking him, the people that had put him there, Father, forgive them, but they don't realize what they're doing. Father, forgive them. He let it go. And we can experience all the intrinsic blessings in the world. But if we don't let go of the wrongs that other people have done to us, we'll never experience the fullness of those blessings. We'll never experience the joy that can come along with them if we hold on to what's been done to us. So let's do this this morning as a group, is to take your cloth. And I didn't invite you, I know this is kind of cheesy, but I just invite you even to hold it out. If you have it. And in your mind right now, you think about that situation or that person, whatever it is, where someone has done something against you, someone's hurt you, someone's harmed you, someone meant evil for you. And even if you're still in the middle of that, even if you haven't experienced the good yet, trust God that it's going to happen. And understand that your role in that is just to let go of that anger. And so, so as a group, right now, just let the cloth go. Just drop it. Just let it go. You guys can keep those. So now pick it back up. That is not that is not symbolic of picking back up the anger, by the way. The symbolism stopped after we let it go. I just want that to be. As you can tell, I thought this through really well. Um, I would encourage you to keep that with you this week, maybe longer if you need to, but keep it with you. And honestly, when those thoughts and those angry emotions, when they come back up, you just grab a hold of your cloth and let it go again. You know? You might need to explain to people around you what you're doing if you're in public. But but seriously, just if it happens ten times in a day, you know, you're in your car, maybe you put it in your car and and you're you're you're angry, you're upset, you're thinking about that thing, just grab it and say, God, I'm trusting you and just let it go. And let that be a symbol for you of letting go of the anger that would hold you back from what God has for you. Because what he has for you guys is good because God is good. So let's pray. That's right. All the time. Let's pray. Daddy, thank you. Thank you for Joseph. Thank you for his story. Thank you for recording it for us so that we could look at his life and see you in that life and see that you were there in the good, but you were also there with him in the darkest times that he experienced, and you are here with us right now. You are here with us when we're blessed, and you're here with us when we're going through hardship. You never ever leave us. And you promise us we're gonna hold you to that, God, because we know we can. We're gonna hold you to the promise that you're gonna work things out for us. We know that life's not gonna be easy, and we know that your ways are mysterious, that you don't always work things out in the way that we think it should be worked out, but it's always better. Help us let things go. Help us forgive the people in our lives that have that have wronged us, that have harmed us. Help us let it go so that we can just experience your peace and your blessings and how good you are. And we ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.