Big Dreams, Big God: Week 4

I wonder how many of us remember the name Jim Braddock.

Let me tell you a little bit about a guy

named Jim Braddock. Jim Braddock was an amateur boxer and

he was pretty good.

And Jim, about two weeks.

Before the stock market crash in nineteen twenty nine, threw

a punch and broke his hand. And so that's not

good by way, if you're a boxing you break your hand,

that's not good. And so he breaks his hand and

he's devastated, and then on top of that, the stock

market crashes, and so he's not ready to give up.

On his boxing career because he was supposed to be.

You know, he was always told he's gonna be one

of the greats. Over his next twenty two bouts, he

only won six of them, and people started to make

fun of him, say, yere has been or it never was,

and they heaped all kinds of insults on him. But

you know, he had a family. He was a man

of character, and so during the depression, because his family

had to eat, he took any he could get. And

people would often recognize him and they would make little

sly remarks or he would be treated really bad, but

he had to work and he had to do things

because he had to take care of his family. And

it was during this time where he had a dream

that had been unfulfilled, a dream that was crushed, a

life that was you know, it.

Just didn't turn out the way it was supposed to.

But he had to be the man and take care

of his family, no matter the insults that were heaped

upon him, the way he was treated. But this built

something up in him. It's built up his character. It

created a strength in him that he did not have beforehand.

As a matter of fact, he started to understand something

that I think that a lot of us understand today

is simply this, as suffering produces a strength that comfort

simply cannot provide. Suffering produces something in us. Suffering changes us. Suffering,

if we will persevere through it, it will change who

we are as a human. It's almost like a DNA change. Well,

in nineteen thirty four, so we're talking five years later,

he gets a surprise invite. They need someone to fight

in the undercard, which is to fight before the championship fight.

And so they're looking around like, hey, we need somebody

fight this evening short notice. They reach out to Jim Braddock.

He literally goes from the docks and no training or

nothing like that. But in the third round he knocked

out a guy named John Griffin, who ended up being,

by the way, a Hall of Fame boxer. He knocks

him out in the third round and it's a huge

upset and it makes a.

Tremendous amount of news because people are like, who is

this guy?

Who's this guy? And all of a sudden, it put

him back on a circuit. Here's what was interesting. He

had to go back and fight people that had knocked

him out a couple of years ago. And he just

started going through these guys and just just taking care

of them. And finally he got a big shot, massive

square Garden against the reigning heavyweight champion of the world,

Max Bear. And so he's a ten to one underdog,

and let me tell you something, they beat the living

tar out of each other for fifteen rounds. At the

end of fifteen rounds, Jim Bradda got the decision and

he became known as the Cinderella Man, the man who

had basically overcome every single odd and still to this day,

we in the sports world still consider this the greatest upset,

the greatest comeback probably in all of sports history. Now

today we're gonna be looking at another Cinderella man, our

man of the hour, Joseph. And this is unlike the

last few weeks where we've been talking about how Joseph

it was a tough, bad, bad journey from being the

favorite to the pit and the prison. But today Joseph's

life is flipped upside down again as we look at it.

But instead of another journey to a pit or a prison,

it's the exact opposite. Today we're gonna look at when

Joseph went from the pit to the pinnacle. Let's look

at God's word together. It says here Joseph, by the way,

is in jail at this time. And it says after

two whole years. Pay attention at phrase two whole years,

Pharaoh dream that he was standing in by the nile.

This is two years, by the way. Just some contacts.

And Andrew preached last week there was a cupbear, okay,

and you had the baker, and they had these dreams,

and Joseph interpreted them correctly. Joseph said, hey, when you

get back to your spot talking to the cup bearer,

when you're exalted again. Don't forget about me.

Let Pharaoh know that I was falsely.

Accused, that I was stolen and put into slavery. Tell

him my story so that he will get me out

of this pit. But the cupbearer for good and for

two whole years, Joseph said in wonder. But then we

see God intervene, because God gives Pharaoh a dream, and

let's look at it. It says so in the morning

talking about Pharaoh. His spirit was troubled, and he sent

and called for all the musicians or magicians, excuse me

of Egypt and all of its wise men, but there

was none who could interpret them. So this dream freaks

Pharaoh out so much that he actually calls in all

the interpreters, all the wise men, the magicians, everybody who

could know anything about dream interpretation. He brings them all

in from all over the country, from all over the world,

because he is so troubled by this dream. And you

gotta understand that dream interpretation was a big business back then.

Matter of fact, they had schools where people would go

and they would be trained in dream interpretations. They had

colleges for dream interpretation like Dream University, Nightmare College, Insomnia

Community College. Now I'm just kidding, but they really did

have colleges. This is a big deal. This is a

big profession. People wrote books about dream interpretation. You can

make a really good living off interpreting dreams. But here's

the problem. He gathers all the interpreters and guess what.

They're still stomped, it says.

Then, after all effort, everybody was stomped.

He says. Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, a

young Hebrew, a servant of the Captain of the guard.

When we told him, he interpreted our dreams for us.

So finally, after all these years, after this huge journey,

finally Joseph is remembered. And after one I'll attempt after another.

The king's right hand man says, all right, all right,

I do know a guy, and let's look at what

happens next, it says. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph,

and they quickly brought him out of the pit. By

the way, I love that Moses still uses the word

pit here. And when he had shaved himself and changed

his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh. Now think about this,

for thirteen years, Joseph has experienced one pit after another.

But notice something here. Before he can go and talk

to Pharaoh, they clean him up. They shave his head,

they shave his beard, they change his clothes. Why. Well,

back in that day, the hebrew men who identified with

Jehovah God, they would wear their beards very long, and

they said, hey, before you can come into Pharaoh's presence,

we need you to look more like an Egyptian because

we're going to be talking to a guy who believes

that he's a god of the Egyptians. So they pretty

much get get rid of any symbols of him that

looks like a Hebrew, has any Hebrew heritage, and he

goes before the king. Now, this again might not seem

like a big deal to you, like James. Why are

you making such a big deal about him shaving his

beard and changing his clothes. I'm gonna get to that

here in a little bit. Okay, all right, because Moses

really leans in on this. All right, But first of all,

let's look at how Joseph responds to Pharaoh. It says

in Pharaoh said to Joseph, I've had a dream, and

there's no one who can interpret it. I've heard it

said of you that you hear a dream and you

can interpret it. So Joseph answered Pharaoh, and I love

this be goes it is not me. God will give

Pharaoh a favorable answer. So Pharaoh tells Joseph, like, listen,

I know that you've got a gift, you got some skills,

and I know that you can interpret the dream.

But let me tell you. Let's look at the change

in Joseph.

Joseph says, not I, but God, and God's going to

do this for you. You know what we see here

in that short little phrase, we see a changed man.

Because when he was seventeen years old, what did he do?

He went around bragging and he goes, let me tell

you about this dream or this dream, and the dreams

were all about him being exalted. But now he's been

in the pit for thirteen years and his only hope

has been God.

His old companion has been God.

And he says, let me tell you. Don't give me

any credit, let me tell you what God can do.

This is a changed man. We're talking to a different

Joseph now. And see he understood something. To see. Suffering

humbles us. But it was his trust in God that

sustained him and grows us, and the same thing is

for us. We are gonna be humbled. But let me

tell you something, ass we're in the mists of being humbled.

If we keep our eyes and trust in the Lord,

it's gonna change us. It's gonna sustain us, and it's

gonna grow us. And so Pharaoh tells Joseph the dream,

and then Joseph wows him with his interpretation. So let

me tell you the dream summon up basically, basically that

Pharaoh had a dream that there was seven skinny cows,

and then there were seven very fat cows, and the

seven skinny cows ate the fat cows, which is a

weird dream.

And then he saw seven stocks of grain that were

weak and.

Looked horrible. Then they devoured seven healthy stocks of grain.

And so Joseph says, you know what, here's what your

dream means. And he says, for seven years, we are

gonna have great harvest, plenty of cattle. Things are gonna thrive.

But after seven years, we're gonna have seven years of famine.

And he says, after seven years of famine, and if

we don't do something now, the whole population is gonna

be wiped out. Here's what he's actually talking about. Okay,

we've seen famines that last for a year or two.

Matter of fact, go back and look at China and

Russia twenties and then I think the early fifties. There's

a couple of famines there that went for a year

or two. Tens of millions of people died. Seven years famine.

We're talking about world wide devastation. This is an extinction event. Okay.

So God warns Pharaoh, Hey, there's an extinction coming. We

can't survive past seven years of famine. Back then, the

whole culture was a grariat.

That was it.

And so God spoke to Joseph and said, all right,

here's what you need to do. And he speaks to

Joseph and he gives Joseph a plan to save the

whole world. Here's a man who's been sitting in a

dungeon for thirteen years, and God gives him the plan

to save the whole world. Basically, he said, listen, here's

what you're gonna do. Put back twenty percent for seven years, okay.

And he gave him the systems and the structures, and

let's let's look at He glays out this whole plan

to say the world. Let's look at how Pharaoh responds

this proposal, please Pharaoh. And then Pharaoh said that Joseph says,

God has shown you all of this, in other words,

the dream, the plan, the systems. He goes, there is

none so discerning or wise as you. He said, you

shall be over my house, and all my people shall

order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne,

will I be greater than you. And Pharaoh said that Joseph,

CEI have set you over all the land of Egypt.

And then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand

and put it on Joseph's hand, and clothing in garments

of fine linen, and put a gold chain around his neck.

And he made him ride in.

His second chariot, and they called out before him, bow

the knee. Thus he was set over all of the

land of Egypt. Finally we see Joseph's redemption. Let's look

at this next screen here, and I just want to

remind us of his journey. First, he went from the

prize Sun. Okay, he went to the one who has

chosen son, the one that was a supervisor. And then

his brothers got jealous and they threw him into the pit,

and then he goes from the pit to Potiphar's house.

And why he's there, he's exalted by God because he's

a f a worker.

But Pover's wife lies on him, and.

So the next thing you know, now he's in a prison,

and after all these years in prison, he finally gets

a chance to get out with these guys forget him,

and so he goes from the prison to this encounter

with Pharaoh, and this encounter with Pharaoh leads him to

a pinnacle moment in his life. Now, can I just

be honest theologically here for a moment like this is

stuff that people don't like to think about. But let

me tell you something. If this story ended like how

I'm gonna share it, I think God would have been

okay with it. Okay, matter of fact, I rewrote the passage.

Is it okay? Is that okay? I'm gonna let me.

I'm gonna tell you again. God would have had no

problem finishing this story like this. All right. Here he

goes the proposal, please Pharaoh and all of his servants.

So here's what I wrote. So Pharaoh, thank Joseph and

increase his rations. Joseph returned to prison. Then God continued

to walk with Joseph. Joseph lived out his years full

of integrity and never blame God for the injustice in

his life.

Meanwhile, back in.

Canaan, you know how devastated we would be if that

was the ending. Why Because for some reason, when it

comes to life and when we think about our life

and we think about how God works with people, we

want this fairy tale ending. We want a Disney ending.

We want Joseph.

Leaving out in a cheeriot with a beautiful, beautiful Egyptian wife,

and we want, you know, like a Disney scene where

all these animals come around and they sing and they talk.

That's what we want. We want these fairy tale endings.

And but here's what I'm gonna ask you to do today.

I'm gonna ask you to take off your Hollywood lens

and I want to look at this story in a

different way today. I'm sure all of you have heard

the phrase the flip side of the coin. You know,

they've been talking about whether or not they're gonna keep

certain coins or get rid of them because they don't

see how they're really valuable in America anymore. But even

if we were to get rid of all of our coins.

I believe that this phrase was stay in our vernacular,

the flip side of the coin. What does the flip

side of the coin means is saying like, well, here's

another way to look at it. Let's look at this

another way. And here's what I'm gonna do today. We're

gonna look at the story of Joseph, but we're gonna

look at the flip side of the coin for the

rest of the time today. Now, for some of you,

you're gonna walk out and you're gonna go James, I

never thought about that. Wow, thank you so much for

just showing me a different way to look at the

life of Joseph. Some of you are gonna be like,

you completely ruined this story for me, because this is

not how my Sunday school teachers taught me when we

had flannel graphs and all this other stuff. So here's

what we're gonna do.

We're gonna look at the flip side of the coin.

And ready, here's my big statement right now, for the

rest of our time today, here's my big statement. I

don't believe that Joseph saw this moment.

As his big payoff in life.

There I said it. I don't think Joseph saw this

as his big turnaround moment in his life.

And here's by the way, Moses didn't want.

Any of his readers, particularly the Hebrew readers, to see

this moment as a big payoff as they went to

Saturday school, because you know, they went to the church

on Saturday, when we do go on Sunday, so we

have Sunday school, but Saturday school back in the day

of the Hebrew children, they would not have wanted them

to see this as a big payoff. Now it's a

big moment, sure, but let me tell you, Joseph, if

we put ourselves in his shoes, we would understand that

he saw this as a continuation of his captivity, not

a moment that brings the big payoff. He would have

seen this as an extension of his captivity. And by

the way, let me let me take you through some

evidence of the flip side the coin. Okay. So here's

what I'm gonna do for the next few moments. I'm

gonna take us through like almost like a court case. Okay.

I'm gonna give you exhibits, okay. And so here's what

we're gonna do. We're gonnaok at Exhibit one. Okay, Joseph's

new name and his new wife, It says verse forty five,

and Joseph or excuse me, Pharaoh called Joseph's name zapph

and aff Panea. And he gave him a marriage to

a woman named Asenath. And she was the daughter of Potipharah,

who was a priest of Aun. So first of all,

this new beginning, this this this new chapter, in this

ugly life, we see that, first of all, his name

is changed to zaph and aff Panea. Now it's a

cool name. It's a very very cool name. Matter of fact,

I remember when I was younger, I used to tell

my wife and my mom that when we had our

first son, I was gonna name our son Zaffanafinea because

Joseph was like my favorite character. Probably why I didn't

have a son. But think about this name change all

right now, as you walk back, just through the Book

of Genesis, name changes meant something. Abram went to Abraham, Sarah,

I went to Sarah, Jacob went to Israel.

Now, every single time that there was a name change,

what did it mean.

It meant that there was a.

Change in the relationship with God. A name change meant

that they had a change.

They're closer to God, they're different, They're a change person.

And God recognizes this new relationship that they have, so

God will give them a new name. But this goes

in the opposite direction. Matter of fact, the person who

renames Joseph as a man who believed that he was

a god and would have people worship him, this goes

an exact opposite direction, completely against Joseph's heritage. And see,

here's what's going on this name change. What was it

really doing if his name was changed, what's really going

on here? They are masking his Hebrew identity, They're erasing

his relationship with God. To them, they're erasing his race

and his heritage. They're giving him a new name and saying,

huh uh uh, you're with us now again. Take off

your hollywoodlends and you'll see it, because Genesis forty one

is not the big payal. Secondly, he's given an Egyptian wife.

I'm sure that she was absolutely beautiful. I am sure

that if Joseph was here today, he'd be like, be

careful what your barterer say. I love my wife. But Again,

here's what you have to understand when you look earlier

at the marriages in Genesis. It was a really big

deal for his family to go find women of their

own tribe, and so by Pharaoh saying this is gonna

be your wife again, he's erasing his Hebrew heritage. Okay.

Now again, Moses is being very clear about this. This

is what he's want his readers to see. Okay, this

again is not the big payoff.

Exhibit number two. Joseph was not able to return home.

Exhibit number two. It says what it says, So Joseph

went out over the land of Egypt. Now again, think

about this. Do you think that Joseph was okay with

living the rest of his life in Egypt. He has power,

he has money, he has fine linens for clothes, he

has a great chariot, He's got money, he probably has

a cup bearer. He has gold, he has a beautiful wife.

He has everything that somebody could you know, imagine.

Writing on the list of saying, wouldn't even great if.

I have this? He had it all, But look at

his dying request. Joseph said to his brothers, I'm about

to die. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying,

God will surely take care of you, and you shall

carry my bones up from here. Joseph never stopped dreaming

of going home. His last dying request was, I didn't

make it back. I never made it back home. Can

you at least take my bones there? Wow, again, this

is not his big payoff. Joseph sees this as a

continuation of his captivity. Then exhibit number three, the naming

of his children. Okay, let's look at this. Two sons

were born to Joseph. Joseph called the name of the

first born Manassa four. He said, God has made me

forget all of my heart in all my father's house.

And then he goes on the name of the second.

He called him Ephraim, for God has made me fruitful

in the land of my affliction. Now here's what you

gotta understand again. Names are a really, really big deal

in Genesis, and often when you give a child a name,

there's a story behind this child's name. The name that

you give your child was a part of your family's story,

and this is a big part of the Hebrew tradition,

especially in Genesis. So they were very, very careful with

their name selection. You know what, I took great care

in the selection of my child's name. I thought for sure.

I was convinced when Gina got pregnant that we were

gonna have a boy, okay, because I just could not

imagine my God would ever give me a girl. Okay,

because almost every girl I had ever met thought I

was an idiot and so and Gina thought I was

about forty idiot, but she still rolled the dice. I

didn't know anything about girls. I didn't grow up around girls.

And I'm like, why would God give me a girl? Surely,

you know, because I was so into sports and so

into athletics and hunting and all. I'm like, surely God

would not give me a girl. Well then some video

evidence came out in a room and it was clear

I'm having a girl. And I walked away from that moment.

My wife is excited, asking be I walked away just

like oh man, felt the weight of the world come

on me, Like what am I going to do with

a girl? I don't know what to do with a girl.

But you know what, I started thinking about her name,

and I started thinking, you know what, I want my

daughter to grow up strong willed and strong minded. By

the way, nineteen years later check check like my lord.

But I wanted her, I wanted her name to speak

into her character. And so during that time I had

for the last year been studying the Protestant Reformation. It

got really deep into it. And this was when Martin

Luther changed the whole world by bringing up that, hey,

let's just stick with scripture instead of following whatever the

Catholic Church says that we should do. And this changed

the world well. As a result of this, Martin Luther

start going around to these monasteries and because you had

priests and nuns who had taken a vowle of celibacy.

But now they're leaving the Catholic Church, they need to

get married.

So what does he do.

He brings them all out. He would go to these

monasteries and he bring out the priests, and he'd bring

out the nuns, and he would say, all right, you

marry you. And they'd be like, okay, I mean, what

did they know. I mean they never dated and they

were just happy, like, oh Lord and so, and he

would go you you, you, you you. But according to

my professor, the story goes simply like this that when

he pointed to the woman that was going to be

his wife some days, she says, no, I'll take you,

and he said okay. And as history goes on to

show that she was a phenomenal, phenomenal, strong willed, strong

minded woman of God. And here's what he did. He

called her my dear Kate. And if you read through

his books over and over again, he would talk about

my dear Kate. Now that Kate stood for Katerina, but

he called her my dear Kate. And that's where my

daughter's name comes from. Kate turned into Caitlyn, and so

her name. I took great care in naming my child.

So you can imagine Joseph here he is. He spent

all these years in captivity. And for the first time

in his life, guess what, as this is the first

time in his adult life that he actually gets to

make the choice. Think about this. This is his first

choice that he is completely free to make it. So

what does he do? He says, I'm going to tell

the story of my life through mine kids. Their names

were so important, and you gotta remember again, this is

his first time he's received a name, He's received a

new outfit, everything and knew I did ay. But here

he's gonna make an impact of his Childre's name. So

he calls the first one of Nanassa, which says, God

has made me forget all my harship in all my

father's house. He wasn't saying I forgot my father. What

he's saying is, I went through some really tough times.

Life was pretty horrible. I went from one pit to another.

I was abandoned and rejected by my family.

I was lost in prison.

I had a pretty miserable life. But my God has

made me forget all that because my God has healed me.

My God has restored me, and my God has been

good to me. So he says, you know what my

God has done. My God has restored my soul. And

this son of Nassa represents this. And then he talks

about his other son, Ephraim, and Ephraim which in the

basic Hebrew just means fruitful, but it means so much work,

because he says that God has made me fruitful in

my land of to pay attention, not last word, in

the land of my affliction. He has a palace, he

has a chariot, he has servants, he's got money, food, clothes, power.

I mean, we're checking off the list of every single

thing that a human might possibly want in this world. Status.

But what does he call this place? The land of

my affliction? He's still on for home. Joseph was a

boy who just wanted to go back home. He wanted

to see his family, He wanted to know his father again.

But he says, you know's what, God has still made

me fruitful despite all of this. And here's what he

was doing. This is a big, big punch in Pharaoh's

nose because he was saying, you know what, Pharaoh, You've

given me all this, but I don't want to be

identified with you in my legacy. No, no, no, no,

my children, because I want to be identified with God

in my legacy. It's a big deal here, very very

very big deal. He's taking big picture, first time he

has freedom to choose. He's thinking about his legacy. And

here's the thing I want everyone to know. As we

close up today, all of us are gonna leave a legacy.

And what is your legacy? A legacy is is what

lives on after we've lived our life on this earth.

So the last few minutes to day, I want to

talk about what are you leaving this earth? What legacy

are you gonna leave here? And I think there's three

different types of main legacies. There's the first one simply

this a relational legacy. Let me tell you, as a pastor,

I've been to a ton of funerals. Do you know

what I've never heard somebody saying a funeral how much

money somebody made? Never heard it? Barely do I ever

ever hear anything even about their career? Do you know

what takes up the word count at funerals, over and

over and over and over and over again, no matter

what anybody has accomplished, no matter if it's a one

thousand or ten thousand square foot house. Guess what everyone

talks about at your fearer, So guess what your legacy is.

They'll talk about how this person loved me, what this

person meant to me, how this person treated me. At

the end of the day, your legacy, the biggest part

of your legacy is going to be about how you

treated other people and the imprint you left in her life. Now,

some of us were like, oh man, I gotta get

to work on that legacy. Well, let me tell you something.

There's here's some good news today because some of us

in this room might not have been building a great

relational legacy. But if you haven't, let me tell you something,

and I say this over and over again, it's not

over until it's over. Because there's another type of legacy.

There's the thing called the redemptive legacy. And maybe you're

sitting here saying, you know, I'm not gonna have the

relational legacy. You know, me and my kids, my expouse,

we got some issues and you know, but let me

tell you something. There's something that you can live called

a redemptive legacy. And see Joseph's story reminds us that

it's not over until it's over. So if you're here today,

your story's not over and your legacy is still being built.

If you would have asked me about my dad's mom

and dad when I was probably in my teens, I

probably wouldn't have gave them rating reviews. My grandmother, my

dad's mom, was a very, very how would you say

this in the most nice way? She was an extremely

difficult person. Do any of you all know a difficult person?

Are they sitting next to you right now? But she

was a difficult person. But the last ten years of

her life, something switching her and she started to passionately

pursue Christ. She changed. She was different, and the way

she treated the family was very different. And she was kind,

she was loving, she was encouraging, and matter of fact,

I said to my family multiple times, like, you know

that Nanny changes every single year. She's different. She is

more like Christ every single year. And matter of fact,

if you've got to hang out in Nanny at all

those last few years, she would just want to talk

about the Bible and Jesus are encouraging. It was like,

who is this. You're not the grandma I grew up with.

You know what, when she passed away, you know, the

thing I love about my family is were we don't

sugar coat stuff, and so we're like, well, you know,

you know how she was right. But you know, those

last ten years she became a pretty remarkable woman. She

became someone who became like Christ. So she has this

redemptive history because the whole family can see that even

at the end of her life, she was pursuing Christ

and it changed those relationships. Her whole seventy some years

wasn't awesome, but there's a redemptive legacy and listen to

me today. I'm sharing with you her redentive legacy. Her

story is different because of Jesus. My grandfather, my dad's father.

He was a drunk, he left the family. He was

a miserable man. I think he was married either nine

or ten times. And he not a good guy. I

can tell you a lot of bad stories about him.

But the very end of his life, he reached out

to my dad and I got to go over with

my dad and I watched him ask my dad for forgiveness.

Here is my dad. My dad was in his probably fifties,

close to sixty at this point, and it was one

of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen in my life.

It was like my dad just like everything he'd wanted

since he was eight years old when his dad left him.

It was like he got it all in that moment,

and it was one of the most amazing scenes I've

ever seen in my life. About a year later, he

got cancer and he was about ready to die, and

he my father and my mother got to lead him

to Christ on his deathbed. You know that's a different

story then. If he would not have came to Christ, right,

the story would just simply be here's this guy. He

was a drunk and he left his family and he

was a pretty lousy human being. What's his story. Now, yeah,

he's a pretty lousy human being. But man, at the end,

he got a ride and our whole family is so

much better because of that. My dad is so much

of a better man because he had that. So there's

a redemptive legacy. So maybe you're here today and you

know what, those first many decades of your life have

not been awesome. Maybe you weren't the greatest at this

or that, but it's not over. Until it's over. This

is the last thing that we can leave and that's

called our ingdom legacy. And I believe that this one

is the most important. See your kingdom legacy answers one question,

what did you do with Christ in your life? And

this is the legacy that brings the biggest impact. Let

me go ahead and jump with you to the Book

of Exodus. What does it say here at the beginning

of Exodus? It says, eventually a new king came to

power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what

he had done. Joseph knew Joseph knew that he was

not going to be remembered, that there was gonna be

other leaders, and.

So his legacy was going to be through his children.

So that's why he named his children of the things

that he named his children. But let me help you

understand something about Joseph's legacy. See, Joseph was sent away

for all these years, and Jacob, his father, had twelve sons.

What are they called the twelve tribes of Israel. If

you went to Sunday School, you learned the twelve tribes

of Israel. Do you notice that Joseph, one of his sons,

is not a tribe. Joseph didn't make it into the tribes. No,

he actually made it in twice. Because both of his

sons were named a tribe, Manassa and Ephraim. Joseph was

doubly blessed. And when they told the story of those tribes,

still to this day they talk about what God had

done through Joseph, and that, my friends, that is his

kingdom legacy. I was out to lunch one day with

a guy named top and Borman. Toping Borman is a

guy who is done a lot of missionary work in Bangladesh,

and I had picked my daughter up. She had been

volunteering at VBS that morning, and so I had to

bring her to lunch. And I was meeting with another

couple in our church.

And this other couple in our church, they've been starting a.

Big work in Bangladesh, and they've been going there for

sometimes months at a time for years now, and they've

spent a tremendous amount of their time and there and

a lot of their resources investing, investing heavily in this work.

And we were actually meeting to talk about the Crossings

International School, which is a school that we've been working on,

but also a school that we're going to continue to

build and develop. And what the school is a school

is basically a school that is going to teach English

and it's going to be the only place that teaches

English language in a region full of Muslims and people

who don't speak English. So it's going to be flocked

to when it's done. And it's also going to be

our way of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with

the Muslims in that area.

And I'm sitting there at that lunch and I'm.

You know, taking all in. I look at my daughter

and I had this thought because the couple that I

was talking with from our church, they had an extremely

successful career, and my thought was simply this, Caitlin doesn't

even know what they did for a living, but she

knows that they are the people who have given their

life to a people group to lead them to Christ.

And many years from now, as our church talks about

Crossing International School, the people who have given them bulk

of their life to this, we will not talk about

their careers. We will talk about their kingdom legacy. So

maybe you're here today and you're like, you know what, James,

I don't feel too great about my kingdom legacy. I

don't feel too great about my relational legacy. And well,

guess what, you can start your redemptive legacy. If your

relational legacy is something you need to take a look

at today, because that's something you have time to strengthen.

Let's do that. But all of us need to be

thinking about our kingdom legacy. And so here's what I

want to do as we close out today. I want

to just to take some time before the Lord and

I want you to take some time. We're going to

take two or three. It's just to pray and process

and think and think through your relational legacy, think through

your redemptive legacy, and also think through your kingdom legacy.

And here's what I want you to do. I want

you to simply say, Lord, lead me and guide me.

You show me what to do, because it's all about you.

Can you do that? Can we take some time today

to process our life at a bigger level. Let's take

some time. Let's go before the Lord.