GOD IN THE MESS | WHEN MY TRIAL IS OVER II (April 2 2017) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, if you would grab those Bibles and uh turn them to Genesis chapter 42, uh today is going to be a bit of a marathon.

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

All right, we're gonna be working through uh five chapters of Genesis.

And I know you're all shocked and appalled and starting to make plans to be here till Tuesday afternoon.

Um, but I trust the Lord.

I trust that we are uh going to make it through this uh in a good amount of time here, and uh not too long, but this is uh you may be wondering, well, why would we go through five chapters in one sermon?

That's kind of that's kind of a chunk.

And I would agree with you, but here's the thing, it's it's really one big story, you know, and so why sort of break this up and don't worry, we're not gonna you know read through every single word and all of that.

I'm gonna summarize uh different parts of it uh as we go through here, but starting off in uh Genesis 42 uh is where we're gonna be.

All right?

Now, I don't know if you've ever had surgery before, um, but I have.

Um, I don't know, it was probably 12 or 13 years ago or so, and it was, you know, it was relatively you know minor kind of day surgery that I have.

It wasn't major, and I know maybe some of you have had uh much more major surgery uh than I have.

But by the way, as a side note, I remember they gave me like a local anesthetic, that's all they gave me, so they didn't knock me out.

And I remember at one point they're like, let me know if you can feel this.

And sure enough, I could feel the scalpel like go like that.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can feel that.

You know, but because of the anesthetic, I felt pretty good.

And so they uh they put that gas on, boom, I was out.

Now, none of that part really has anything to do with what we're talking about.

I just kind of like to watch your reaction, right, as I as I share that with you.

Um but again, maybe you have had surgery before and uh you've gone through that, and you know that if you have, once the you know, once the acute, you know, or the actual trauma of the surgery itself uh has been completed, and that you know you've been all stitched up and all of that, um you know that you can now begin the healing process.

Right?

Healing begins right there.

Now, uh last week, what would we look at?

We looked at the story of Joseph, of course.

It's a series that we've been in, and uh we looked at how his trial came to an end.

Right?

His his trial, his difficulty that he was going through was over.

The crisis, the acute trauma of his difficult situation kind of came to a close.

And what did that look like?

Well, it looked like him being whisked out of prison, right?

Just at a you know, at a moment's notice, and he you know had the had the shower, he had the shave, he was you know thrust in front of Pharaoh and basically handed the keys uh to a brand new life.

And he had that, he had all this all this responsibility and all these good things that happened to him.

Boom, trial over.

Trial over.

Okay, well, today is when my trial is over, part two.

When my trial is over, part two.

And uh, what we're gonna be looking at here is the healing work that God desires to accomplish in you and I when our trial has come to a close.

When our trial is over, it is done.

Now, throughout this series, what have we been talking about?

We've been talking about the very many purposes of life's difficulties that we go through, the many diff many purposes of the trials and sometimes the discipline that God Himself puts us through.

Sometimes uh it is to humble us, right?

Sometimes we need the humbling.

We've got great pride in our hearts.

And sometimes it's to tear down our idols.

We've all got those, don't we?

Oftentimes it's to strengthen our character.

Our character is not as godly as it needs to be, and trials kind of get us to that point.

There are also trials put us through the uh through it to prepare us for more effective ministry and to make us a more useful and effective tool in God's hands.

Okay, but what we're also going to see here this morning, we're gonna see that God puts us through trials to heal us.

He puts us through trials to heal us because deep down we're all wounded.

Do you know that?

Have you sensed that as you've kind of grown, as you've walked in your relationship with the Lord?

Have you ever sensed kind of when everything gets quiet and you just kind of you alone in your thoughts with the Lord, or certain things happen in your life, and you realize, man, you know, I still got some work to do here and I'm broken and I need the Lord to heal me, right?

We all have what?

We all have relational hurts, you know, relationships that aren't as healthy as they could be.

We have been wounded from some of those.

We have wounded others as well in that.

We have, you know, misplaced identities.

Our identities are in things other than Jesus Christ, and those cause our hearts to ache, don't they?

And we're wounded in that sense.

We've all sinned.

We've all sinned, we've all been sinned against.

We've all made mistakes of of all different kinds that cause us emotional and spiritual pain.

We need healing.

We need healing, don't we?

And here's the thing: we are very, very good at burying that all deep down, don't we, aren't we?

Where we're good at that.

You know, not really, not really dealing with it properly, and you know, just kind of pushing it aside and putting on the masks and you know, behaving really well on the outside, and you know, we've got, we know all the Christianese, right?

We know all the words to say, all the glory to God, all the, you know, yeah, everything's great, and you know, the Lord's been so good to me, and all of that.

And sometimes, just sometimes, that all creates kind of this veneer that's probably pretty thin, that seems to suggest that we're doing really great when maybe we really aren't.

Right?

We're broken, and we don't want people to see that.

And so we hide it.

But here's the thing, here's the thing.

That brokenness in our hearts always, always finds a way to leak out.

It always leaks out, it always comes out in all kinds of different ways.

Oftentimes it's in anger, right?

And you kind of sense this kind of deep-seated anger in you because you have unresolved, undealt with issues.

You've got you've got anger, you've got bitterness.

Oftentimes sexual sin is because of this.

And it's shown itself in that, and it's or other various forms of foolish living, and you know, I just want pleasure at all costs because it's it's you trying to kind of patch up what's broken in you, even though none of those patch jobs fix it.

Right?

None of them fix it.

Again, we need to be healed.

Would you agree with that?

Would you agree with that for yourself?

And listen, trials, trials alert us to that need.

That's what they do.

And it's through them, and and typically after them, after when they're over, that we begin to see the healing work of the Lord, or we begin to see the healing that still yet needs to take place uh in our life.

All right, so this is where we're gonna be going uh here this morning.

If you would join me as we pray, we're just gonna invite the Lord into this because our lives are a mess, and that's why the series is called God in the Mess, right?

And we need him.

We need him to meet us there because we don't know how to fix this, we don't know how to figure all this out.

Even the most experienced Christ followers, you know, we are at God's mercy, right?

We need him so, so badly.

So let's pray.

Join me now.

God, we do um cry out to you, Lord, that you would do a work in our hearts here today.

And Lord, not just today, but beyond all of this, Lord, I pray that we would uh through uh this amazing story in Genesis, Lord, see that you don't, you didn't just want to heal Joseph and Jacob and all of his sons, but Lord, you want to heal us as well.

Lord, I pray that you would give us a fierce courage here today to face those things head on.

Lord, I pray that we would be done burying all of it.

I pray that we would be done ignoring the problem, ignoring the pain.

None of that, none of that is healthy.

But Lord, we we confess that this is scary stuff and it's hard.

And so, God, would you be the God that we know that you are?

You are a God of great strength.

You are the great physician, Lord.

You heal us.

And so, Lord, we trust you today that you not only can do this, but want to do this and will do this.

So, God, we entrust ourselves to you this morning.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, this morning, all right, we're gonna see here how the Lord reunites uh Joseph and his family.

And you know how many years it had been since Joseph uh had been, you know, thrown into the pit by his brothers and sold out and left for dead and then sold, right, into slavery.

It's been 20 years, just over 20 years of this, of separation.

And we're gonna see here how the Lord accomplishes just immense healing in Joseph's life, but not just Joseph's life, in his family's as well.

And what one of the things that really stood out to me as I kind of worked through these this passage uh this week was just how emotional this situation really was.

It was heartbreaking, it was it was difficult, it was it was wild, but amazing to see what the Lord did to reunite this family and heal them and bring um bring a sense of unitedness, I guess you could say, to this family.

I take I just made up a word there.

All right, but there we go.

Okay, here's here's the first thing.

Okay, when my trial is over, I will see God's healing work in my life because life can be complicated and healing is necessary.

Okay, life can be complicated.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, healing is necessary.

All right, so chapter 42, okay, it picks up the story again.

Okay, after seven years of plenty uh in Egypt are all said and done.

Right?

And they're now about a year into the whole seven years of famine.

And so you remember that Joseph had interpreted Pharaoh's dream as this right there be seven years of plenty, you better start storing up food now, and then there's gonna be seven years of famine, and life is gonna be difficult, the salmon is gonna famine is gonna be very severe.

Okay, so all of this interpretation, it's right on schedule here.

And so what happens is the surrounding nations, as the food kind of dries up and the crops all dry up, Jacob and his sons, Joseph's brothers, they start feeling the strain of all of this.

And uh, and they're way out in Canaan, of course.

And so Jacob, what does he do?

He sends his sons now, minus Benjamin.

We'll kind of get into that as we go here.

He sends them to Egypt to find food.

And so you can see what the Lord's doing now.

He's starting to get starting to work the situation to get these uh this family back together.

So let's pick it up here in chapter 42, uh, verse 6.

Okay, you see it there?

So they've gone now over to uh Egypt.

The brothers have.

Now Joseph was governor over the land, right?

He was the one who sold to all the people of the land.

And Joseph's brother came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.

Interesting.

Right?

Interesting.

Okay, here we go.

Joseph saw his brothers, imagine this moment, and recognized them.

It's been 20 years.

Okay, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them.

Where do you come from?

He said.

And he said, from the land of Canaan to buy food.

And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.

And Joseph remembered, interesting, remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.

Can you imagine that moment?

Joseph's been like thinking, maybe he's forgotten about those dreams.

Maybe he's like, Yeah, whatever, those meant nothing.

You know, all these years later, the Lord just boom, he brings them right back to his attention.

And wouldn't that have been this just wild scene?

And his brothers bow down literally before him, and he's saying, Wow, dream fulfilled.

You know, maybe the Lord was in that.

I think you see the sovereignty of God all over this story, don't you?

All right, keep going here.

It says, and he said to them, You are spies, right?

You have come to see the nakedness of the land.

And they said to him, No, my Lord, your servants have come to buy food.

We are all sons of one man, and try not to laugh here.

We are honest men.

Right?

Good job not laughing.

Okay, your servants have never been spies.

Imagine him when he hears that.

We are honest men.

You know, like, yeah, I'm sure you are so innocent, right?

Right?

And so he says, No, he doesn't believe them.

He's like, nope, you've you you're here.

You're here to spy out the land, right?

And so he's he's coming at them, and he's trying to provoke a situation here.

And so he's trying to find out, he's trying to gather some information and see what's going on with his family.

And they're like, no, no, no, no.

We're, you know, we're 12 brothers, one of them is no more, obviously speaking of Joseph.

And then one of them, the youngest, Benjamin, is back with our with our father.

And so Joseph's like, he's like, well, well, send, I'll send one of you back to him to get that brother and confirm your story.

The rest of you can stay here incarcerated in prison.

All right?

And they're like, no, we can't do this.

They don't like, he throws him in jail for three days.

Pick it up in verse 18.

He says, on the third day, Joseph said to them, Do this and you will live, for I fear God.

So he's saying, You can trust me.

I'm gonna keep my word here.

He says, If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers remain confined where you were in custody, and let the rest of you go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me.

All right, so interestingly, he kind of changes his story here a little bit, or he changes his approach.

I think it's kind of cool because I think what it shows us is that he realizes, well, no, my family back in the land of Canaan, they need food.

Right?

They need supplies.

So if I only send one brother back, how much food can he bring back for all of their little ones and their whole family?

And so he's pretty smart here, he's pretty shrewd.

He sends all of them back and he keeps one as a prisoner.

Take a look again, keep going.

Says, so your words will be verified and you shall not die.

And they did so.

They said to one another, in truth, okay, so they're just talking to themselves now, they said, In truth, we are guilty concerning our brother, and that we saw the distress of his soul when he begged us, and we did not listen.

Right?

So they just they confess it, right?

And they realize their guilt here.

And keep in mind, Joseph can over here, we'll see this in a second.

And then that is why this distress has come upon us.

And so they're realizing what they had done was wrong and they're admitting it.

And then Reuben, shall I guess?

This is kind of funny, and Reuben answered them, Did I not tell you to not sin against the boy?

But you did not listen.

So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.

I mean, how helpful is this, right?

Nothing, nothing more helpful than the I told you so guy.

Right?

But this is what Reuben does.

He kind of plays the hero card here.

Right?

And they did not know that Joseph, this is verse 23, Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them.

When he to then he turned away from them and wept.

He turned away from them and wept.

And so you see here, just like this this is complicated for him, isn't it?

This is hard.

All of the emotions come right back out of the service, things that he hasn't had to face for years and years and years.

And he sees his brother and he hears what they're saying, and they're he's realized that no, they do feel bad for what they've done.

And so he he turns from them, he weeps, he doesn't let them see him do so.

And he says that he returned to them and spoke to them, and he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.

And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to replace every man's money in his sack.

That's kind of interesting, and he and to give them provisions for their journey.

This was done for them.

And so they loaded, they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed.

And as one of them opened his sack, he gave his donkey fodder, uh, to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place.

He saw his money was in the mouth of his sack, and he said to his brothers, My money has been put back.

Here it is in the mouth of my sack.

And there at this their hearts failed them.

So they're like, rats.

Rats, right?

This money is here.

We are in big, big trouble.

This does not look good, right?

And they turned trembling to one another, saying, What is this that God has done to us?

Right, and at first glance, this might look like they're just blaming God, right?

Pretty easy and convenient thing to do, but no, I don't think so.

I think they realized their guilt.

They felt uh sufficiently bad about it, and this is actually very true.

The Lord has done this to them in a good way.

He has orchestrated all of this uh to fix this entire situation.

So, what do they do?

They go home, they go back to their father Jacob, they relay the entire story, and they say that he wants Joseph, this man uh back in Egypt, the governor of the land, he wants to see our youngest brother Benjamin.

You can imagine how well that's gonna go over with uh with Jacob.

He's already seen his other favorite son, you know, get uh, well, well he thinks killed.

Okay, and so what happens is there, join it up in verse 35.

As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man's bundle of money was in the sack.

And when they uh when they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid.

Yeah, I bet.

And Jacob, their father, said to them, You have bereaved me of my children.

So kind of interesting to note there that Jacob still very much holds them responsible for the whole Joseph thing.

Right?

And again, you see just like uh unresolved issues in this family, don't you?

Unresolved issues.

You see, still maybe there's some some favoritism now transferred from Joseph down to Benjamin.

And you kind of read this and you're like, oh, like there's some there's some work to be to be done yet here.

Uh they need some healing.

All right, so they were afraid.

He says, You've bereaved me of my children, Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more.

And now you would take Benjamin.

All of this has come against me.

So he's kind of like, Woe is me through all this.

Then Reuben, this is kind of weird, he says to his father, kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you.

Put him in my hands and I will bring him back to you.

So maybe like, maybe a little over the top, right?

Do you feel that?

Like a little bit much, I think.

Like valiant effort to try and take some responsibility here, but just not really thinking through, just kind of in the heat of the emotions and the fear and all of it, not really well thought through.

He's like, May my two sons die if I don't bring him back to you.

Not too smart.

Okay.

So this is what he says.

Now, jump down here to uh verse eight.

And then kind of what happens here is they they have their, you know, they have their food, they've got their grain that they brought back from from them, but that of course um gets all used up, and they realize, you know what, we we we gotta go back to Egypt.

We gotta face this guy again.

And and Jacob is telling them, you gotta go back.

I'm like, we can't go back without our youngest.

Like, no, this is they kind of go back and forth a little bit, and then finally, kind of Jacob relents here, and uh and he says, All right, go back.

Okay, verse eight, and Judah, so interesting, Judah's back into the picture now, right?

Judah, remember him?

Remember him, the guy who slept with his daughter-in-law, right?

Back in chapter 38.

That kind of weird situation, just kind of a slimy, grimy, gritty kind of a guy, right?

Not, you know, kind of scummy, right?

Well, we're gonna see what the Lord has done uh in him uh for sure through uh all of this.

But Judah says to Israel, uh his father, send the boy with me, and I will arise and go that we may live and not die, both we and you, and also our little ones.

I will be a pledge of his safety.

From my hand you shall require require him.

If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.

And so you see the difference here in what in in actually Judah, the person himself.

We're gonna get to more of that a little bit later on.

But he's not like, hey, let my kids die if I don't bring him back.

But he's more like, let me take the responsibility of this.

This is so like opposite of what his character was back in chapter 38.

All he cared about it was himself, all he cared about was pleasure.

He was actually not even with his family anymore.

He had left them to go start his own business, and now we see him back with his family, which is to show us, I think, that you know, the the repenting, the repentance that he went through had done quite a work in his life.

And he'd gone back now to his family to resume leadership over the household.

Right, pretty cool.

And then his father said to them, this is verse 11 now, if it must be so, then do this.

Take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bag and carry a present down to the man.

And so he's like, hey, if you gotta go back, let's kind of butter this guy up.

Right?

Let's bring him a bunch of gifts, let's bring back double the money so we can give back the money that was in the sack, uh, and all of that.

He's like, if I'm bereaved of my children, I am imbreaved.

That's what he says at the end of verse 14.

Now, verse 15.

So the men took this present and they took double the money with them, and Benjamin, all right, and they arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph.

All right, so what do you see here as we kind of go through all of that?

What you see there is that there was still quite a bit of work left to be done in this family.

There was a lot of work to be done, right?

Now, now let me ask you, hey, where are you broken and in need of healing?

Where are you still a work in progress?

You know, where do you, you know, still need to be sewn up, patched up, fixed by the Lord?

You know, how is the Lord, you know, trying to use the you know the complicated reality of your life, as we all know life can be and get, to show you that, yeah, you know what, I need healing too.

But how is he doing all of that?

And let me really encourage you as this as we start to talk about all of this, just to really focus on yourself.

Because I think one of the tendencies for us, whenever we start to think about this, is that the healing, the the the reality that we need healing becomes far too uncomfortable for us.

And so we automatically start thinking about other people that need healing, don't we?

And we kind of start elbowing our spouse, and they're like, yeah, yeah, you know, you still have some you know some issues with your mother, and you better be listening to all of this, or you know, you start thinking about your you know long-lost brother who could really use this sermon.

I'm gonna send him the link later this week, you know.

You know, all of that's well and good.

Okay, but I really want you to think about yourself right now.

You know, don't be too uncomfortable, don't be too fearful in facing this, all right?

Because that's exactly what is what is necessary.

Okay, focus on you.

Okay, think about you know where your life has been complicated.

All right, think about that.

Where has your life been complicated?

Where are Is it been painful or is it right now?

And then ask yourself the question have I healed from it?

You know, have I healed from it?

Or am I in a good place in the healing process?

Am I pursuing healing?

Am I allowing the Lord into this mess that is my life?

Am I allowing him to have his way?

Hey, listen, here's an even more primary question.

Do I even sense that healing is necessary?

Do I even sense that it's necessary?

Because what I've kind of noticed over the years is that, you know, a shockingly large amount of people come through a very, very hurtful, painful, difficult season in life, and they, you know, they come through the heartache, they they come through the difficulty, and I ask them, you know, hey, how are you doing with all of that?

And their immediate response is, yeah, I'm doing great.

You know, good, great, perfect.

Thanks for asking.

You know, how are the leaves doing?

Let's talk them.

Marners, Matthews.

Right?

And we start thinking about that.

We want to we want to quickly, right, get the get the story to something else.

And you and your and your thought is maybe if you've had this kind of conversation with somebody before, your thought is like, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe you haven't dealt with it that well.

All right, there's still some work.

There's still some work to be done.

We're so uncomfortable with the pain and the healing process, right?

That we kind of just try and bury it.

And we don't want to, we don't want to face it.

And we just kind of act like everything's fine and everything's good, and we put on the face, and you know, all of that.

And listen, kind of the classic, classic example of this that I've seen a lot is like when a breakup happens between a couple, right?

And maybe you've gone through this before or you've seen this happen, and and maybe you're on the receiving end of getting dumped, and sometimes what happens is like it's been a really long relationship, like multiple years, like six, seven years this dating relationship, and and you know, but right away you're like, Yeah, I'm good.

Right, I'm good.

And and then it seems like it's like a week later, like you're they're in a new relationship, and then like another two weeks later, they're engaged and you're kind of watching, you're like, Oh, this is moving a little quick, right?

A little too fast.

Like maybe the maybe the healing work that needed to take place kind of after that breakup uh really hasn't been accomplished yet.

Right?

And maybe that's been you and maybe you've seen it happen.

Okay, so then the question really becomes, how do how do I approach this properly?

How do I approach the you know the pain and the healing process uh in a way that's healthy, in a way that's that's good, in a way that's God honoring and biblical and all of that.

Well, I've got three things for you, three things to do when I realize that I need God's healing in my life.

Okay, and you can jot these down, these are gonna be on the screen.

Okay, first thing here, let it hurt.

Okay, let it hurt.

And this is hard.

Okay, this is really hard.

But if you've gone through something or you're going through it right now, again, the temptation is to do what?

Ignore it.

The temptation is to not really deal with it properly.

The temptation is to justify your actions sometimes in not in not facing it head on.

Right?

But you need to let it hurt.

You need to let it hurt.

All right, you need to face it.

Okay, because con uh because ignoring the problem, kind of hoping that it's just gonna go away on its own, covering it up, all of that, it just complicates the situation even worse.

Right?

It just makes it that much more messy.

And it ends up just the delaying your healing.

And so listen, when you don't let it hurt, when you don't just face it like that, you don't invite the Lord into all of that, you're really going against the Lord's work in your life.

You're going against the work of sanctification.

And you're just delaying the inevitable.

If God is truly God over your life, he will do it.

And wouldn't you rather just face this head on and just invite the Lord into it and just say, Lord, let's do this your way, because the kicking and screaming approach, it never goes well.

It just creates more pain and more havoc and more difficulty.

It just delays everything and makes it way worse.

Listen, let it hurt.

Let it hurt.

That is very hard.

But the sooner that you can do that, the better.

Here's the second one.

Let truth lead and emotions follow.

Let truth lead and emotions follow.

I think I've said this before here, uh, but this might be uh worth the price of admission alone for some of you.

Okay, because what happens when when life hurts, when our hearts hurt from something difficult that we've gone through.

We've come through the surgery, so to speak, and now the Lord is kind of sewing us up and trying to heal us.

What happens is that our emotions are a wreck.

Right?

Emotionally, it's it's chaos and it's a mess, and you know, we're going all over the place, and it's like ups and downs, and you know, one second we're good, the next second we're questioning our salvation and life and everything, right?

Emotions go everywhere.

Right, and some of us maybe struggle with that naturally more than others.

Okay, but here is just the dagger in this whole situation.

If you let those emotions lead you through the through all of this, through the healing process, look out.

It's gonna be awful.

Because our emotions might lead us to do uh completely unbiblical things.

Our emotions might lead us to more anger.

Our emotions might lead us to more bitterness, right?

It might it might lead us to believing things that are just flat out not true.

Maybe God doesn't really love me, and maybe that's why I'm going through the pain.

Maybe your emotions will tell you that you know all I need is comfort at all costs right now.

And so you'll go after that in whatever way you think is uh you deem necessary.

Listen, emotions can't lead us.

That's that's inviting disaster.

Truth needs to lead us.

And so when your emotions are chaos and they're swirling all over the place and it's just up and down constantly, you need to remind yourself of the truth of God's word.

You need to have your nose buried in this book daily, constantly, reminding yourself, no, the Lord is good.

No, the Lord has saved me, no, he has purpose in the pain, no, he wants to do a good thing in me, no, he is healing me.

All of those things are true.

God loves me.

And our emotions, listen, I'm telling you right now, will not feel that.

And because we don't feel it, we allow emotions to lead and drag us all over the place.

But listen, once truth leads, and once we force ourselves to, and we're preaching the gospel to ourselves, and we're memorizing scripture and all of that, listen, the emotions will ultimately follow in behind that at some point.

And pretty soon we will start to feel like God is on the throne because he is.

Pretty soon we'll start to want to follow him, even though life hurts and though it's difficult.

Let truth lead and emotions follow.

That's a big one.

How about this one?

Let people help.

Let people help.

Okay, we need to talk this out with people.

A lot of times when we go through some kind of emotional crisis, we go through some kind of trial or difficulty in our life, we completely isolate ourselves and we think that's the best thing that we can do.

We think that's the safest place to be, and that is a position of death.

It really is.

Because you need other people, not just anybody, but you need good and godly people around you who can encourage you, who can point you to the truth when you're starting to swerve away from it, who can encourage you and build you up and send you verses and pray with you and all of that.

You need to lean into relationships during these times.

Not away from it.

Lean into your small groups, that's what that's what it's there for.

They can help you, they can pray for you, lean into the church.

And again, don't, I'm not saying this, I'm not saying vent to each to every single person that you ever come in contact with.

I think hopefully we understand that that's not healthy, right?

Like the Facebook venting person, right?

We've seen those people before.

Right?

And they just regurgitate every single issue for the whole world to see.

Not helpful, right?

And not healthy, right?

Not good.

No, you need to be careful about all of this.

You need to lean into relationships, not away from them.

Because listen, life can be complicated, and healing is necessary.

Here's a second thing.

Okay, when my trial is over, I will see God's healing work in my life, and as I'm healing, he'll reveal how far I've really come.

Okay, this is starting to work into the good news of this here, where you start to feel encouraged because you're able to see the transformation.

You're able to now see the healing work that God's doing in you through the trial and through the difficulty.

Right?

God's grace is becoming evident.

You're like, wow, this is actually incredible.

So pick it up here in the chapter 43, now, verse 16.

When Joseph saw Benjamin, so his brothers present themselves in front of them, he sees Benjamin for the first time.

Imagine that.

He said to the steward of his house, he's like, Bring the men into the house and slaughter an animal and make ready for the men or to dine with me at noon.

And so he's like, We're gonna have a feast now.

We're gonna party, because he's realizing my brothers didn't lie to me.

There is another brother, and he is fine, and they didn't just chuck him in a pit, too.

Right?

He's realizing that his brothers are, you know, maybe more honest men than he first thought.

Right?

And so he has this feast there, and you know, the brothers though, they're freaked out about it.

They're like, why is he bringing us into their house?

They're rattled.

And he says, He's gonna call us out, he's gonna seize us, he's gonna throw us in prison because we've had the money in our sacks.

So they they come to the steward of the house and say, Listen, we just want to be forthcoming about it.

Say, hey, we found this money and we don't know how it got there, we didn't put it in there.

And the steward, what does he say?

Jump down to verse 23.

He replies, Peace to you, do not be afraid.

Your God and the God of your father has put treasure in your sacks.

I received your money.

He's like, Don't worry about it, it's all good.

And then he brought Simeon out.

Remember the brother that was in prison all this time for about a year.

Right?

And then the man had brought, and when the man had brought the men to into Joseph's house and given them water, and they had washed their feet, and when he had given their donkeys fodder, they prepared the present for Joseph's coming at noon, for they heard that he should eat bread there.

When Joseph came home, they brought him into the house, brought into the house to him the present that they had with him, and bowed down to him yet again.

Check, dream fulfilled.

Right, and he inquired about their welfare and said, Is your father well?

The old man of whom you spoke, is he still alive?

And they said, Your servant, our father, is well, he's alive.

And they bowed their heads and prostrated themselves.

Lord's like, see, the dream's coming true, the dream's coming true.

Right, and he lifted up his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son, and he said, And this is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me?

God be gracious to you, my son.

Then Joseph hurried out for his compassion, underline that word, compassion, grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep.

Right, what do you see there?

You see growth in Joseph, don't you?

His compass-not bitter.

He's not bitter, he's not angry towards his brother anymore and to his brothers.

His compassion grew warm.

I think that's a really cool picture there for his brother.

And he seeks the place, I just you know, it's emotional, right?

I'm just overcome with the emotion to see my youngest brother, and I need to weep.

And again, he withdraws himself from them to do that.

You know, and we see there the healing that God has done and is actually doing currently uh in the life of Joseph.

And he entered his chamber and he wept there, verse 31, and he washed his face and he came out and controlling himself, he said, Serve the food.

Right?

So they have kind of a feast together at noon.

And uh Joseph gives them all food.

He gives uh Benjamin uh the greatest portion uh of all.

And then uh in chapter 44 here, uh we see uh that Joseph uh he kind of throws a curveball at them.

Take a look here.

Um he says there, verse verse one, then he made then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money back in the mouth of his sack.

So he goes through the whole thing again, right?

And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain.

And he did as Joseph told him.

And you're like, uh-oh, here we go again.

You might be thinking, well, wait a second, why is is Joseph doing this?

I thought he's healed.

I think, I mean, now it sounds like he's just vengeful, and you know, he's just trying to hurt his brother, he's trying to twist the knife, right?

And this is this ain't good.

Well, no, he's got a purpose in it.

Again, he's still trying to see are his brothers trustworthy?

He's trying to still gauge how far have they really come?

And as the guy tossed in pr in in a pit, we maybe uh don't need to blame him for that.

Okay, so the morning comes, and you know, these guys um set off again uh with uh with their you know belongings and with all of the supplies, and you know, the steward he actually comes after them, he chases after them pretty quickly, and you know, he kind of searches uh for all of this, and he finds, of course, uh the cup.

All right, take a look at verse 11, it says that it says, Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack and he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest, and the cup was found, lo and behold, in Benjamin's sack, and this is huge.

And they tore their clothes, sign of repentance, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.

They returned to the city.

Now, what could they have done?

What would they have done 20 years ago?

See you later, Benjamin.

All the best, bud.

Right?

That's what they would have done, and they don't do it, do they?

Right?

They are broken, they are, you know, they are so broken and realize we, you know, we we we all gotta go back.

You know, and whatever Benjamin suffers, you know, we gotta suffer the same fate.

We're all in this together now.

We are a family, we are more united uh than ever.

Okay, and so they come and they throw themselves before Joseph.

Okay, and then verse 18, Judah again, look at this.

Then Judah went up to Joseph and said, Oh my Lord, please let your servant speak a word in my Lord's ears.

Let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself.

All right, so he's kind of buttering him up a little bit.

But what he does, he goes and he proceeds to tell the story.

He's like, We can't go back without our youngest brother Benjamin.

Right?

It's gonna cause our aging father, who's already got his whole life bound up in the life of this son, which again is maybe not the most healthy thing to do, but he's like, it's gonna cause him to just die right there if he gets this awful news.

And so he brings this story to Joseph.

And then what does he say here?

Verse 32.

Okay, you skipping along, you following along.

He says, For your servant, okay, this is he's talking about himself now, Judah is, for your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.

Now, therefore, and then this is amazing in Judah's life, now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers.

For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me?

I fear to see the evil that would find my father.

Amazing, amazing.

He wants to substitute himself now.

Look at the work that is that has happened here, and I mean you see how far Judah has come.

Incredible, incredible, right?

And then look at this, verse 45, or sorry, chapter 45, verse 1.

Then Joseph, he just can't even handle it anymore, right?

As he sees this happening, he's realizing, wow, God has been so good to my punk brothers.

Look what he's done in them.

Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him.

He cries, remember, he's whipped, he's wept twice privately already.

He says, Make everyone go out from me.

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

Right?

So just having a good cry, right?

Not holding anything back now.

It's loud, it's wailing, it's weeping.

He's like, I'm not hiding any of this anymore.

It's all coming out.

Right?

And Joseph said to his brother, I am Joseph.

Is my father still alive?

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

I would imagine so.

Right?

They're shocked.

They had no clue that this guy was even still alive, let alone the guy they'd been talking to all this time.

And so Joseph said to his brothers, Come, come near to me, please.

And they came near, probably hesitantly.

Right?

And he said, I'm your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt, and now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.

For God sent me before you to preserve life.

For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest, and God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors.

So it was not you who sent me here, but God.

Right?

He gets it.

He totally gets it.

He's trying to allow his brothers to understand it as well.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

The Lord was working in all of this.

He has made me as a father to Pharaoh, verse 8.

And the Lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt, hurry up, or hurry, and go up to my father and say to him, Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me Lord of all Egypt.

Come down to me, do not tarry, do not wait.

You shall dwell in the land of Goshen.

We'll get to that in a bit.

And you shall he you shall be near me, you and your children, your children's children, your flocks, and your herds, and all that you have.

There I will provide for you.

For there you are there for there are five years of famine yet to come, right?

So jump down to verse 14 now.

He says, And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept.

And Benjamin wept upon his neck, and he kissed his brothers and wept upon them.

After that, his brothers talked with him.

Can you imagine the conversations they would have had in that moment?

But just wow, what the Lord is doing here in this family to heal them and he's showing them.

I mean, imagine how his brothers would have looked at Joseph.

They would have been immediately thinking, well, this guy's gonna kill us, and he has every right to.

And they're like, no, it was the Lord that did it.

And they see how far their, again, their brother was so pride and so arrogant, and you guys are all gonna bow to me.

He's come so far now, he's not rubbing any of that in their face.

Look what the Lord has done as he has healed them.

You know, and as much as we can see the healing work of the Lord in Joseph and in his family, and in all of that, God wants to show that healing work his hand in our lives as well.

You know that?

And I'm so thankful for this because we I mean, we need every drop of encouragement that we can get as we're being healed, don't we?

We need it.

We need it because the healing process that takes place after the pain of the trial itself can also be painful.

You know that, right?

You know that healing itself can be painful.

And that's probably the biggest reason why we refuse to be healed sometimes and we ignore it all.

I remember back when I was like in junior high, I went to this, you know, water park, and I remember I was like out in the sun for seven hours, no sunscreen, no shirt.

Genius.

Right?

So you can imagine what the next week of my life was like.

It was pure misery.

I had the worst sunburn ever.

It was like second-degree burns, my look like an alligator.

I was like in bed, like you name it, it was awful.

It was the worst.

I remember like a week into it, I remember I was at home by myself, I couldn't like wear a shirt for like a week, okay?

And I remember watching TV and all of a sudden I started to get itchy.

Have you ever had that?

I remember it was so painful, but my I was just like, like I was by the way, sorry about like all my weird body issues today that I'm talking about.

Between that and surgery, right?

Apologies.

But I remember it was just like that, but that was part of the healing process, wasn't it?

It was still very painful, but very necessary that I go through it.

When it goes to show us that the healing process we go through after the trial is said and done, is often a painful experience in its own right.

It often is.

And so realize that though the healing itself can hurt, the Lord will begin to reveal to you that you are in fact healing, which is amazing.

It's amazing.

You know that encouragement that comes, and you start to realize, wow, I've come so far from where I was.

It's not about comparing yourself to somebody else.

Can we be done with that in the church?

I wish I had his gifts, I wish I had her strengths, you know, I wish I wasn't as weak as her, as weak as him.

No, compare yourself to where you came from.

That's what we're supposed to be doing.

And as you go through the healing process, you'll be able to see that.

Wow, just a couple of months ago, I was thinking this way, now I think that way.

And it's so cool, it's so encouraging.

And what it makes you start to realize is wow, I just want more of this.

I want more of the healing process.

I want, I want more of God in me.

I want to just give way to Him in all things.

How encouraging is that?

Have you sensed that?

Have you seen that in your life?

And it starts to fire you up, doesn't it?

You're like, wow, your faith in the Lord grows so much.

You're like, man, Lord, I I trust you.

Like you don't just say you're gonna do it, you actually do it.

I see myself changing now, I see the healing take place.

Glory to you, Lord.

Thank you.

And I mean you might be wondering, well, what exactly does healing look like?

I mean, we've been talking about it sort of generically or generally speaking.

What does healing look like?

Well, there may be all kinds of different ways, but oftentimes healing means salvation.

Healing means salvation.

I mean, how many of us came to Christ through a crisis?

There's something difficult where the Lord is starting to show you, no, like the things that you're chasing after, the end is death.

You need Jesus Christ.

And some of you need to realize that here today.

You need to realize that what you're chasing after, the life that you're going after, there's no good end in that.

There's no ultimate true joy in all of that.

Joy is only found in Jesus Christ.

And you need to submit and surrender your life to him.

You need to recognize that he went and paid the price for your sin.

He went to the cross for you.

If you would believe that, if you admit that, if you would recognize that he did that for you, as you're just saying, forget, I don't want to live my way anymore.

I want to live for you, Jesus.

You'll be saved.

And you'll experience spiritual heal uh healing in that sense, absolutely.

So salvation is absolutely what healing can look like.

And it can also look like restored relationships.

I mean, we're seeing that all through here, aren't we?

Maybe some of you have been healed and you've realized as the healing process has gone on that, you know what, part of my pain and part of my issue is that, you know, there are some things that have been done to me, and I need to go talk to that person about it.

Or maybe there's some things that you have done, and you've said some hurtful things and some painful things, and you need to go and apologize and repent.

You need to confess that to somebody, and you've seen you've seen that relationship restored.

Maybe sometimes healing for you looks like a more accurate view of God.

Right?

Before you, you know, before you kind of experienced all the healing, you had a pretty unbiblical view of God.

And I don't know, maybe you thought that you saw God as like kind of the angry, vengeful God who just wanted to punish you for everything, every wrong thing that you've done.

Maybe you saw him as the distant God who never actually inserted himself into our Lives and maybe you didn't care.

That's how you were seeing him before.

Maybe you saw him as the God who really exists to serve all of my desires.

And through the healing process, as he brought you to your knees and brought you before him, you realize, no, I have a much more biblical view of God.

I see him as he really is, according to the scriptures.

You have a more accurate view of the Lord.

Maybe you have more of an accurate view of yourself as a result of it.

I'm not as great as I thought I was.

I don't have it all together.

You've been humbled through it.

Maybe you've been brought low through that.

That's a good thing.

You have a more accurate view of self.

Maybe you have a more accurate view of life.

I used to think that life was all about this.

Now I understand it's all about God and his kingdom and his glory and his will and his desires.

How about emotional stability?

That's what Hewlett can look like for sure.

You know, maybe for you, you know, you just don't quite get as rattled as you used to.

Something bad would happen in your life, and you just be like, Where's the Lord in it?

And you know, you stress out and you freak out, and it's like months before you kind of get the thing back on the tracks.

But maybe now you're more stable.

You're like, yeah, I know this is hard, this is difficult, but I'm gonna trust the Lord because I've seen him come through for me in the past.

And I know that he's gonna do it again.

Why would he let go of me?

You have a deeper, deeper trust, you have more joy, you have more gratitude, right?

Your emotions once rooted in idols, they're now rooted in Jesus Christ.

They're rooted in him.

What does that bring you?

Peace.

Do you not want peace?

Of course we do.

It's emotional stability.

Okay, again, when you see these things start to take shape in your life, it gives you a hunger for more of the Lord.

And you're just like, Lord, I want you to actually come at me with with everything you've got, and I want you to heal all the areas that I don't even realize that need healing yet.

And you invite him into it, and the Lord really starts to do some great work, and it's an awesome and amazing thing.

Because you know that he knows what's best and you trust him now.

Okay, here's the last thing.

When my trial is over, I will see God's healing work in my life, since he loves to show me just how faithful he is.

Okay, look at the faithfulness of God here towards Joseph and his family.

Okay, look at uh chapter 45.

Uh let's pick it up in verse uh 16.

Okay, so when the report was heard in Pharaoh's house, Joseph's brothers have come.

It pleased Pharaoh and his servants.

And Pharaoh said to Joseph, say to your brothers, do this, load your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan.

And so Pharaoh says, go back, take whatever you need, take carts, take everything, and make sure you bring your entire family back to you.

We're gonna give you a great quality chunk of land that you can, you know, you can set down roots into, and it's gonna be really great.

We're gonna give you the land of Goshen.

Now you might be thinking, well, why would Pharaoh give the best of the land to these shepherds?

Okay, we kind of jumped over it, but a couple of times in here it says that the Egyptians thought of shepherds as an abomination.

It doesn't really tell us why.

Like, why would he do that?

Why would he give them the best of the land?

Well, he gave them the best land for shepherds, right?

Not necessarily the best land for Egyptians.

And so he gives them the land uh of Goshen, he tells them that.

And so they go back, they grab their father, they go talk to him, look at verse 25.

So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob, and they told him, Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over the land of Egypt, and his heart became numb.

Yeah.

Okay, for he did not believe them.

But when they had told him all the words of Joseph, which they had said to him, and when he had sought, when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father was revived, and Israel said, It is enough.

Joseph, my son, is still alive, I will go and see him before I die.

And so Israel, he took all his journey, uh, took his uh so Israel took his journey with him, or with all that he had, and came to Beersheba and offered sacrifices to God, um, the God of his father Isaac.

So I Isaac had offered sacrifices there uh earlier, and that's why that was a significant place.

And so God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, Jacob, Jacob, and he said, Here I am, he said, I am God, the God of your father.

Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation.

I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes.

Wow, right?

Because we see the faithfulness of God.

He's like, hey, just like I promised earlier in Genesis to Abram and then your your grandfather and then your father Isaac, that I will make you into a great nation, and you will be my people, and and and I will be your God.

He's like, I'm gonna confirm this covenant with you, and I'm gonna show you that I am faithful.

You thought that your life was going nowhere fast, and now here I am working behind the scenes.

I'm gonna show you how faithful I am.

Wow, I love that.

Right, so good.

And so what happens is Jacob ends up entering into Egypt now, and he brings his whole family, and a lot of that chapter tells us of all the different sons and their families that they brought, about 70 of them in total.

You might be like, why is this happening in the middle of the chapter?

Well, you might remember back in chapter 37, it was starting to tell the story of Jacob and his sons, and it stopped with Joseph.

And then now we've had the whole story of Joseph, and now it's giving us uh the rest of that family line there.

All right, so now jump down to verse 28 and chapter 46.

Okay, he had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to show the way before him in Goshen, and they came into the land of Goshen, verse 29.

Then Joseph prepared his chariot and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen.

He presented himself to him and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while.

Right?

And you're like, this is so great.

This family's being reunited.

Again, the emotions are just flowing right now.

Right?

And Israel says to Joseph, now let me die.

He's like, It's all good now.

He's like, I've seen you.

And uh, you know, I will go up.

And Joseph says, I'm gonna go up to Pharaoh, I'm gonna tell him, you know, or or get for you the land of Goshen.

And so they give him this great place for them to, you know, set down roots and live and establish.

And remember, this is all this is all famine time, right?

There's still five years left to go of this famine.

And actually, the rest of chapter 47, it starts to tell us here the story of it kind of zooms out of the story of Joseph's family and talks about Joseph and his administrative skills over Egypt during this time, right?

And the people of the Egyptians actually were running out of money and they were, well, they were running out of out of food and grain and all of that.

And so they kept coming to Joseph and said, We got nothing now.

You know, what should we do?

He's like, Well, you know, well, give me, he's like, give me your money now, and I'll and and I'll and I'll take that.

And then he's like, now that's all gone.

I'll take your livestock in exchange for for grain.

And then when that all dries up, he's like, I'll I'll take your land as well.

And then you might be kind of thinking, that's kind of harsh.

I mean, there's like a pretty stern tax that he's placed on it as well.

And he might be like, that's that's kind of brutal.

That sounds kind of kind of hard and heavy-handed, um, but it's uh it's actually not.

And you see that the Lord provided Egypt with a godly man like Joseph to administrate and oversee this entire difficult time during the severity of this famine.

Take a look at verse 23 now, jumping down into chapter 47.

Okay, when Jose then Joseph said to his people, Behold, I have this day brought you and your uh brought you and your land for Pharaoh, bought you and your land for Pharaoh.

So he's talking to the Egyptians.

Now here is seed for you.

You shall sow the land, and the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, this is the tax, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field, and as food for yourselves and for your households, and as food for your little ones.

And they said to him, You have saved our lives.

You have saved our lives.

So they are not like, this is burdensome and this is the worst.

They're so grateful, because otherwise they would have perished.

And so Joseph takes a very difficult situation, and the Lord uses him to save this nation.

Okay, but interestingly enough, look at uh verse 27 now.

Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they gained possessions in it, and they were fruitful, and they multiplied greatly.

So the nation of Egypt is suffering under the strain of all this.

But Israel seems to be doing just fine, and Jacob says that he lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

Right?

And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh, which sounds a little weird to us, but that's an oath, and that's the way that they did it, and promised to deal kindly and truly with me.

Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying place.

He answered, I will do as you've said.

And he said, Swear to me, and he swore to him in an oath.

And Israel bowed himself, again, dream fulfilled, upon his head, upon the head of his bed.

Pretty incredible there.

I mean, there's the Lord's faithfulness to Joseph, the Lord's faithfulness to Jacob, the Lord's faithfulness to Egypt for the sake of Joseph.

You know, have you seen Christ's faithfulness in your life?

Have you seen it?

Have you seen it?

Have you seen him do that?

Have you seen him do good things?

Because he loves to show us.

He loves to show us.

You know, the longer that we live as Christ followers, okay, the more that we should have amazing stories of God's faithfulness in our lives.

The more we should be just willing to, you know, and able to just share those with other believers.

Not just in glory someday, which we'll also get to get to do, but hopefully in this life as well.

If you've seen him heal your brokenness, the more that you see that, the more you should say, Yes, his faithfulness abounds.

His faithfulness abounds in my life.

You understand that God wants to heal you, and yeah, that's gonna be a bear of a process at times, right?

It's gonna be painful in its own right.

Okay, but listen, you have to remind yourself about how you turn out on the other side of that difficulty and the healing on all of it is so, you know, so far beyond worth the challenges of the pain and the sorrow and the struggle that it took to get there.

Remind yourself of that.

And so if I can encourage you with this as we close, if I can encourage you with this, let the Lord heal you.

Let him heal with you, heal you.

Don't push it aside.

Don't focus on what other people need.

Invite him into your own issues.

Submit to it.

Have the expectation that he is going to be a good, kind, and faithful God to you.

He's not gonna let you twist and dangle, he's not gonna do that, he's gonna come to you, he's gonna rush to your aid when you do that.

Would you do it?

But trust him.

He's a good God.

He delights in doing this.

He wants to make you new, he wants to heal you, he wants to show you his goodness.