Joseph // Detours and Delays

And looking at the world, seeing the world through a biblical worldview is the sanctity of all human life.

And that means the unborn, it means every race, tribe, nation, tongue.

That uh as believers in Jesus, we believe the image of God, the value of God is stamped on every human being.

Anyone with me on that?

And uh and and because of that, um, it is a unique opportunity, kind of two days in a row, both to celebrate human life.

I don't know if that fixed it or not, but if not, I could use the handheld.

Okay.

Alright, we'll just go.

I'll switch the handheld if I need to.

But tomorrow we get to honor the the work, the life and work of a great man, Martin Martin Luther King Jr.

Um, and his fight for the sacredness of life and through the civil rights movement.

He was a champion, as you guys know, for nonviolent resistance, and he was he led a movement to oppose lawmaking that was unjust, that kept some people out of the privileges and rights they had, both as human beings and certainly as Americans.

Um, and and but but the goal for him, for Martin Luther King Jr.

uh was never just winning.

Uh it was reconciliation, it was redemption, and it was that all would be a part of what he would call, quote, the beloved community.

Um I want to read a quote from him uh about that.

He says this.

He said, but the end is reconciliation.

The end is redemption.

The end is the creation of the beloved community.

It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends.

The type of love that I stress here is not eros, a sort of aesthetic or romantic love, not affilia, a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends, but it is agape, which is understanding goodwill for all men.

It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return.

It is the love of God working in the lives of men.

This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.

And uh, I think it's a it's a it's a beautiful quote as we go into Martin Luther King Jr.

and Inauguration Day that what we're fighting for is not winning.

We're fighting to become people of great love.

And yes, that does mean that we oppose injustice, that does mean that we set ourselves against wrongdoing in our nation and in our time.

But in the end, what we're seeking is the kingdom of God coming from heaven to earth and touching the lives that we all would be a part of the beloved community, caught up into the belovedness of God for the sake of the world, for the sake of that all men would know the love of God.

This may possibly is like what Martin Luther King Jr.

says, the pathway to the salvation of civilization.

Are you guys with me?

Okay, let's just take a moment and be before the Lord in prayer, both for the unborn and for Americans, for those of every race, black Americans, Native Americans, every tribe that would come to mind, every race that would come to mind, and let's hold them in our hearts together and in the spirit of uh the sanctity of life.

Let's ask that the will of God would be done.

So Jesus, we we hold all of these people before you.

We thank you, Lord God, for those like Connie who give their lives to fight that young mothers and fathers would have a pathway to welcome children into the world.

That the unborn would stand the best chance to have life.

God, we thank you for the lives of Martin Luther King Jr.

and others who have given their lives to opposing wicked laws and those that would keep some suppressed and that others would be able to succeed at their expense.

And so, God, I we we we pray that together as a church, our our hearts cry is that we become people who love life just as much as you love life.

God, we are asking for the spirit of justice, not the justice that comes from the spirit of the age, but the justice that you say is the foundation of your throne.

The scriptures say that justice and righteousness are the foundation of your throne.

So, God, let that be true of us as believers.

That every person we meet, when we stare in the eye, we see who you've made them to be.

Let us be people who fight for what you fight for, who hate what you hate and love what you love.

Let it be so among us, Lord God.

And we thank you that today we get to breathe, we get to have life here together as your beloved community.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

So we're gonna um jump into the scriptures together today.

If if you're joining us, I know it's kind of like mid-January, everyone's kind of like easing back into church after the the you know the roller coaster of the holiday.

So this might be the first time you've been back in a few weeks.

Welcome.

Thank you for coming back.

Thank you for actually finding a way to get back to church.

It's great.

We love you.

Thank you for being here.

Um we are in the middle, we just started last week, an exploration of the life of Joseph in the scriptures.

And and uh just to catch you up, um, we're taking a few weeks as we enter into this year to turn a spotlight to the life of Joseph.

And uh, if if you haven't read the story of Joseph, maybe many of you are familiar, but if you haven't read his story, it is very significant because it's one of the clearest biblical pictures of how God interacts with what we consider to be the worst parts of our lives and transforms them in a way that leads to his glory and the flourishing of his people.

All right?

It's one of the clearest pictures and storylines in the scripture of that happening.

And even the writers of the scripture knew this uh was important.

His his the story of Joseph is the longest single narrative in the book of Genesis, spanning from chapters 37 through 50.

It's longer than Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, all right?

And so there's a there's a long portion dedicated to the life of Joseph.

I think there's a reason for that.

And really his life answers this big question that all of us have to deal with at some point of how do we remain steadfast when life goes dramatically different in a dramatically different direction than we expected.

Has anybody ever asked that question before?

How do we remain steadfast as a people when our lives go in a dramatically different direction than we expected?

So I'm gonna open up to Genesis chapter 40.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

Okay, so if you have your Bibles, you can do that.

You can do that on your phone as well.

We'll have it on the screens as well.

But just to kind of give you a little context, we're kind of entering into about halfway through his story.

Um, so Joseph is Jacob's beloved son.

He was thrown into a pit because his brothers were jealous of him.

Um, and ultimately he was brought out of the pit, sold into slavery, brought to Egypt, accused for putting moves on the wife of the commander of the Egyptian army, which is just a bad idea.

And he knew that, so he didn't do that, but he was accused of doing that.

Um and then uh and then because of that, he was thrown into jail.

So it's one of those stories that if you when you when you can't imagine it getting worse, it does.

All right?

And so he's in jail, and he there's a couple other characters with him in jail.

So I want to read this passage together.

This is Genesis chapter 40.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

Let's go.

It says this sometime after this, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker committed an offense against their lord, the king of Egypt.

And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard in the prison where Joseph was confined.

The captain of the guard appointed Joseph to be with them, and he attended them.

They continued for some time in custody.

And one night they both dreamed, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, each his own dream, and each dream with its own interpretation.

When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled.

So he asked Pharaoh's officers, who were with him in a cuss in custody in his master's house, why are your faces so downcast today?

They said to him, We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.

And Joseph said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God?

Please tell them to me.

So the chief cup rare told his dream to Joseph and said to him, In my dream there was a vine before me, and on the vine there was three branches, and as soon as it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and the clusters ripened into grapes.

Pharaoh's cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes and pressed them into the Pharaoh's cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.

Then Joseph said to him, This is the interpretation.

The three branches are three days, and in three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office, and you shall place Pharaoh's cup in his hand as formerly when you were his cupbearer.

Only remember me when it is well with you.

And please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house.

For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.

When the chief baker saw the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, I also had a dream.

There were three cake baskets on my head, and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.

And Joseph answered and said, This is the interpretation.

The three baskets are three days.

In three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from you and hang you on a tree, and the birds will eat the flesh from you.

That's the last time he had Joseph interpret a dream.

When you're in dream interpretation, just pause for a second.

When you're in dream interpretation, feel free to leave out the last part about the bla the birds eating the flesh off of you.

Okay.

Continuing.

On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cup bearer, and the head of the chief baker among his servants.

He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand, but he hanged the chief baker as Joseph had interpreted to them.

Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

So Joseph is in a place he doesn't want to be.

He ends up meeting the baker and the cupbearer.

One had a bad dream and one had a good dream.

And uh and what we see is Joseph reaches out to the cupbearer and says, Listen, I have your interpretation for you, but but as you get promoted, please, please, please, please, please, don't forget me, because I'm not supposed to be here either.

And uh and and I am in a place I don't want to be.

Um He interprets the dream of the chief baker, and just like he says, the chief baker loses his life, the chief cupbearer is is promoted, and it took two, it would take two more years before the cupbearer would remember that Joseph had interpreted his dream, and for the fair for Pharaoh to call him out of prison to interpret his dream.

And so uh just just entering into what we're doing is we're entering into the story of Joseph, and just for a moment, what can you just think about how that must have felt for Joseph being used by God, being faithful in a dark place, using his gifting to help others get out of this jail?

Seeing the cupbearer promoted while he is not, he's not only not promoted, but he's completely forgotten.

Have you ever felt like others in your life are making it while you are not?

Have you ever felt like others are advancing while you are retreating?

It's a familiar story when we read into it and what Joseph was left with.

Joseph was in a place he did not want to be and longer than he imagined it would be.

And in the middle of that, we're making some assumptions about what's actually going on in his life.

It's not actually there, his emotional state.

We don't know what his prayer life's like.

We don't exactly know, but we know based on what he said to the cupbearer, he said, please, please, please remember this and get me out of here if you can.

Because I do not belong there.

So there's a place where he felt misplaced, right?

And so it's an interesting thing when you look at the story of Joseph, because his his story starts with receiving dreams from God as a young man at the age of 17.

He's receiving dreams from given by God, and and if God deposited these dreams in Joseph's heart, why did he allow it?

This is a really good question.

If God gave him those dreams as a young man, why did he make him wait another 10 to 20 years to see the fulfillment of those dreams?

Why did he, why, why would God even toy with his emotions?

Just wait to give him those dreams later, you know, when he's like later in life.

Why would you toy with his emotions as a young man?

Why build up his expectations and then at the risk of him living most of his life in disappointment?

You ever thought about that?

Why would God speak to him so specifically and give him imagination, the dreams of what was going to happen in the future, where he was going to be in a position of power to rule, where his brothers and even his fathers would bow down to him and yet then make him delay, make him wait.

And it's the same question for us.

Why does God deposit seeds of vision and destiny in us and then make us wait for so long?

Do you guys ever think about that?

Because the truth is when we look at the story, I think one of the principles that we can arrive to in the story of Joseph, and this is really important for us, is that God allows us to walk through detours and delays on the way to where he wants us to be.

God allows us to walk through detours and delays on the way to where he wants us to be.

And that might even be the softest way to put it.

You could even say God requires us to walk through detours and delays on the way to where he wants us to be.

Now that's frustrating, right?

That doesn't sound like good news when you say it like that.

That's frustrating to say out loud, but we all know this is internally true when it comes to the stories that we love.

I want you to think uh just for a moment about just take your favorite movie.

What's your favorite movie?

Shout out to me a couple movies.

What's your favorite?

Overboard, gladiator, okay.

Sea biscuit, all right.

All right.

Sound of music, now we're talking.

Okay, okay.

So here's here's a list.

Okay, yeah, top 10 highest grossing movies of all time.

Okay, this is what you spent your money on.

You spent billions of dollars to go see these movies, all right?

Um, you know, so overwhelmingly on this list of highest grossing movies of all time, we have like the epic cosmic superhero movies, all right?

I'm gonna argue Avengers Endgame should be the top of the list.

I mean, one of the best movies ever.

Loved it.

Right?

Um, you let's a little nod to the you know, Jack and Rose, right?

Titanic.

Um, Inside Out 2, which was fantastic.

If you haven't watched it, you gotta watch it.

Inside Out 2.

I just watched it the first time with my kids.

I cried, cried through it, all right?

It was good.

That's not saying a lot because I cried through most movies these days.

Um these are the movies that, you know, just over time globally have moved the hearts of people.

And I just want to ask you, when you think about these movies, pretty much all of them start with the character who wants something, and then you have to you have to endure two to three hours of them not getting that thing, of complete drama and conflict and chaos and detour and delay.

And you're will you're in for it.

You're gonna pay money to watch another character.

You take a lot of joy watching other characters go through hell to come out the other side and to see will good win over evil, will love win over hate?

These are the stories that we pay so much.

We the novels that we read, the stories that we read, they all come back to just a few core themes.

And and we know, like we subject ourselves to these kinds of movies, but we don't want them to be true of our actual lives, right?

So, like inside out to it's a story of a uh you know, a girl entering entering puberty, and I don't want to give this away for everybody, but like she's she's wrestling with emotions in her life.

And uh, and she really the the story question in Inside Out 2 is Is anxiety going to take control of her life, or will does joy still have a place in her life?

I'm gonna I'm gonna tear up just thinking about it.

I'm I'm just I'm soft, all right?

Um it's an amazing movie, all right?

But you know, when we think about that question, will anxiety win in my life, or will joy like that?

If we were writing that movie, the movie would last 15 seconds, all right?

Because what we do is like, God, I'm just gonna pray that joy overcomes anxiety.

Amen.

Done.

But but when we watch the movie, we have to kind of stay with a girl for two hours as she is wrestling with the person that she's becoming, all of these decisions of whether anxiety is going to win out over joy or if these other emotions are going to have a place in her life to find out who she is, who she's gonna be with her friends, who she's gonna be, and the whole time.

It's it's it's fascinating, right?

One of my, I mean, just imagine another movie.

How many of you have seen the movie Taken, Liam Neeson Taken, right?

Where his his daughter's kidnapped, and the whole movie is him trying to find his daughter, right?

The entire movie from the very beginning.

It starts with the kidnapped, the entire movie is you watching somebody trying to figure out if he's going to get what he's after.

All right.

Now, imagine, like, in the first five minutes of the movie, he finds out his daughter's missing, and then he, you know, in you know, instead of for two hours, you know, him traveling the world, killing everybody to find his daughter.

Imagine he calls his cousin in the next scene and says, Hey, where's my daughter?

And his cousin's like, oh, actually, you know what?

She she stopped by, she's over here in my living room.

I'll totally come home.

He's like, Oh, great.

So then his daughter comes home, and then they they he was worried, but they're so excited that they're together again.

So they had this huge dinner, and uh, and they celebrate each other.

And then the next day, he helped her fill out some college applications, and then and then in springtime, he goes with her to visit some colleges to see what's gonna be the best for her, and then she ends up graduating with a degree, and then she meets a guy, um, and then they end up getting a family, and then and they're just doing really well.

And the whole the whole rest of the movie is them just really enjoying each other, and uh, and and just everything goes exactly to plan, all right?

How how long would you make it through that movie?

Like you turn it off like right away.

It's every Hallmark movie.

But the best movies and the best stories oftentimes are the ones that are filled with the question is is this person going to become a different kind of person as they traverse the challenges and the difficulties that the script is going to throw at them, right?

We want that to be true for others.

We don't necessarily want that to be true for ourselves.

We love the hero's journey, but for our own lives, we'd like every prayer to be answered in the timeline that we want it to be answered.

We want things to go up and to the right versus to be outside of the plan.

We love telling miracle stories, but we never want to be the kind of person who needs a miracle.

I don't want to need miracles, I just want to tell you about miracles, right?

So if you're going through detours and delays, let me just encourage you.

It's not because God doesn't love you, it's probably because he's writing a brilliant story in your life.

Because he is the one committed to redemption and reconciliation, he's the one committed to the end even when you cannot see it, right?

But we have to make our ways through detours and delays.

What are detours and delays?

Detours are life events that we didn't expect.

Maybe out of nowhere you discovered that you were now the caretakers of your parents.

That wasn't part of your script.

Maybe you got laid off from a job that you love.

That wasn't part of the plan.

Maybe your marriage ended and you never saw it coming despite your best effort.

Maybe it was a betrayal like Joseph from his brothers, or an accusation like Joseph, or being forgotten.

There's things that happen that are detours, life events that we didn't expect, but delays are a little bit different.

Delays are timelines that we didn't expect.

A delay is a timeline that we didn't expect.

When that promotion is taking way longer than you were promised, when you thought that you would have met the love of your life by this age, and you're still, you still feel like you're waiting, right?

When the leaders in your life are not seeing in you what they hope, what you hoped that they would see in you, and they're not seeing it yet.

And you're just waiting to be asked for to do something.

Or maybe it's just the dreams of your heart, are just it's just taking way longer than you ever expected.

See all of us face detours and delays, and I just want to remind us though, God, you know, when when it comes to the painful moments of our life, God's that He's not the author of evil in your life, and you need to know that He's not the author.

Author of evil or the pain.

But in the story of Joseph, what he is, God is committed to taking what the enemy meant for evil and transitioning and transforming it into good.

And God knows, God will allow us to walk through seasons of delays and detours in order to deepen our trust in him and to develop our inner capacity for increase.

He will allow us to walk through detours and delays.

Listen to me.

In order to deepen our trust in him and develop our inner capacity for increase.

Okay?

So this happens for all of us.

If you can try to live your life avoiding this reality, I'm just saying, just own it now.

If you haven't hit a detour or delay, just you know, you just haven't lived long enough yet.

And it doesn't have to mean the end of the world, but if we have a lens to see where God is walking with us in the detour delays, it changes everything.

So years ago, before I was in this role as lead pastor, I came out, and some of you guys know this story.

I came out from Indiana.

People would come up, uh I came out to do a training, an internship training here at the church, and I was just uh, you know, a young 19-year-old intern at the church, and started coming on staff, and um I started getting into all kinds of different roles.

I was in youth ministry, I was in graphic design, I was in music, I was in doing worship stuff, I was doing mission stuff.

I then I started to do teaching and all kinds of things and and uh um and and and and along the way, kind of early on, I think people started, you know, there's some others that started recognizing some seeds in my life that I didn't even see.

They're like, oh man, I see I see leadership in you, I see all these things.

And and they would start to say things trying to be kind, but but it wasn't entirely helpful.

They would say things like, man, if they made you the leader of this church, I'd be in the front row every week.

And of course, they're not here at the church anymore.

Because anybody who says that kind of thing, they're not gonna last that long.

And so that if you but if you're the if they make you, I'm right behind you, if they make you the guy, like I'm in it, right?

But what they didn't know is that I wasn't ready for that.

And I couldn't handle that.

I needed a a long season to make my way through being dismissed and learning what it means to serve and being nobody.

Not that I'm somebody now, but I had to walk through a season of crucible in order to be entrusted with a particular role.

I needed the crucible of my own family and my own marriage to learn about self-sacrifice.

I see at that point in time I was very conflict of voidant.

I didn't like causing a ruffle.

I didn't like saying to people what they didn't want to hear.

I was feared being unliked.

Um, I wish, you know, I and I was obsessed with what other leaders of other churches were doing.

I wish I could be more like them than more like me.

I wasn't actually at peace with my own voice and my own person.

I wanted too badly.

I was in comparison with other kinds of leaders and other kinds of churches.

And so I wasn't ready.

I needed a detour, I needed a delay in order for God to deepen in me the real work of God inside of me so I could be entrusted with anything else.

Are you guys with me?

Are you guys with me?

So I needed the time, and then you know, as I was grateful that, you know, uh the elders, you know, at a certain point decided like, this is what God's doing.

We're going to pray for you and bless you in this role as a lead pastor.

And they did that right at the start of 2020.

And I'm thankful that there was no more unexpected events that happened in 2020.

There's no more detours.

No, it's just life is it's just one after the other.

But this is part, this is the part of God's process of development within us because He loves us, right?

And because what God is doing us is we have to become the kind of people who won't be crippled under the momentum of promotion and the weight of influence.

We have to be the kind of people that can even sustain the weight of an answered prayer.

Everybody, especially in our culture, would like a shortcut to the final scene.

And you don't get it.

And some think they get it, but even they don't get it.

The vast majority of people who win the lottery, you're go, you're banking on that Powerball ticket.

The vast majority of the people who win the lottery squander it all within a year because they never became the kind of person who could handle great wealth.

And this is the same is true with uh with mothering and fathering and and with uh with the positions and the roles and the things that God calls us to, what he's after inside of us is not just the final scene.

He's after us becoming people of love, becoming people established in sonship, that we know who we are and we know who we're not.

So, but we tend to try, we tend to treat all delays as Satan's plans, but oftentimes it's actually the slow work of God inside of us.

Which is why Jesus had to come and tell us, hey, listen, the kingdom of God is it's like a mustard seed.

It's not a full-grown tree when it starts.

It's a mustard seed.

It's very slow and it's very hidden.

And you're not gonna be able to even you're barely gonna be able to perceive the kingdom of God when it arrives in your life.

And the seeds of God.

But given time, given time, that thing's gonna grow if you stay in it.

If you stay in it.

This wasn't just Joseph.

This is nearly this is pretty much every person you read through through the scriptures, including Jesus.

I just want you to think about how wild it is, what little we know about Jesus' life.

You thought about this?

Here's what we know He was born at 12.

It was like potentially his rebellious stage, right?

But not really, because he just wanted to go to church.

So he left his parents and went to the temple to study the scriptures.

It's just as bad as it got with Jesus, right?

And then we skip to 30 years old for three years.

What we actually know about Jesus' life is very little.

Have you ever wondered if he was the son of God, why were the first 30 years of his life so unimportant?

You ever thought about that?

What was he doing for the first 30 years of his life?

I'll tell you what he was doing.

He was living in hiddenness.

He was learning what it means to just be the son of a carpenter and be like everybody else.

He was learning reading, writing, and arithmetic and how the world works.

He was studying the scriptures and in the process coming to know what the Father had destined him for.

The 30 years of development within the life of Jesus were so important.

You think, look, if if his death was so important, why didn't he just come as a baby and just die as a baby?

If that's all we needed was a death of the Son of God.

That's not all we needed.

We needed him to live faithfully and to show us what it looked like to index his life to the voice of the Father and say, Father, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna be faithful with your timeline for my life.

And when the time is right, I'm gonna say yes to everything you call me into.

So Jesus was committed, he was committed to everything that the Father had planned for him, which meant pretty much a life of obscurity until the last three years.

You guys with me?

The Hebrews said that Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering.

Even Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering.

That's a little mind-boggling.

Did he have to learn that?

Yeah, because even in him, he there was part of the story of Jesus, the Son of God, where he had to be, he had to grow into the fullness of what God had asked him to do.

And he had to know how to bear the weight of that as well.

Where even in the garden, he prayed to the Father, Would you take this cup from me?

And if not, not my will, but your will be done.

So even Jesus, he was trying to figure out, God, what is your timeline?

What is your route for me?

And whatever that is, I'm gonna say yes to it.

And at the end of the day, what is God preparing us for?

One of my mentors years ago said it like this, and I'd ask them those kind of angsty questions that like 30-year-olds would ask, like, I just don't know what I'm doing with my life.

And some of you, you know, we still ask those questions.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't know where God's taking this, what is he preparing me for?

I just don't know what he's preparing me for.

What ministry is he preparing me for?

And I remember him telling me and telling some others, he said, Listen, what if God isn't you preparing you for ministry?

What if he's just preparing you for himself?

He's preparing him, he's preparing you for him, for more of him.

And that's so easy to lose sight of along the way, isn't it?

Because we're promised so many things and we tell ourselves so many things, and we're invited into so many storylines, but ultimately God is the author of our life.

That doesn't mean everything that comes is from God, but the promise in the story of Joseph is that anything the enemy meant for evil, he promises to turn towards good.

That anything that comes against us, He's going to, he's going to be intimately connected to the details of our life to lead not only to our good, but the flourishing of the world.

So, how should we face detours and delays?

I'm just going to hit a few points.

So, how do we face detours and delays?

Number one, um, we trust the process.

Learning to trust that delays are not denials, they're just delays.

James chapter one says it like this count all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Consider it joy, my brothers.

Do we resist trials or do we find the joy in the midst of it, what it's producing?

Do we spend our time and our energy and our emotional state and our thinking resisting trials?

Or do we can we can we tap into the work of God where he's producing steadfastness?

I think steadfastness is one of the qualities that I believe he wants to return, especially to the Church of the West.

I think we've completely lost steadfastness.

We're weak compared to what's happening with believers in other parts of the world.

I believe that God wants to work back into you and me resilience and steadfastness, an enduring spirit, where we know that He is the finisher, He's the author and the finisher of our faith.

Amen.

And in the process, we we trust the process of development, but then not only do we trust the process, but we have to stay humble in the process.

And that means this if you are in a detour and delay in your life, scriptures are very clear.

Do everything you can to reject bitterness, resentment, envy.

They will steal your joy.

Anything, any thought that says, I should not be here right now.

Okay?

That might be true, but it's not necessarily helpful to keep saying to yourself.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Stay curious and ask God, what are you doing here?

How are you trying to come to me in this season?

That's the question you should ask.

How are you wanting to come to me in the season?

One of my favorite authors and poets, um, Renier Marie Silka or Rilka, in his book Letters to a Young Poet, as these correspondences he's writing to a young poet, he said, he said this, and put this quote up.

He said, Be patient with all that is unsolved in your life.

Learn to love the questions themselves, until some distant day without your knowing, you will have lived into the answers.

A lot of us are more obsessed with the answers than we are the questions.

And his his advice, which I think is brilliant for all of us, there's a point in our life that we must learn to befriend the questions, knowing that God is holding us as we're befriending the questions.

And at some distant day, like Joseph, Joseph, he only arrived when he concluded at the point, oh, God was with me the entire time.

This is what he was doing.

At some point, he lived into the questions that he was asking.

It requires we stay humble, we stay curious, and keep our hearts tender in the process.

So we trust the process, we stay humble, we do get wise counsel, we surround ourselves.

If you're in a detour or delay, it's exhausting when you're trying to figure all that out on your own.

Why am I here?

What is God doing?

Did I do something wrong?

Am I is God trying to teach me a lesson?

Am I being punished for?

I mean, we there's so many questions that come out when life gets squirrely, right?

Surround yourself with godly men and women who can help you discern what God is doing.

Because maybe there's something that you're not seeing right in the moment.

So surround yourself with godly counsel, wisdom, companions on the journey.

And then fourth thing is just find a way to thrive.

Which sounds so cliche, but when you look at Joseph and everything, every time he walked into a new season, he found a way to add value in every season.

When he got into Egypt, when he got into Potiphar's house and he was still in slavery, he found a way to thrive.

It says that Joseph walked in favor and he just was promoted because he was still obsessed with bringing life and serving every place he went.

When he went into the jail, he could have just gone silent.

He just could have been a hermit.

No, he used his gifts to interpret dreams.

When he was promoted and he was serving a king that was not his own king, and he was serving Pharaoh, he used his giftings and his abilities for the betterment of Egypt, which was not his homeland.

He did not want to be there, but that's where God had placed him.

He used it to help everyone around him thrive.

What would happen if we did the same thing in the periods of waiting?

Turn to the people that God has given you and asked the question what does it look like for me to help them flourish where they're at?

Yeah?

Okay.

You guys, you guys tracking?

Okay.

The good news in all of this is still this that the promise of Jesus, the Spirit of God, is that he never leaves us or forsakes us.

And the promise, I believe, the good news and story of Joseph and fulfilled through the abiding Spirit of God inside of us, is that He doesn't just leave us on our own to figure everything out.

He is working for your good.

I talk to people who every week who are trying to make sense of their life journey, many of which are just kind of holding a place of disappointment.

I'm not saying that's wrong.

I'm just saying what happens when we live into the story of God and we know that God is intimately involved, even more so than we think, in the details of our life.

It allows us in every season just open up our hands a little bit wider to relax and just lean back a little bit and say, God, I'm being held by you.

And yeah, I'm gonna pray through this.

I'm gonna try to I'm gonna do my best to figure out what you're doing, but even if I don't figure that out, I'm gonna trust Father that you're guiding me along this way and you're orchestrating my life the way that any good author would.

Because you're telling a great story through my life.

You know that he wants to tell a great story through your life.

So let's do this together.

Let's just take a moment, close our eyes together.

I'm just gonna invite the Holy Spirit to lead us in this time.

Okay.

And I just want to ask the question, where is God, where in your life is God asking you to be faithful even when things feel out of place or out of time, unfair or even stagnant?

Where is he off asking you to be faithful?

And Jesus, we submit ourselves to you even right now.

We invite you, Holy Spirit, to come and speak to us here.

So many movies.

It's actually the same movies over and over again.

Um and I think that trained my brain and my heart a little bit back to what Luke was talking about before.

Two hours and then it changes.

Two hours and then the good guy wins.

And as I got older and I got into seasons where it wasn't two hours, it was two years.

It was five years, whatever.

It just didn't compute, and I spent a lot of time saying, This isn't fair, what am I doing here?

Um in 2020, I lost my job like many other folks, and I went into a season of very displaced occupation stuff.

And one of the things I've struggled with a lot is my vocation, my dreams, my job, and what that says about me and my worth and all that stuff.

It's just if I'm being real.

And it was in this season I really found the value in preaching to myself, genuine uh authenticity with the Lord.

And I say this often like God is a big boy.

He can take, he can take your disappointment, he can take your swear words, he can take your frustration, he can take all that stuff, and I think there's an invitation that if you're in this season to do that, to take those things to the Lord, resting and knowing that he's gonna get you out of this thing, or that you're on the right path.

But I think there is value in being honest with the disappointment, being honest with just how you are feeling in this stuff.

You'll see me often writing in my little black journal.

Um, if I could just have your maturity for a second, I have an entry in there from about two years ago that's just one word elongated, it starts with an F and it ends with a K.

I was so mad, I was so frustrated, I was so like, what are you doing, Lord?

But I didn't stop pursuing the Lord.

I kept going after Him and I didn't know what it looked like, and I got myself into another job.

It was provision and all this, but it was hurting my body, it was injuring me, it was all this stuff, and then one day I found myself at church camp with all of y'all, and I was given a word about my dreams.

I don't come from money, I don't have a lot of resources, but my heart and my desire is to make films, and those are not cheap things to do.

And it was it was a somebody prophesied over me that you're going to do this, and you're going to do this because you're the one who can.

About two years later, I just produced finished producing a film, and it was I can't, I mean it's a longer story, but that isn't what I meant it to be, because I truly believe that the enemy was coming against me in a lot of ways, and the world was coming against me, and God was taking those things and he was turning them for good.

He actually made a different movie, which I think is pretty amazing.

Um, but he's in that two year season when he goes, Hey, let's do this, it was crazy.

My my whole fortitude was something else.

You know, by the end of production, I was basically floating around because nothing could could go wrong.

Things were going wrong left and right, but everything was working.

People would run up to me, Mark, there's no parking tonight.

What are we gonna do?

I'm just like, I don't know, but it's gonna work.

Because that steadfastness was built and was built and was built over years that that really highlighted for me in this one little like three-month segment of time where I just saw the steadfastness that God was building at me, exercise itself day in and day and day out, day in and day out.

And it was it was amazing.

But I guess what I'm trying to say is be genuine with where you are, and it's okay to be in a place of frustration, but do not stop with the Lord in that.

That makes sense.

Yeah, let me pray.

Let's do this, let's do this, Michael, real quick.

In light of that, if if I just feel like uh as an action point, some of you, we're probably all in seasons where we're waiting for God from something, but some of you are really feeling that right now.

And you're trying to make sense of them.

You need an extra, you need a dose of strength, you need that steadfastness from God for the season that you're in.

And if you're feeling if you're feeling that right now, you're feeling the weight of that.

I just want to, if you're if you're bold enough, I just want to invite you to stand.

We want to pray with you and pray for you across the room.

If you're waiting, season of waiting.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

And we're gonna pray for everybody who's in a season, but specifically, if you're around somebody who's standing right now, what we want to do is just come alongside of them.

One of the ways we do that is just lay a hand on them.

You don't have to, you don't have to pray out loud, just let them know that you're with them.

You can pray in your spirit.

And this is part of what we do as a family.

We're not just alone, we're not just individuals attending church.

We're we're supporting each other, we're coming around side, we're lending strength and faith to each other.

Okay.

So, Michael, would you pray for us for anybody in the season of delay right now?

King Jesus.

Abba, Father.

Abba.

Lord, we recognize you as King.

We recognize you as Father.

We recognize you as provider.

We recognize you as the author of our story.

And Lord, I just lift up my brothers and sisters now in this room and who are at home, those who are in a season who need strengthening, those who are in a season who are who are wondering what is going on, where are you?

Where am I going?

What is the deal?

Father, I just pray, Holy Spirit, peace on them now, in Jesus' name.

Lord, speak your love and your value and your purpose to them.

Lord, I just pray an increased steadfastness that they will be an unmovable, unmovable force.

That your love will shine through them, that they will be an example to those.

I pray for those struggling to maintain a positive outlook.

I pray that for those struggling to hold on to your goodness, Lord.

I just pray a revelation of who you are, Lord, of your hope, of your provision.

Lord, I pray that you give them eyes to see where you've taken them, what you've taken them through, and how they couldn't have got there without you, Lord.

I pray that you call the mind seasons and times of your faithfulness to spur up excitement in what you're going to do, Lord.

Lord, you don't leave us empty, you don't leave us lacking, Father God.

You are the provider of all things, and you are making us to strong fortresses of your Holy Spirit, Lord God.

We thank you, Lord.

And Lord, we just pray for we pray for open doors.

We pray for open windows to crawl through, Lord.

We just pray for your provision, for your vision, Lord.

We pray for it and we want it, Lord.

We also, more than that, Lord, let us be let us see what it's like just to be with you where we are.

Lord, we love you.

I just pray blessing on these people right now to see your face as you hold them in your hands and as you write their story.

You have pages upon pages for them, Lord.

And I thank you for what you're doing.

I thank you for this community.

I thank you for these people, Lord.

And I thank you for the bravery and the boldness of those who are standing.

Lord, you see them.

He sees you, church, and he is most pleased.

Thank you, God.

We love you, Lord.

Thank you, God.

And Jesus, we thank you.

Whatever the enemy does to sabotage, to steal, to kill, to destroy, to rob us of your destiny, you promise, God.

You promise that you will get the glory in our lives as we stay anchored in you.

So we thank you that victory is in you, Jesus.

No matter the outcome, no matter the timeline, victory is in you.

And so we thank you, Jesus, that you are king of our lives.

And we submit ourselves to you.

We surrender ourselves to you.

And it's in your name we pray together.

Amen.

Amen.

So good.

Can we stand together?

Can we stand together?

And listen, as we we prepare to go, um, a couple things.

We're gonna have our, I'm gonna invite some of our ministry team forward.

Um, if you're part of the ministry team, this is this is our prayer team, and these are people who just would love to pray with you.

Maybe you're here and you're like, I just I would love somebody to pray with you, maybe about something specific that came up today or something else in your life.

These people you can trust, they're not gonna try to fix you or whatever.

They're just they'll they'll listen to you and pray with you, okay?

You can trust them.

You can talk about even what a relationship with Jesus looks like.

We'd they'd love to tell you about that.

But even aside from a ministry team, my sense is that even across the room right now, that God might be highlighting somebody, it's somebody else in the room, maybe somebody you've never talked to.

But um, rather than just kind of rushing out, take a moment, meet somebody else around the room, and and if if you feel like God is moving you to do so, take a minute and pray for them.

Just encourage them and bless them.

That it's not just about the qualified ministers doing legalized ministry, okay?

It's about the body of Christ ministering to each other, okay?

So I just want to invite you to do that.

And and as we leave, if you have kids, you can go get them and bring them back up to the auditorium for conversations.

If you're a guest with us, I'll meet you in the back.

We'd love to connect with you.

I'm gonna pray one blessing over us as we go back into the frigid wintry cold.

Because you're so excited about that.

Um, just put your hands out in front of you as if you're receiving a gift.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May He make his face to shine upon you.

May He be gracious to you and give you rest.

Go in the name of Jesus.

Love you guys.