It Happened, But There’s Still Hope. Pastor Steven Furtick

Some of you are standing in front of something that

has hurt you and disappointed you, and you can't make

sense of it. And the question tonight is, do not

interpretations belong to God? Because in this moment of your life,

the way you interpret what is standing in front of you,

whether it's in the form of an opportunity or opposition,

will determine the momentum that you have going forward into

the rest of your life. And now Joseph is in

a position of power. But what happens next in his

life depends on what he does in this moment. The

Bible says in Genesis 45 verse 1. Then Joseph could

Genesis 45:1

not control himself before all those who stood by him.

And he cried, 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.

And Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Up

until this point, they didn't know who he was because

he looked so different than he did the last time

they saw him. Sometimes what God will take you through

in your life will make the people who used to

know you unable to recognize you. But the test comes

when you have to decide what you are going to

do with the people who did not recognize what God

had put in you. And in many cases resisted it.

Now Joseph is in this moment and he identifies himself.

I am Joseph. Is my father still alive? But his

brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at

his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near

to me, please. See, it's really hard to interpret your

situation from a distance. And when you keep things at

a distance and deal with things at a distance and

keep it out here and refuse to call it closer,

I want you to think about the magnitude of this moment.

When he calls the same brothers who almost destroyed his

life close to him so that he can speak to them.

And the question is, how will he interpret this moment?

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

And they came near and he said, I am your brother, Joseph,

whom you sold into Egypt. In verse 5, verse 5

is my assignment. He said, and now do not be

distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here.

You see that? For God sent me before you to

preserve life. Again. And now do not be distressed or

angry with yourselves Because you sold me here. For God

sent me before you to preserve life. I noticed two

things in that verse. And they contradict one another on

the surface. Joseph said, you sold me. But then he says,

God sent me. And when I was studying the text...

I was asking the question, well, which one is it?

You sold me or God sent me. And what God

spoke to me about that is the first one is

the event. But the second one is the interpretation. The

first one is what you did. But the second one

is what I decided about what you did. It is

not the event that determines the direction of your life.

It is not the event that determines the outcome of

this season. It is not the event that determines the

trajectory of your ministry. It is your interpretation. Do not

interpretations belong to God? So I'm not downplaying what you

did to me. You pushed me into that pit. It's

a fact. It happened. I can't take it back. I

can't change it. I didn't like it. It wasn't right.

You broke my heart. You left me alone. You should

have been there and you weren't there. You talked about me.

You left me by myself. You said you would and

you didn't. You sold me but God sent me and

all at the same time. It's not two separate realities.

It is one event and two interpretations. So I came

to ask you a question tonight. Do not interpretations belong

to God? Do you want to live in the reality

of the event or the revelation?

See, I used to always.

Expect God to respond to my prayers with an intervention.

And the more I read the story of Joseph, I

realized that in many different situations, God chose not to

intervene for Joseph. And God chose not to change the

situation at all. Silence. Silence. This should have been a

breakout session, really.

I'm telling you.

This is the kind of message that I never wanted

to hear. Because I thought that God would always change

the situation if I had enough faith to change it.

And then a few situations came into my life. that

no matter how much I prayed about them, or no

matter how much I fought, the situation didn't change. But

the more I prayed, the more I started to change.

I need an interpretation. I need an interpretation of what

I'm going through in my life right now. I need

God to show me why my children are acting crazy.

I need God to show me.

If you don't learn to interpret situations, that's the greatest

gift that the Spirit of God gives is the ability

to interpret a situation according to your faith, not your feelings.

And I am learning this more and more that my

interpretation is so off sometimes because I interpret other people's.

Reactions through my own insecurities. And so I keep trying

to judge people's responses to me. But if I'm interpreting

it through my own insecurities, I look like grasshoppers in

my own eyes, not in theirs. That's an interpretation. The

first time I preached internationally through an interpreter, I was

so nervous that I called one of the men in

our church who had Preached internationally more than I had.

And I said, you got any tips for me? He

was like, yeah. Pray for a good interpreter. And I said, well,

what makes a good interpreter? And he said a few things.

But I said, how will I know if I've got

a bad one? He said, well, when you finish talking,

if he talks a lot longer than you just talked,

you've got a bad interpreter. If you say one sentence

and he says three, then he's adding something to what

you just said. You've got a bad interpreter. And I

came all the way from Charlotte, North Carolina to tell

a few, you've got a bad interpreter. Because you keep

adding stuff. You keep hearing things that aren't there and

seeing things that aren't there and thinking things that aren't true.

Some of you need to fire your interpreter because you

are interpreting your present through the lens of your past.

And so you're dragging all of that pain and all

of that resentment and all of that regret. And you

are in the prison of your own perspective. And so

what God has given you really is good. And it

really is a reason to celebrate. And you really could

be content. But your interpreter is telling you stuff. based

on what other people have. You know, it's a terrible

way to interpret your life through somebody else's Instagram post

because that is not their real life. That is not

their real family. Their kids only acted like that for

three seconds for them to take the picture and then

they started biting each other. It is not real. It

is an illusion. And Paul said, pray for the power

to interpret. Now, I don't just want the power to

interpret tongues. I want the power to interpret my trials

and my tests. And my trauma. Because if I don't

interpret it correctly. If God doesn't give me the power

to interpret it. I'll fight all the wrong battles on

all the wrong levels. And I'll send my brothers away.

Because they hurt me when they were the very opportunity

that God gave me. Hey, thanks for watching.

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