He Understands | Pastor Paul McGee

And they can be saved. Amen.

Aren't you glad that you know his name tonight?

Amen. There's a lot of words that we

could put together in our vocabulary, they say.

They say that in reality, there is no sentence that will ever be

spoken twice in the world. That's what they say, that as we

put our words together, they're just so unique.

But it doesn't matter how many different phrases that we may

say, 1 Jesus is enough for the longest sentence.

Just to sum up, Amen. I've used it when I've been down

and despondent and said Jesus and what my prayers seemed like.

I couldn't get the words together of Jesus would be

sufficient. I've been in an automobile

whenever I seen pending danger coming in the moment that I

could have been involved in, and I didn't really have time to put

works together, but a simple Jesus was sufficient.

I've cried out for people of my family and people that I knew,

and I didn't know how to pray for them.

So I just prayed a simple Jesus, Amen.

And it was the prayer that was sufficient, Amen.

For whatever was necessary. I'm glad I know Him, and I'm

glad that I know the power that's invested in His name.

At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue

shall confess Of things in heaven, things in earth, and

things beneath the earth, that He is the Lord of all.

Amen. I'm glad I know Him, don't you?

Hallelujah. If you'll stand with me tonight

in the House of the Lord God's sweet spirit has been with this

all day. I feel it even now.

I'm glad there's multi facets to our God.

If all we ever did was come in here and just shout, dance,

scream and holler. Other times we come in here and

we weep. Sometimes we come in here and we

articulate words. There's other times you just set

in all it's the multiplicity sides of our God, Amen.

Genesis chapter #42 and go there tonight, Amen.

Want to read just a few verses of Scripture, something that I

want to rehearse in our ears tonight.

Want to rehearse in our ears? The Bible says in Genesis 42,

and this is a large segment of Genesis concerning the life of

Joseph takes up many, many chapters within the book of

Genesis, some that we've not gotten to yet, but Genesis 42

and verse 21. This is this is the episode of

Joseph has already been sold into slavery.

He's already been taken away. Famine is already proliferating

and across the land of Egypt and then and elsewhere.

And his brothers have come for provision for themselves and

their father. And this is where the story is

verse #21 the Bible says, and they said to one another, these

are the brothers. They said one to another, we are

very guilty concerning our brother.

We're speaking about Joseph and that we saw the anguish of his

soul when he beside us, and we would not hear.

Therefore is this distress come upon us.

You remember they come before Joseph.

They didn't realize it was him and they are.

They're accused of being spies. The Bible says.

And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you,

saying, do not sin against the child.

In the day that that the things were done to Joseph, you would

not hear. Reuben says, Therefore, behold

also this, his blood is required.

And they, these brothers, knew not that Joseph understood them,

for he's speaking to them by an interpreter.

They're in Egypt. He's speaking through an

interpreter to his Hebrew brothers who speak in Hebrew,

and they think that Joseph needs that interpreter to understand.

The Bible says that he, Joseph, turned himself about from them

and wept, returned to them again to commune with them, and took

from them Simeon and bound him before their eyes.

I'm going to rehearse something in our ears tonight and that is

simply 2 words. He understands, He understands.

I've shook my head not understanding lots of things in

this life, but I always come back to Ground Zero that he

understands if we can ask the Lord to help us in the next

little while. Father, I thank you Jesus today

You're the Omni present. The Omni present, God, you know

no bounds. You know no limitations.

I pray God you would help us in the next little while.

I'm thankful, Lord, for your spirit that we have felt here

this morning and God yet again tonight.

I pray, Lord, that you administer, you would help, you

would come alongside God in this place and will not fail, Lord,

to thank you, Lord Jesus, for your diligence.

God in our lives, I praise you and I worship you and Lord, I,

Lord, bring the Lord my heart, Lord, and I bring the Lord my

soul. God, we lay it down before your

feet this evening in the lovely name of Jesus Christ that we

pray. Amen and Amen.

Everybody say Amen. You may be seated tonight.

We could very simply this evening stand up here and give

an account of things that come into life or maybe even in our

own personal lives that overwhelm us.

There's things that happen. You read stories or maybe have

been a product or an experiencer of some of these things

yourself. We hear about parents that lose

their toddlers or their infants to a premature birth and our

heart sinks down to our ankles trying to identify with that

type of scenario when for nine months life has been growing in

the womb and they're expecting to take that baby home and see

see that child grow and all the first would take place in its

life. And waiting for those first days

of school and that first day of College in that time when

they'll get married and so on and so forth, only for the

always to be a finish line that constantly is fleeting and it's

not going to happen now. We understand families as they

stand with their hands clasped as they often are.

And I've stood there with them by the grave sides of loved ones

who struggled with terminal illnesses.

And they've been there very diligently by hospital beds and

nursing home beds, almost holding a continual vigil with

their loved one that they've seen deteriorate over time by

mind and also body. And you just there to comfort

and put a hand on the shoulder. Or perhaps there's wives and and

families that, that embrace one another when that husband comes

home and he describes to his family that you know what, they

let me go today, I, I'm not going to work tomorrow.

That that, that time and what we have depended upon in our life,

we're now suffering from a loss from a well, well paying job.

And then there's marriages and all of the different types of

abuses that can happen inside of a marriage and, and such, and

siblings, you know, that are blaming themselves for something

else to happen to one of their other siblings.

And it's all these type of things, Ray, that that make up

what we call real life. I would like to tell you today,

I would love to be able to tell you that whenever you're born

again of the water and the spirit, that all those things

just disappear and go away. But guess what?

There's some things that are just a part of this broken thing

called life from the very beginning of Genesis, even until

now. And all too often these things

interrupt our otherwise joyful and otherwise peaceful lives.

And people mean well. I know people do.

We're a part of the fabric of humanity.

We see people that are hurting and dealing with things and we

mean well, and we show up and we tell them, and I understand when

in reality, we really don't understand.

That's true. Sure.

Amen. Right.

We, we, I, I know that there may be similar cases and maybe you

lost a loved one and that one lost a loved one, but you know,

the relationship between that person and them is probably

different. It's not identical to your

relationship and who you lost. And there's just a whole lot of

dynamics and all of that, that we can't really say bofacely

that, that we understand that we understand.

Sometimes those are comfortless words whenever you're on the

side of having went through sorrow or having went through

pain. And so there's times when all

words are are insufficient sometimes and any voice that

comes to you, no matter how close they are to you, it just

lacks discomfort. And whenever it seems like

there's nobody in this life that can identify with your dilemma,

it's almost then in those moments, God being the God that

he is, can condescend down to you and that lowly state of, of

humanity and he can start to relate to you and I that God

that the scripture says took on a human nature that was a man

that was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

As the prophet Isaiah said, we hear that he comes down and he

relates to us. We sometimes live under a

misconception. We get the idea we live here on

the earth and God is way far in the distant heavens.

And there's no way that a God that has a universe and galaxies

to manage and to operate upon that he could understand my

circumstance or understand where I'm coming from.

How, how could that high and that lofty God Amen, understand

something that Paul McGee is suffering from or suffering

with? How?

How could I, even as as a human being of billions upon this

world, grab the attention of a sovereign God?

Yet folks, I want you to know that God has a ear tuned into

your need. If, if, if a blind Bartimaeus

can be sitting along the wayside and say, Jesus, thou son of

David, have mercy on me. And God manifested in the flesh,

the Bible says, stood still then.

I have great confidence today that when we cry out to God in

the middle of our dilemma, that our great God in heaven can turn

an ear of attention and an eye of concern toward our need as

well. Tonight I want to introduce to

you through the Scripture that God relates much to us as Joseph

related to his brethren. There are a variety of

characters throughout the Scripture that if we were to

look at them, they are foreshadowing the role of the

Lord Jesus Christ there for shadow.

We look at David and there are certain aspects of David that

tongue and groove and give us a pattern almost for the life of

Christ. Their, their lives just trace a

symbolical path of the Lord, sometimes some more distinctly

than others. And Joseph is such a life to

evaluate that we can see Jesus in Joseph's life.

We can see, if you will, the pattern Amen, of Jesus in

Joseph's life, if you will. And these are just a few things.

There's much more than the ones that I'm going to share with you

this evening. But take for instance that

Joseph suffered persecution by his own brothers.

He suffered persecution by his own brothers, and we see in

scripture that Jesus is suffering persecution by his

brethren. We read in the Old Testament a

close connection with him, that Joseph is sold for 20 pieces of

silver. Jesus throne.

Amen. Judas is receiving 30 pieces of

silver for the chance of betrayal of the Lord and Savior.

The Bible declares that Joseph was highly favored of his

father. His father made him that coat of

many colors to distinguish him and denote the favor that he had

upon his life before he ever went down in humility into

slavery. We understand a man that God

favored his son so to speak, that God had an eye of attention

upon Jesus. We read in scripture that Joseph

resisted the temptation of Potiphar's wife and suffered A

unjust imprisonment. We know that Jesus was tempted

in all ways, like you and I are, yet was without sin and yet died

because of sin. During this time we read in

scripture that Joseph felt forgotten by the Butler who's he

interpreted that he was forgotten.

The Bible says for at least a couple years forgotten by the

Butler. Hey man, how many times?

Even Jesus, whenever he left this earth, he kept it in our

ears that they the people would not forget him.

He wanted them to remember who he would be.

No doubt he forgotten felt forgotten on the cross.

And so we see all of these events let up.

Amen to Joseph being only exalted, 2nd in command only to

Amen, Pharaoh. He forgave those that had done

him wrong. He looked them in the eyes,

Amen. He had a spirit that is willing,

Amen, to offer forgiveness to those that were trying to put

him to death. And so in the picture of Joseph,

we see the picture of our Savior, Amen.

Everybody has to come to Joseph for relief.

Everybody's got to come to Joseph for provision or they

perish. Joseph in essence, in his day

was a kind of sort of a salvation and Savior for those

that were hungry and those that were thirsting.

Everybody's got to come to Christ for the purpose of

salvation. So all of these things in

Joseph's life, these areas, these degrees, it typifies our

Lord Jesus Christ who suffered persecution of his own by the

Jews and by Judas, one of the 12 selling him for 30 pieces of

silver, but he's highly favored of his father.

He was humiliated by being nailed to a cross for the Old

Testament said curse is any man that hangeth on a tree.

He's in his garden, Gethsemane, Amen.

And he's saying, Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass

from me. But nevertheless, Amen, I'm

going to allow your will to be done.

He's on the cross and he's crying out, my God, my God, why

hast thou forsaken me? I know he's tipping them off for

Psalms 22 because that's how it begins.

But it also no doubt there must have been some type of feeling

that here the disciples fled, here Judas betrayed him, here

Peter denied him. The crowd is getting less and

less at the foot of the cross. He must have felt overwhelmed.

But all these things were the preliminaries, as you and I

know. They were making the road.

They were making the path for His ascension.

And from the cross of all places, he says, Father, forgive

them, for they know not what they do.

And he stands eternally in Scripture as the door to the

sheepfold. And if any man's going to get in

the sheepfold, it is by him you must come through him.

So his life and the glimpses of his life is seen in the

character of Joseph. Everybody doing OK.

So before our text tonight, Joseph has just called his

brothers. They've come needing provision

and he calls them spies. And he demanded that you all.

The next time you come and stand before me, I want you to have

this youngest brother that you speak of to be here as well.

Because having your youngest brother Benjamin here is going

to verify your words, whether or not you are indeed spies or not.

He says if you do this, this is going to help save your lives.

Please, folks, you must understand at this moment, his

brother, Sister Krista, does not recognize that that is Joseph,

their brother. They do not recognize that this

is the same boy that they sowed into slavery and they put down

into a pit waiting for a caravan to come by.

They do not realize this is the same boy.

And so, as this has been said, the brothers are kind in a

huddle over here and they're having a family meeting.

They're starting to talk among themselves and they're being,

they're starting to accuse one another in the circle.

I told you we should have never done that.

I told you this would catch up with us sooner or later.

Amen. They're saying all this stuff.

Joseph is right there in their presence because to their

understanding, he needs a interpreter in order to know

what they're saying. So they're going to speak at

liberty and Hebrew to one another, thinking Joseph is

oblivious to what they're saying, to what they are

discussing. Hey, man, Hallelujah.

They thought they were receiving this interrogation from Joseph.

Impossible harm from Joseph Because of the way that they had

treated Joseph, they thought they were starting to put all

the lines together. I know we've all done it.

This is happening to me because of XYZ from my past.

No, nobody's human right here tonight.

Nobody's human. How many times have you chalked

up something bad going on in your present?

Because maybe if something bad you remember that you did from

your past. You drew the line, God didn't

draw it, but you drew the line. This is happening to us because

of how we acted to Joseph. This this is just the proverbial

reaping what we have sown type of principle.

And so as they talk the matter over in the Hebrew tongue, they

are not suspecting, Sister Krista, Amen, that Joseph

understands. They think this man is a native

of Egypt. He's speaking the Egyptian

language. He's understood us only by

virtue of an interpreter. He can't know what we're saying,

what we're discussing, what our intent is.

They were unaware that Joseph understood every word all along

while that interpreter was speaking and giving them the

impression that here is an Egyptian powerhouse second only

to Pharaoh that cannot speak their language.

And so they just kept talking and kept speaking and kept

discussing. And the malady of the brothers

is that they were in listen that they were in Joseph's presence,

but did not know that he understood them.

They were right there among the one that they had done wrong

against, but they did not understand that he understood

them. He heard every word.

He heard the fear in their voice, He heard the sorrow in

their explanation. But the Bible tells us that

Joseph did understand their words.

If I can say it like this, Joseph could feel what they were

feeling. He knew the sorrow and them

remorse that was in their voice. What was affecting them was

affecting him in that moment. He could he, the Bible says in

one place. He had to excuse himself from

their presence that he might weep.

Why? He was identifying with their

feelings. Honey, if I can put this in the

context of how Joseph often mirrors the Lord Jesus Christ,

I've come to tell you tonight that there are times we think

that God doesn't understand our language and that God doesn't

understand our sorrow and God doesn't understand our fear, and

God doesn't fear understand our trepidation.

And we think, how could God understand what's going on?

He speaks a different language than not.

I speak. He's on a different plane than

what I'm on. But ladies, and I'm here to tell

you tonight, all of that sorrow, all of that pain, all of that

anxiety, all of that fear, all of that disappointment.

He's not missed one syllable. He's not missed one word.

He God, understands. Oh yes, Oh yes.

How? How can it happen?

How can he understand my finances?

How can he understand a broke down vehicle?

How can he understand sickness in a home and a family?

How can he understand? Folks, I'm telling you, it may

seem like you're talking a different language or live in a

different world, but God does understand.

We can't grasp the concept. We can't grasp the idea, but God

understands. And I'm telling somebody tonight

we need to realize we're standing in the very presence of

that God and he understands. We're standing in the very

presence of that God and he's here and we're they knew not.

The Bible says plainly they knew not that Joseph understood them.

That's the reason why we still have scriptures like we do today

from Genesis, the revelation, like I already alluded to in

Isaiah. That's the reason why the Bible

reminds us He was despised. That's the reason why the Bible

reminds us he was rejected of men.

That's why it tells us he was a man of sorrows and that he was

acquainted with grief. Why you?

Why you saying that through the scriptures?

Why you putting pin to page? Because my people need to

understand days from the moment that these are written for every

generation to come, that I understand where they are.

I understand what they're thinking.

Someone say man, everybody's ever been betrayed.

He understands everybody that suffered the loss of a dear

friend, Lazarus. He understands.

The Bible says he went to a well and in his humanity the Bible

says that he was weary with the journey.

He knows what it's like to feel weary, tired, exhausted.

He's experienced. Listen to me, your God in the

flesh as Christ Jesus has experienced what it's like to be

loved one moment and then be hated in the next.

He understands. He's dealt with loneliness.

He's dealt with anger. Tables flipping.

He's dealt with anger, he's dealt with disappointment.

Peter saying get behind me, you save us.

Not the things. He's had frustration.

He's dealt with the pains of death personally.

Someone say, man, he's seen the hurting, he's seen the sick,

he's seen the disease, all of that in their misery.

And the Bible says in Scripture when he saw that he had

compassion because it touched him so deeply.

So your God's not some intangible being so far away

that he cannot be reached in the outer galaxies.

No, he's reached with your concerns and he's reached with

your situations. And I love this because even

when we first come to God, Zach, sometimes we think, is there a

certain language? Is there a certain way I got to

pray to God in order to have God's attention?

Do I, do I use the King James, do I get my vows and these in

there just right? O thou great Heavenly Father, of

all the earth that encircleth the throne of heaven, let thy

beloved Son, which stand here meek and mild, as a pour spirit

upon the earth, have thine attention for a moment in the

eternity, that I might make my supplication known unto thee.

Hogwash, Missy. I can say God, I'm in a mess and

He understands what I'm talking about.

I can say, God, I don't know what to do, and that's

sufficient. That knocks on Heaven's doors

and he leans over with his ear. His arms not short, his ears are

not heavy. It'll take a special language to

get the attention of your God. You just got to talk to him.

Amen. Thank God there isn't.

Thank God that there's not a God language that I got to utter in

order to be understood. It's not my Bible language

that's that's reaching him. It's not my arts and my these

and thou vows that are reaching him.

Me doing that, Sister Ray is not going to make God more

attentive. Oh, he's speaking King James.

Well, let me see what this. No, no, no, no, no.

He understands far better than we realize, because when even

you can't cry anything with your lips, God can still hear the cry

of your heart. Brother Reese, God understands

the undeveloped vocabulary of a child.

He understands the slobbering, snotting prayer of a Sinner.

Let's try. Come in, come on.

And all of these things not going to hold you along.

All these things affect him as is pictured and embolized in the

character of Joseph. Joseph's hearing everything he's

saying it was your fault. He's saying no, it's my fault.

We should have done this and that.

He's hearing all this and he says, if you all just pardon me

for a moment, I need to step out over here.

What's he doing? He's weeping over there in one

place there in the Script. The Bible says that the

household of the Egyptians heard the cry, heard the cry of Joseph

weeping over in reality, the misunderstandings of his

brothers that thought he don't know what's going on.

I wonder if we could clue our ear in Brother Fred and hear the

cry of heaven over where we are hear the cry of heaven over what

we're frustrated about hear the cry of heaven over.

We feel like is a a merciless happening in our life.

If we could hear it, we would hear the cry of heaven saying I

just wish they understood that I understand where they are.

You'll stay with me. I won't hold you much longer.

He understands. We see this over and over in

scripture. We we could pull story after

story. Elijah has won the greatest,

greatest accomplishments, perhaps in his known prophetic

life. Battle, the prophet of Belen of

the Grove on Mount Carmel. Excellent victory.

He posed the question to Israel and to them, Why hockey?

Between two opinions, Some of you know the story.

They went through the process of rebuilding the altar and having

times of offering sacrifices that they could get the

attention of their God, Elijah. When his time comes, he repairs

the altar, he makes his sacrifice, he bathes it with

water, and it's during the time of famine and drought.

Fire falls from heaven. The God that answers by fire is

what he and he began with. Let him be God.

And so God showed himself and proved himself.

And from that very moment of the mountain, he goes to another

mountain and he starts a journey with a servant, but then finally

leaves his servant and he finds himself there all alone.

And in that moment, Sister Ray, you know what Elijah's saying

just had the greatest victory in his life.

And he's saying, God, don't you just just rub me out of

existence on this planet because I'm, I'm, I'm the only one

that's here trying to do anything.

This is your God. Listen to me.

This is your God. God doesn't come in like some

parent. And it's like, I can't believe

that you're acting the way you're acting.

You remember, you remember when your dad had My dad had bigger

belts than this and you heard that thing click through every

little loop on the pants sound like somebody running over a

rumble strip. That meant to me.

Slow down. I didn't come in with his.

You good for nothing? Giving up throwing up your

hands? No.

Does it come in yelling? Because what happens?

Elijah didn't see him in the earthquake, didn't see him in

the boisterous wind. God comes in a still small voice

and even has him lay down, rest, and while he's resting has an

Angel making food and a cruise of water so that when he wakes

up, he says you eat this because the journey is going to be long.

Well, that just don't make sense.

No, because that's understanding.

That's understanding. He says.

I seen how you fought. I seen how you kept the faith.

I see how you're drained emotionally.

I'm going to allow you to rest. I'm going to.

I'm going to allow you together, your thoughts back together.

I'm not going to be insensitive. I'm going to go right where you

are. I'm going to provide food.

I'm going to provide water. I'm going to provide

instruction. I'm going to provide

encouragement. Why God?

Because I understand. If we bow our heads here today,

he understands. Go on, put it on the list,

whatever it may be that you think that, well, there's no

way. There's no way that he would

understand this. He does.

There may be someone standing here tonight.

Maybe it's been weeks. Maybe it's been months that

you've been contending with some things that you thought, man, if

I, if I just get the language of God right, he'll hear me.

If I just get the language of God right, he'll, he'll be

attentive to me and he'll look into my situation.

No, Sir, no ma'am. From the moment it entered your

life, God understood. From the moment that you just

hung your head in dejection and your hands just dropped to your

your side and your knees became feeble and they quaked, God

understood. He understood he's not afar off,

He's close. He's not.

The Bible says we should seek the Lord while he yet may be

found. For he's not far, everybody say

not far. He's not far from every one of

us. So what you need tonight, What's

your situation tonight? You can talk to him, you can

reach out to him, you can lean upon him and He understands far

better, far greater than what we can even comprehend.

He understands. This altar is open tonight,

Amen. For people that need a God that

understands them, people that need a God that can understand

the circumstances, people that need a God, Amen, that can step

into the dismal picture of life and bring meaning and bring hope

and bring security and bring encouragement.

This altar is open for everyone of us.

Shall we come right now? Can we come right now, God?

Oh God, Lord, if I can just feel, Lord, your hand up on my

shoulder, If I can just feel your hand, Lord, holding mine,

it'll give me the reassurance, oh Lord, that I need to face

tomorrow. God, if I just know, Lord Jesus,

that I'm not at this by myself, that I'm not just at this Lord

alone, God, if you'll just come alongside me, You're that

comforter. The scripture says the comforter

which is the Holy Ghost, Hallelujah.

And the Greek, it's the paracolid.

It's that which comes alongside. He's that to us.

He'll come alongside us, Hallelujah.

His presence will be made known, Hallelujah.

He'll help, He'll aid. He'll bring security.

Hallelujah, Jesus. Hallelujah.

Jesus, Yes, God. Yes, God, yes God.

He's never left me. He's never forsaken me.

He'd be with me all we, even into the end of this world, of

this world, of this world.