Intro To Joseph

Good morning, Good News Church. So it is Mother's Day, and preachers have different

options about what to do with their sermon on Mother's Day.

One option is the preacher can shelve whatever his usual plans are and just

do a standalone sermon on Mother's Day and then get back to whatever they were

preaching on the following week.

I have done that in the past. Actually, I went on our church's website to see.

I've done that three times in the past, and so if you really want like a whole

Mother's Day sermon, there's three of them on our website. Right?

The second option, a preacher can continue on in whatever series that he is

in and just not do a Mother's Day sermon at all.

And that was my plan this year until earlier this week.

Option three, a preacher can stick with whatever text was planned and just try

to sort of like make it about motherhood, whether it is or it is not.

I believe that that is usually wrong because we are not to take God's word and

make it mean something that it doesn't. Amen?

Okay, option four is the preacher can notice in his pre-decided text that it

happens to address motherhood in some way, and he can draw out an observation

or a point that is really there,

that is really inspired by the text. And that's what I plan to do today.

I am not going to make this text or make this sermon be all about mothers because

it's not. It's not what this chapter is about.

But there is a point that I'm going to make a point about mothers,

and I believe it is related to our passage this morning. Fair enough?

All right, so here's our text for this morning, Genesis chapter 37.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

You can turn there now if you have your Bible with you. The reason we are doing

Genesis chapter 37 today is last week we did Genesis chapter 35 and 36,

Genesis 37 · chapter mention Genesis 35 · chapter mention

and we are just going in order through the book of Genesis.

So Genesis chapter 37 is the introduction to the Joseph story.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

The Joseph story is sort of the last part of the book of Genesis,

and it takes, I mean, it's a lot, there's a lot of chapters to the Joseph story.

And so we begin this sort of final leg of Genesis today.

I'm going to read to you verses one through four of the Joseph story.

So chapter 37 is the introduction to the Joseph story, and then now I'm reading

you the introduction to the introduction of the Joseph story.

Here are the first four verses. Genesis 37, verse 1.

Genesis 37:1

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

These are the family records of Jacob.

At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brothers.

The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah,

his father's wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born

to him in his old age, and he made a robe of many colors for him.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers,

they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.

I have always resonated with the Joseph story ever since I was little.

My father's name is Joseph. My firstborn son's name is Joseph.

There are several things in this story that there's just a lot of overlap between

Joseph's life and my life. I noticed that, I think, even as a kid.

I just feel like I've always noticed it.

I have half siblings like Joseph does.

Joseph in this story has multiple siblings, multiple like half siblings.

I have both brothers and sisters that I just share a mom with.

I have brothers and sisters that I just share a dad with.

I am the only kid from my mom and my dad, which was true about Joseph until Benjamin was born.

Joseph was born in his father's old age. I was born in my father's old age.

My father was 62 when I was born. I know.

I could still have so many more kids.

I didn't know that was going to happen. I didn't say, I practiced this to my

wife earlier this week and I didn't think to say that.

Joseph in this story is his father's favorite kid out of all the kids.

I think I was my father's favorite kid out of all of his kids.

I don't know for sure because dad didn't ever say it, but I have some evidence

that I would like to just get out there.

So when my father died when I was nine years old, and when you have a loved

one that dies, eventually you end up going through their stuff.

And so I got my dad's wallet. I think I was nine years old when I got it.

And my mom said, do you want this? I said, yeah, there was no money in it.

But I just thought it was cool. It had his driver's license in it.

It has credit cards in it. And I was like, oh, this is neat. And it had pictures.

It had this little photo album in it. And I'm going to have to explain this.

For those of you that are under 35, there was a time when pictures were on paper. Okay, it's crazy.

So nowadays, like if somebody says, hey, what does your girlfriend look like?

Or what, you know, do you have children?

Or, you know, what does your husband look like? Like nowadays,

someone just pulls out a phone and just, you just, you just swipe and you show it to them on a screen.

Okay. That's how everybody does it. If you want to see what somebody in my family

looks like, you just show it to them on the screen.

Okay. So back in the eighties, when phones were wired into the wall and there

was no camera embedded into them, if people wanted to show people pictures of

their loved ones, they had to print it out on glossy paper and keep it in their wallet.

Okay. That's what people did. I don't even know how he survived,

but that's what they did.

So when I got my dad's wallet, I looked, and there were all these pictures in

there. And so I looked, and there was this picture of a woman that I was like,

oh, I think that that's my half-sister back when she was younger.

And I saw another picture, and I was like, oh, that's my half-brother.

And then there was a picture of me, and then there was another picture of me,

and then there was another picture of me.

And I was like, oh, I'm pretty sure that I'm my dad's favorite.

There was more pictures of me than all the other kids.

So anyway, so when I read the story, I'm like, yeah, yeah, this happens.

So the one thing that's different with Joseph's life and mine is his brothers hated him.

And there was a lot more dysfunction even in, I mean, my family had some dysfunction, but this is bad.

So his brothers hate him. Look what happens next. Verse five.

Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even

more. He said to them, listen to this dream I had.

There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field.

Suddenly my sheaf stood up and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.

Are you really going to reign over us? His brothers asked him.

Are you really going to rule us?

So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said.

So this particular dream, I guess the interpretation of it was fairly obvious.

Sometimes we have dreams and we're like, what does that mean?

You know, I was being chased by a giant goose and there was a box of graham

crackers and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know what that means.

But with this one, when he said, well, we were all gathering these piles of grain and.

And you guys, your piles came up to my pile and started bowing down to it.

It was really obvious what this dream means. So they were so frustrated with him.

They were so angry with him. Why is it that you would tell us this?

Do you think you're better than us? Do you think you're really going to rule

over us? Is that what you think this is all about?

Do you go to bed thinking about how much better you are than us?

And then this is what you think about at night as you're dreaming.

But the truth is, this dream was from the Lord.

And maybe it wouldn't be obvious at this point in

the story to know it could I guess it could have just been a dream but as the story goes

on we see that this dream is prophetic it's what

happens and that was something that was unlikely to happen

like like what are the odds that these what could happen in life that would

cause all of these brothers to to bow down before Joseph as if he was their

ruler like what in the world could could cause that especially in that culture

where the honor went to the firstborn son right so I mean I guess the firstborn

son could die and something could happen to the second born son,

but Joseph wasn't first born.

Joseph wasn't second born. Joseph wasn't third born. Joseph wasn't fourth born.

So like the odds of this happening is really, really unlikely.

And yet as the story goes on, there comes a point where the brothers bow down

to him and the reader, as we read it, we go like, oh, that's what that dream

was about back at the beginning of the story.

That was God telling him what was going to happen ahead of time. It was a prophecy.

All right, verse nine. Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers.

Look, he said, I had another dream.

And this time the sun, moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me.

He had 11 brothers. He told his father and brothers, but his father rebuked

him. What kind of dream is this that you've had?

He said, are your mother and brothers and I going to come and bow down to the ground before you?

His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

So same kind of dream. I mean, a little bit different, but same kind of dream

with sort of the same kind of meaning.

The first dream was just the brothers. In this case, you have the brothers with

the 11 stars, but then you have sun and the moon, like above the stars,

and then they're not the same as each other.

So it's obvious this is like the same kind of dream, but it includes mom and dad.

Verse 12, his brothers had gone to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem.

Israel said to Joseph, your brothers, you know, are pasturing the flocks at

Shechem. Get ready. I'm sending you to them. I'm ready, Joseph replied.

Then Israel said to him, go and see how your brothers and the flocks are doing

and bring word back to me. So he sent him from the Valley of Hebron and he went to Shechem.

Now here's the deal. This is important to know. The brothers weren't at Shechem.

Okay. That's where dad sent him because that's where dad thought they were.

And I think according to the story, they were there at some point, but they had moved on.

So Joseph is sent to a place to find his brothers and his brothers are not there.

Okay. The reason this is important is I just want you to realize that if God

had not wanted the rest of the Joseph story to pan out the way it did,

He could have easily made it where Joseph didn't find his brothers because they

weren't there at the place that he was sent to.

So I think if God wanted not the rest of Genesis to go the way it did,

it would be very simple for Joseph to have just shown up at Shechem and they're not there.

And he goes back and said, Dad, I looked all over Shechem. They weren't there. End of story.

But that's not what happens. Look at verse 15.

A man found him there. Okay, a man in Shechem. Just a man, like some guy.

We don't know his name. We never are given his name. There's a guy there.

And the man found him wandering in the field and asked him, what are you looking for?

I'm looking for my brothers, Joseph said. Can you tell me where they are pastoring their flocks?

So Joseph's wandering around in a random field, and there's a random man in the random field.

And he's like, hey, do you know where my brothers are? And it turns out this guy was informed.

He said, they've moved on from here, the man said. I heard them say,

let's go to Dothan. How crazy.

He's walking around in a random field, and some guy's there.

He's like, I overheard a conversation your brothers had.

I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. So Joseph set out after his brothers and

found them to Dothan. So I just want you to please notice this whole story.

The next 13 chapters of the book of Genesis kind of hinges on the fact that

a random man was in the field and told him where to go.

The reason why Joseph showed up to his brothers in the mood that they were in

and that the timing that it was, because there was a random guy there that said, oh, they're this way.

Verse 18, they saw him in the distance and before he had reached them,

they plotted to kill him.

They said to one another, here comes that dreamer. Come on, let's kill him and

throw him into one of the pits. We can say that a vicious animal ate him.

Then we'll see what becomes of his dreams.

So they hated him. And as they see him coming, and I guess they can see him

from a long way off. You probably can recognize your brother from a long way off.

And so they start talking about killing him as he's walking toward them.

Oh man, what would you want to do? I'd like to kill him. No way,

that's what I was thinking about. Yeah, what day do you want to do it?

I was thinking today would be good. Me too, I think today would be the good day to do it.

And so as he's walking toward them, they plan out his murder.

And you could tell they're very angry about the dreams. They keep bringing it

up. Here comes this dreamer. Let's see what will become of his dreams.

I don't know if they just, I don't know if they were angry about these dreams

because they just thought Joseph had these thoughts of grandeur above them,

or if they thought the dreams were prophetic and they thought to themselves

like, well, maybe we can alter like the prophecy.

Maybe we can alter the future. Like if we kill him, then he won't be able to rule over us.

But whatever it is, they're very

upset about the dreams. We'll see what becomes of his dreams. Verse 21.

When Reuben heard this, now Reuben's the oldest. He's the firstborn.

When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from them.

He said, let's not take his life. Reuben also said to them, don't shed blood.

Throw him into this pit in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him,

intending to rescue him from their hands and return him to his father.

When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped off his robe,

the robe of many colors that he had on.

When they took him and threw him, then they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty.

There was no water in it. I'm guessing it seems like it was some sort of like

old cistern because it specifies there was no water in it as if there would

have been water in it normally, but this time there was not.

And I guess that's how it was a container that he wouldn't be able to get out of.

And then they sat down to eat a meal. They looked up and there was a caravan

of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.

Their camels were carrying aromatic gum, balsam and resin going down to Egypt.

Then Judah said to his brothers, what do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?

Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him,

for he is our brother, our own flesh. And they agreed.

When the Midianite traders passed by, his brothers pulled Joseph out of the

pit and sold him for 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites,

who took Joseph to Egypt.

When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not there,

he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, the boy is gone. What am I going to do?

Now, I want you to notice in this section, two different brothers try to talk

the rest of the brothers out of killing him.

The first one is Reuben. And Reuben is the one that seems to me to have the

more noble motives, okay?

Reuben wants to rescue him and get him back to dad. So when they're all like,

let's kill him, he goes, hey, let's not kill him, let's throw him into a pit.

And I don't know if the purpose is, let's throw him into a pit and then let's

think about this, or if it's like, throw him into a pit and just,

you know, he'll die, but we won't have killed him.

But however it is, he convinces them not to, like, kill him and to throw him

into a pit. And his plan is to get him back, to rescue him and get him back to his.

So then I guess the way the story is told, Reuben then goes off and does,

you know, whatever, goes off and tends sheep or something.

And so then the brothers are there and they're still thinking,

well, we're going to kill him. We've got to kill him.

And then a second brother convinces them not to kill him. Okay.

This one's Judah, who I think is fourth born.

And Judah's motives are less noble than Reuben's. Reuben says,

let's not kill him because he wants to rescue him.

Judah comes to the conclusion. And I think this is because he sees these traders,

these merchants coming by on their way to Egypt.

And he goes, Hey, wait a minute. If we sell him as a slave, we will be rid of

him like we killed him, but we'll also get money out of it, which we won't get

any money for killing him.

What if we sell him as a slave? Isn't that a great idea? And they were all like, that's a great idea.

So they sell him. They sell him to the Ishmaelites or the Midianites.

If you notice in this passage, those words are used interchangeably.

Apparently an Ishmaelite is a Midianite.

So they sell him to the Midianites slash Ishmaelites and they go off and then

Reuben comes back and he's about to like put a rope down in the pit to save

Joseph and nobody's there.

And then he walks up to the brothers and goes, what happened?

And they're like, well, we just sold him. And he's like, well,

that's, now what am I going to do?

And how are we going to cover up what we did? Verse 31.

So they took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a young goat, and dipped the robe in its blood.

They sent the robe of many colors to their father and said, we found this.

Examine it. Is it your son's robe or not?

His father recognized it. It is my son's robe, he said. A vicious animal has

devoured him. Joseph has been torn to pieces.

Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth around his waist,

and mourned for his son many days.

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

No, he said, I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning. And his father wept for him.

Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh

and a captain of the guard.

And one thing that I'd never thought about until this week, there's several

things in this story that, I mean, I've read it before, but several things I

read and I noticed it for the first time.

In this one, I don't think I'd ever noticed before. Jacob essentially,

when he thinks that his son has been ripped apart by a wild animal,

he essentially says, I intend to mourn for the rest of my life.

That's what he announces to his family. Look at verse 35, in case you missed it.

All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

No, he said, I will go down to Sheol.

Now in Hebrew, like for Hebrew people, that's the realm of the dead.

Okay. So that's like the grave, but it's like the afterlife slash grave. Okay.

I will go down to Sheol. I will go to the realm of the dead to my son,

right? Because that's where my son is.

And I will go down to Sheol mourning.

So they're saying, you know, dad, you know, how long are you going to be upset? Forever.

I'm going to be upset until I die. Until I go to the realm of the dead,

I'm going to keep mourning about this.

And he wept, and he was mourning for many days.

And they tried to comfort him, and I don't know what they said.

You know, maybe God will bring good out of this. Or maybe they said,

well, you got 11 other ones. Like, I don't know, but he didn't care.

He said, I plan on grieving for the rest of my life.

And what was interesting to me is I was imagining like the boys,

they saw this, like they saw their brother, or sorry, they saw their father

grieving over the death of their brother. They know he's out there somewhere.

And they're watching him mourn. And he cries, and it says many days.

So he cried, and then the next day he cried some more, and the next day he cried

some more, and the next day he grieved some more, and the next day he grieved some more.

And they're going, how long is it going to be? And dad says,

the rest of my life is what I plan on doing.

And they know he's out there and not

one of them cracked not one of them sick because they could have been thinking

well maybe maybe we should let him know maybe maybe we could maybe we could

go track him down no every single one of them is completely silent even reuben

the one who was going to rescue him just keeps the whole thing a secret and

they just watch their dad mourn for days maybe weeks who knows how long it was.

And then that's where this chapter ends. There are two points that I would like

to give you from today's story.

The first one is the Mother's Day point. And this is just a side point,

but I noticed it, so I want to give it to you, especially since this is Mother's Day.

The second point is the main point of the Joseph story.

Okay, point number one, the point about motherhood. At first,

I would have said this passage teaches us nothing about motherhood. Okay?

In fact, maybe you would say that. You go, you just read it to me.

I didn't notice anything about motherhood.

You go, did you read the whole thing? I did. I didn't skip any verses.

I read the whole chapter.

You go, yeah, there's nothing in there about motherhood. That's what I thought

too. When I read it, I thought, yeah, there's nothing in there at first.

And then I realized, like at some point, and I realized like,

well, technically the word mother is in there. It's in verse 10.

So if you look at verse 10, it says, he told his father and brothers,

but his father rebuked him.

What kind of dream is this that you've had? He said, are your,

there's the word, mother and brothers and I going to come and bow down to the ground before you.

So I'm like, okay, well, the word mother's in the passage, but like that's still.

This still doesn't teach us anything about motherhood. Just because the word

is in there doesn't mean I can say anything about Mother's Day.

And then as I continued to study it, it dawned on me.

Genesis chapter 37, verse 10, teaches that Joseph had a mother. Okay? Right?

Genesis 37:10

Okay. So he's got a mother and you might go, well, yeah, I mean,

obviously my mother and brothers and I are going to come before you,

but like everybody has a mother. There's nothing special about that.

No, Genesis chapter 37, verse 10 teaches that Joseph had an alive mother, okay?

Genesis 37:10

Because Jacob is saying, obviously he's not talking about someone who's deceased.

He's saying, those of us who are alive right now, mom, dad, brothers,

do you think in the future when we're all still alive, we're going to be bowing down to you, right?

Jacob is saying that Joseph has an alive mother. Joseph's mother's alive at this point in the story.

But Joseph's mother is Rachel, and Rachel died back in Genesis 35.

Do you remember that? It was last week's sermon. They were on the way,

and she went into childbirth, and she went into labor, and it was like a terrible

labor, and so she dies there, like kind of on the side of the road.

She names her, like with her dying breath, she names her final child,

and then she dies, and they bury her.

So Joseph's mom, Rachel, dies in chapter 35, and then in chapter 37,

he's got an alive mother who potentially could bow down to him one day, okay?

So his mom's dead, and then he has a mother. So I was like, maybe this story

is told out of chronological order.

Like, maybe chapter 37 happened before chapter 35.

I thought that too, okay? But here's the thing.

He has 11 brothers at this point of the story. Benjamin's been born. Look at verse 9.

When he tells the story about the dream. He said, look, I had another dream,

and this time the sun, the moon, and how many?

11 stars were bowing down to me. That looks like the Roman numeral two,

doesn't it? And two stars were bowing down to me.

Anyway, that's an 11. And 11 stars were bowing down to me.

So I'm thinking what's happening is he says 11 stars, and the father hears the

number 11 and associates it with what?

The number of brothers that Joseph had. If he picked a number that was different

than the number of his brothers, I don't think they would have interpreted this

to be about mom and dad and the brothers.

Because it's a sun and a moon, 11 stars, they're like, oh, this is your family,

which means there's 11 brothers. But if there's, Benjamin was the 11th brother.

If Benjamin is alive, Rachel's dead.

So back to verse 10.

What kind of dream is this that you had? Are your mother and brothers and I

going to come and bow to the ground before you?

Jacob is referring to Joseph's mother here, and he must be referring to Leah

or Bilhah, whoever took on the role of Joseph's mother after the death of Rachel.

Okay, well, what does that show us? It shows us that stepmotherhood is motherhood.

That adoptive motherhood is motherhood. Motherhood isn't only about biology.

If you're here this morning and you are mothering someone, whether they came

from your body or not, you're a mother.

So we have multiple families in this church. I was thinking about this this

whole week. Multiple families in this church where motherhood is not about biology.

We have multiple families where mom and dad are married and they have some kids and then mom died.

And then dad remarries and now this other woman comes in and is now mothering

children that are not, they did not come from her body.

We have multiple families in this church where there was this divorce,

and then after the divorce, there was a remarriage, and now you have some woman

who's raising a kid, and the mother of the kid, like the biological mother of

the kid, is still out there somewhere.

We've had multiple families in this church where a child was removed from the

home by Child Protective Services, and at some point was deemed to never be

allowed to go back there.

And then someone from this church adopted those kids.

And so I thought today might be a good day to say if you are mothering someone

good job for doing your part in raising up the next generation raise up the

next generation for God raise up the next generation for his glory even if that

includes looking after some people who did not come from your body,

motherhood isn't only biological I would not have noticed that except that I

happened to study this passage the week before Mother's Day and it stuck out to me.

Okay, second point. And this one is the main point of the Joseph story.

God uses sinful choices and bad circumstances to bring about his will and bless his people.

Now that is the, I think that's like the point. In fact, by the end of the story,

I think it really clearly makes that point.

But you wouldn't know it just from this part. If you just read 37,

like God has not brought blessings out.

Like this is just, it just ends with Joseph is sold as a slave into Egypt.

But if you skip to the end of the story, you'll see that. And so that's what

I'm going to do for now. Let's go ahead and go to Genesis chapter 50.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

This is 13 chapters later.

And I'm going to start reading in verse 15. So this is the end of the story. This is years later.

It is my intention, if the Lord permits, to teach on the intervening chapters

between the one we learned today and the one I'm about to quote.

But right now, I'm just going to skip to the end and hopefully we'll fill in the rest later.

Genesis chapter 50, starting in verse 15. So at this point, they're all older.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

Joseph's a full-grown adult now. his brothers are grown up, his dad is so old

that his dad just died, and then this happens.

Genesis 50 verse 15. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead,

Genesis 50:15

they said to one another, if Joseph is holding a grudge against us,

he will certainly repay us for all the suffering we caused him.

What are they referring to there?

They're referring to our text this morning. They're referring back to chapter 37.

He will repay us for all the wrong we caused him back when we sold him into slavery.

They're sitting there thinking, why hasn't Joseph taken revenge on us?

Maybe it's because dad's alive and he wants to spare dad's feelings.

Like we didn't care, but like maybe he cares about that.

And maybe that's why, and now he's dead. What's gonna happen to us?

Verse 16, so they sent this message to Joseph.

Before he died, your father gave a command. Say this to Joseph.

Please forgive your brother's transgression and their sin, the suffering they have caused you.

Therefore, please forgive the transgressions of the servants of the God of your father.

So this is interesting. They send a message to Joseph and they say,

hey, just what do we wanna let you know?

Dad, like as he was dying, He just, he asked that you would forgive all of us. Okay.

Now it is up to you to decide whether you believe that is true or whether they made it up. Okay.

Cause I guess it's possible that like with his dying breath,

Jacob could have said, make sure Joseph forgives you all and then died.

It's also possible that after he died, they went, can we all agree that he said

that his dying wish was for to forgive all of us?

Personally, that's the one I believe. I think they made it up. I don't think he said it.

I don't think he was even thinking about that as he was dying,

But that's what they said.

Just so you know, dad, you weren't in the room at the time, but when you weren't

around one time, he said, he really wanted you to forgive us.

Joseph wept when their message came to him. And then his brothers also came to him. What did they do?

Bowed down before him and said, we are your slaves.

Exactly what the dream said. And this actually is not even the first time that they bowed down to him.

They bowed down to him and said, you will rule over us.

Verse 19, but Joseph said to them, don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

You planned evil against me. God planned it for good to bring about the present

result, the survival of many people.

So like I said, over the next few weeks, I'd like to get into what happened

in the middle so you can see, well, how was it that that terrible thing that

they planned that was wicked, right? Where does it say? Evil.

The thing that they planned that was evil, God was in on it to bring about good,

the survival of many people.

So we'll talk about how God uses this for survival and salvation as time goes on.

But for now, you can just know that's what God did with this evil.

And so for today, I just wanted to point out, God uses sinful actions and terrible

circumstances to bring about his blessed plan for his people.

And we still worship and serve that same God right now.

He is still just as capable of using sinful choices and bad circumstances in

our lives to bring about his will and to bless his people.

Let's pray. God, we praise you for that.

Like we recognize that is true. We recognize that someone can plan an evil it

and you can make it into a good it.

You can be saying, but I plan this for good, for the survival of many people.

We recognize that this is true about you and we recognize that those of us that

are in this room, we're not completely disconnected from all this.

You are our God, you are the same God.

And you can and you do this in our lives.

And so I pray you'd help us to see it. I pray you'd help us to recognize it

I pray you'd help us to acknowledge it I pray you'd help us to trust in you.

I pray for the moms in this room. I do pray that you'd bless them.

I particularly pray for adoptive and stepmoms and all of the like kind of crazy

situations we find ourselves in sometimes.

Like I thank you that stepmotherhood is real motherhood and adoptive motherhood

is real motherhood. And I pray that you would bless them in particular.

And I know that there are families that have had,

crazy, terrible things go on and sinful actions that cause things and terrible

circumstances and cancer and death.

And so I pray that you would minister to those families, comfort those families,

be faithful to those families, walk along with them, and that they would know.

In fact, that they would know, really, it's not that you're walking along with

them, it's that they are to walk along with you to whatever's next,

and that we can trust you with whatever's next, and so we thank you for that,

and we praise you for that, and we worship you for that.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is Romans 8, verse 28.

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God,

those who are called according to his purpose. That is good news.