“Living Without the Robe” | Sunday AM | Rev. Josh Smith

Genesis chapter 37, verse number three says, and this is the CSB, so if it sounds a little different, it's because it's just a little different translation.

Genesis 37 · chapter mention

It just says, 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 long-sleeved robe for him.

We all know the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors, right?

Verse number 23 says, When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped off his robe, the long-sleeve robe that he had on.

Then they took him, they threw him into the pit.

The pit was empty without water.

I just want to preach just for a little while.

Very, very short amount of time.

I want to try to condense it today.

I'm going to simply preach.

Living without the robe.

Living without the rope.

If you will preach to me today, would you put your Bibles down?

And will you lift your hands and your hearts to heaven and say, God, just speak to me today?

Lord, I love you.

We're here for you.

We're here to learn, we're here to be here in your presence.

And we just pray, Lord, that your spirit will move in our life, shape us, convict us, grow us, mature us today in your great name.

In Jesus' name.

Everybody said amen.

Amen.

You can be seated.

There are places in Scripture, there are places, namely in Psalms, where David almost seems like two different people.

If you listen to him in Psalm 8 or 16, he says, I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand.

I shall not be moved.

Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices.

David had moments in his life where he was confident in who he was, he was confident in the God that he served.

He would say in Psalm 16, He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

My heart is glad.

He knows what he believes, he knows in whom he believes, his purpose is settled.

He's secure in where he's headed as an individual.

And he sounds like a man that has figured everything out, and he just simply trusts in God.

Anybody ever been there before where it just feels like everything is so good between you and God?

Everything's secure, everything is is is near and he's close, and no matter what else is going on in life, there is a confidence that God is right there in the middle of it with me.

But then you you turn a few Psalms over to Psalm chapter 10, and the same confident David begins to speak with these words.

Psalms 10 · chapter mention

Why standest thou afar off?

Why hidest thyself in times of trouble?

It's a stark contrast from the David of Psalm 16, because in Psalm 16 he's so confident, but yet in just a few chapters later or earlier, it's it's where is this God?

You're very, very close.

You're not close at all.

In Psalm 16, God is very near.

In Psalm 10, God, where did you go?

In one psalm, his heart is glad and he's ready to rejoice.

In another psalm, his heart is heavy and his heart is hurting.

In one psalm, he says, I shall not be moved, I'm unmovable.

In another, he says, God, I've got some questions that need answers.

I believe David, if David was writing in our day and age his Psalms, someone would look at his Psalms and say, He probably needs to see somebody for this.

One moment he feels secure, the next moment he feels lost.

One moment he's safe, the next moment he's abandoned.

Maybe you've seen this play out in your own life, your own relationship with God, but can I tell you today that walking with God doesn't mean that every season of your life is going to feel the same.

There are seasons when everything seems to make sense.

You know God.

You know He's with you, He's close to you.

You know where you're going.

Your prayers seem to be working, your future looks secure and bright, and your calling feels certain, and you can almost draw a straight line from where you are to where you are going.

And then there are seasons, and maybe this is where you are today, and if not, then that's really good.

But for some of us, we have seasons where it says, How did I get here?

I still love God, I still believe the same things.

I have not walked away from God, but this is not what I have pictured for my life.

I thought I would be further along than this right now.

I thought that that door that has been closed for so long would finally be open.

I thought that that prayer would be answered maybe a little differently than God answered it.

I thought my family would look different.

I thought my ministry would look different, I thought my career would be different.

I thought at this point everything would be figured out.

Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just my life today, but there are days when God seems very, very close.

And then I walk in the prayer room the next day, and it feels like my prayers don't rise above the ceiling of the room that I am in.

One of the hardest things that we ever have to reconcile with our faith is when the life that we are living doesn't look like, feel like, or resemble what we thought we were going to live.

There are seasons and there are trials and there are troubles and there's complications to this life that we don't see coming all the time.

Sometimes the door you were sure would open doesn't open at all.

Sometimes the prayer you thought would answer one way turns out that you have waited for years and yet still no answer has come.

People you thought that were always going to be there are suddenly nowhere to be found.

Sometimes the opportunities that you thought you your name was in for and that you were good for, somebody else is now living what you thought was your life.

The family you pictured changes.

The future you were so certain about doesn't look like what you hoped it would be.

And sometimes there isn't anybody to blame.

Sometimes there's not really a devil hiding behind every disappointment.

There isn't always a mistake that you could put your finger on and you can maybe go back and correct in order to rectify and fix things.

Sometimes you did the best you knew how to do.

Sometimes you prayed and you stayed faithful to God and you tried to make all the right decisions based on prayer, and life still didn't turn out the way that you thought it would.

I don't know if this is this is you, maybe it's just me.

Sometimes, even living for God, you could still be disappointed.

You can have faith and still have questions.

You can trust Him and you can still look around at your life and say, Lord, I thought that it would be different.

Because nobody plans for the phone calls, right?

Nobody puts betrayal on the calendar.

Nobody schedules heartbreak.

Nobody dreams about losing someone or something that they love.

Nobody sits down at the kitchen table at 20 years old and says, By this age, I hope that I've experienced enough disappointment that it will completely rewrite the future that I have planned.

We make plans for this life that we think we're going to have.

And then life happens.

The Bible says it like this: it rains on the just and the unjust alike.

Sometimes what we plan is not what happens for us.

And one of perhaps one of the greatest tests of faith isn't whether or not you can praise God when the future looks exactly like you planned it to look.

Maybe the greatest test of faith is when you can still live, move, and have your being when life doesn't look like what you hoped it would look.

Maybe this is the real question for us today.

Maybe this is what we need to ask ourselves.

God, can I still worship when my plans change?

Can I still trust when I don't understand what you're doing?

Can I still find joy when the season doesn't look like what I had pictured in my mind?

God, can I still believe that you are faithful?

Can I still trust your hand?

Can I trust your plan?

When every expectation that I've ever had has been changed.

Because sooner or later, every one of us in this building will have to learn to live in the space between this is what I thought life would be and this is where life really is.

Something I find very interesting is that you can grieve something that you never actually possessed.

You can grieve an expectation.

And you can grieve an opportunity.

You can grieve a part of yourself that you thought you would become but never did.

And where I feel like maybe a lot of us end up is that we can grieve a future that only existed in our imagination because we had visited what the future was going to hold a thousand times in our mind, and now it's not happening the way I thought it would happen.

Eventually the question becomes How do I live here?

How do I worship here?

How do I remain faithful to God here?

How do I keep praying, God, when I don't understand what you're doing?

How do I live when I don't recognize the life that I'm living?

And after months of studying and praying over the same questions, because it takes me a little while to get myself out of the way, I feel like the Lord gave me an answer, and I want to share that with you this morning.

Joseph is 17 years old in Genesis 37.

When we are introduced to this child by the name of Joseph, he's 17 years old.

And one of the things that jumps right off the pages is that everything in his life seems to be pointing towards a future.

His father loves him deeply, while his brothers hate him.

It's clear through the text in Scripture that there is something that Joseph has that's just different than every other child.

And Jacob does something that makes that distinction even more visible.

We were talking about this on the way up here, and I felt like there's some emotional damage for the brothers of Joseph.

In Genesis 37, verse 3, it says, Israel or Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children.

Genesis 37:3

And he made him a coat of many colors.

Keep in mind, Jacob is not getting a best dad award anytime soon.

There's not the best dad mug sitting on his desk or on his table in sight.

This that we're talking about is not the whole like dad loves his little girl more than everybody else just so he can poke fun at his sons kind of thing.

That's not what this love is.

Jacob legitimately loves Joseph more.

There's some emotional damage here to the brothers of Joseph.

Because they realize and they recognize that dad loves Joseph more than me.

And then here's what Jacob does to smooth that over.

To make sure that everything is good at Christmas time when everybody comes home.

Jacob says, in case you didn't know how I feel about Joseph, I'm gonna give him a coat of many colors.

It's gonna be bright, it's gonna be beautiful, you're gonna see it from a mile away, and you're gonna know that daddy loves him more than all of you combined.

That's a rough life to no best dad mugs in Jacob's house.

But Jacob puts this garment on Joseph.

Whatever else we say about that garment, everybody that saw Joseph understood that that garment meant something special.

It distinguished who he was, it brought him out of the crowd and set him apart.

It connected Joseph to the favor of his father.

Joseph could wear something on his shoulders that literally said, My father loves me more than anything else.

And then Joseph starts dreaming.

He dreams about sheaves in a field bowing before his sheaves.

Then he dreams about the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowing before him.

And suddenly it's not just Jacob that's got a problem with how he feels.

Now Joseph can't keep his mouth shut.

And now the brothers that already have a strained relationship with Joseph are saying, Are we supposed to bow before you?

But you see, Joseph was wearing a robe.

And the robe says that you're favored, and the robe says that you're going somewhere, and the robe says there's something different about you, Joseph.

And the dream says there's something ahead of you, and the dream says that there's some place for you to go, there's a robe, and there's a dream.

Everything looks good for Joseph.

He doesn't know all the details, but his life is heading in a direction.

He has something from his father on his shoulders, and something from God within his heart.

Everything seems to be clicking and working in his life, and those are wonderful seasons, and when what you're carrying on the inside of you seems to match what is happening on the outside of your walls, and when the callings and the opportunities begin to align, and when what you prayed for and what you're experiencing look like they are heading in the same direction, those are beautiful seasons.

And Joseph has every reason to believe that he knows something about his future, he knows where he belongs.

The other boys may not get to come home one day, but I know that there's always a place for me at Jacob's table.

I know that no matter what happens in my life, I can come home because daddy loves me more than everybody else.

I know where I'm gonna sleep tonight.

I know what clothes I'm gonna put on in the morning, and just life makes sense for Joseph.

Anyone just not like Joseph anymore?

And then one afternoon everything begins to change.

Genesis 37, verse 23, says it like this.

Genesis 37:23

And it came to pass when Joseph was coming to his brethren that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him.

We can't move past this very quickly.

Because the reality is, is they took what the father gave him.

The thing that separated him from everything else, the thing that distinguished him, the thing that represented home and represented a father's favor and everything familiar about his life.

That's what that coat was.

Then they threw him in a pit.

Eventually they pulled him out, sold him to traveling merchants, and Joseph began a journey toward Egypt.

Think about how fast his life changed.

Yesterday he was Jacob's son living with favor.

Today he's merchandise to be sold.

Yesterday he had brothers.

Today he's surrounded by men he does not know their name.

Yesterday he knew where he was gonna go to bed that night and what he was gonna put on that day, and today he doesn't even know where they're taking him anymore.

Yesterday he was dreaming about tomorrow.

Today he has no idea what tomorrow holds at all.

And somewhere on that road toward Egypt, Jacob begins to learn something that every one of us will have to learn one day.

Lord, how do I live without the robe?

How do I live when life doesn't turn out the way that I planned?

How do I live when the ministry I thought that you had given me isn't what I'm going to fulfill?

How do you live when the calling is still there, but everything that you associated with the calling has changed?

How do you live when the marriage, the family, the career, the opportunity, the future that I planned doesn't look like what I had in mind?

How do you live when you still have a dream, but you no longer have the robe?

It's a real question this morning.

But the answer is found in the Word of God in Genesis chapter 37, verse 3.

Genesis 37:3

When it says, Now Jacob, or now Israel, loved Joseph more than all of his children, and he made him a coat.

You have to notice the order in which Joseph received the coat.

Jacob first loved him and then gave him a coat.

Joseph did not become the son of Jacob because Jacob put a coat on him.

Before there was ever a robe, there was a relationship.

Before there was ever distinction, he was first son.

Before there was ever a dream that came from his heart and out of his mouth, he was still the son of Jacob.

Before anybody could see anything going on in his life, before they could see the coat, before they could see distinction, before they could see elevation, he was first son without a robe.

Can I just tell you this morning that the robe that you have on your life, the calling, the anointing, the talent, the family, the marriage, the health in your body, the potential of your life does not create the relationship between you and your father.

The relationship of you between you and God gives significance to who you are.

It is not the calling, the anointing, the robe that you wear that says, I have relationship.

No, it's the love of a father.

I am first a son, I am first a daughter, and the robe is what God bestowed on me.

The robe did not make Joseph a son.

The son made the robe.

When Joseph's brothers stripped the robe from his shoulders, they took something meaningful out of his life.

But they could not take the most important thing.

Because what they could not remove from him was that he was still a son of Jacob.

They could not change who his father was.

Maybe that's the first thing that you got to know today when life doesn't turn out how you plan.

You have to know who you are underneath every talent, every ability, under self-worth, every all under all underneath all of it, you have to remember who you first are.

Because if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we will start identifying ourselves by the robes we wear.

My ministry becomes my robe.

My validation comes from the position that I hold.

My career is what I am.

My success is what I am.

My plans for the future is absolutely what I am.

What people think about me is the robe that I put on, and the place I occupy right now is who I really am.

Then when something changes, we don't just say, I lost something.

Our words are, I don't know who I am anymore.

I don't know who I am when the job is not there.

I don't know who I am when my family isn't, you know, vibing like they should be.

I don't know who I am when life changes on a dime.

Hear me this morning.

Before you were anything, you were his.

Before you ever did anything, you were his.

Before any title, before any position, before any success, before anybody recognized that you had callings and giftings on your life, before you accomplished anything in this world at all, you were his before anything else.

What we have to come to terms with is that if every robe gets stripped away, we have to be able to reach underneath all of that and realize that I am still his.

Jeremiah proclaimed it this way.

He said, Before he formed me in the belly, he knew me.

David would echo that in Psalm 139 when he said, For you created my inmost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful.

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in the book before one of them ever came to be.

Before I was anything, I was a child of God.

I was seen by him, loved by him, and cared for by him.

Can I tell you today, you're in the same boat.

Before anything ever happened in your life, he loved you, he cared for you, he saw you, he put you together in your mother's womb.

Any before any calling, any trauma, any drama, God first loved you.

You're still a daughter, you're still a son, and you're still seen by him.

Our circumstances change, but our identity does not change.

Plans change, but who our father is does not change at all.

I think this is where a lot of us can get stuck.

Is when the things start changing.

When something ends, right?

When seasons begin to shift.

When life takes a turn.

I didn't see that coming.

There's a good book.

It's called I Didn't See It Coming.

We've all lived in that season, right?

I didn't see that coming.

Didn't know that was going to happen.

And we spend years.

What happens is when things begin to shift, if we're not careful, we will spend years in this state of perpetual non-motion, trying to get back the robe we were wearing when life changed.

We will keep trying to go back and recreate what we lost.

And rather than allowing God to move us into the next season, we will keep looking, God, can you just bring it all back?

God, if I if I got that same robe, I'll put it right back on.

God, if I if you could just open that door again, God, if you could just bring my family, if you could just do everything like I want it done, then it'll all be good.

And we end up stuck in the season of not allowing God to move us forward until He first fixes and recreates what I lost.

I want to live, I want to live a life that I'm used to, and I want the old confidence back, and I want the opportunities back, and I want the way that life was supposed to turn out before something broke that.

I want my plans to come back, and I want the person I used to be to come back.

We can spend so much of our life trying to recover the life we thought we were supposed to have, that we never allow God to move us into the season where He's trying to take us.

God never takes Joseph backwards.

If you read scripture, there's not a single moment in Joseph's life where Joseph gets to go back to Jacob's house, pick up that old dirty, nasty, bloodstained robe, wash it off, and put it back on.

There's not a single moment where Joseph gets to walk back to Jacob's house, kick open the door, and be like, hey brothers, you thought you got rid of me, but here I am.

There was none of that in Joseph's life.

Joseph had to get acquainted with living life after he lost the robe.

When the favor was all gone, when the money was all gone, when the favor was all gone, when dad wasn't in sight.

He had to learn how do I pick my life up and trust God with my future?

How do I look God in the eye and say, God, my life doesn't look like it should, but I trust you in this season to just lead me and guide me.

Faith is not believing that God will take you back to what you lost.

We get so confused sometimes about faith.

I got faith that God's gonna restore all those things I lost.

Faith is saying, God, if I never get it back, if you never take me back to that direction again, I will trust you when I can't see.

Faith is not trusting that God will give you what you lost.

Faith is saying, God, if you moved it out of my life, I'm gonna believe that you've got something prepared for me.

I'll trust you when I can't see what's going on.

It doesn't mean that we don't grieve it, though, right?

Like we grieve loss.

Joseph grieved things, David grieved things.

We all grieve things.

We're human.

Grief isn't unbelief.

But if we're not careful, we can grieve to a point that it stalls our life.

At some point in time, we have to release the grief of what our life should have been, would have been, and could have been, and say, God, I'm trusting you in this next season and I'm gonna follow after you.

We cannot spend the rest of our life staring backwards at a bloodstained robe and say, God, just take me back to that.

Because at some point we've got to turn towards Egypt and say, I don't know where this road is going.

I don't know what this future looks like, God.

I didn't choose this road.

This is the road that I planned.

But if this is the road I'm on, then God teach me how to walk it with you.

Teach me how to praise you right here in the middle of this road.

Teach me how to worship here, teach me how to follow you in this season.

Genesis 39, verse 2 is one of the most important statements in Joseph's entire story.

Genesis 39:2

Joseph arrives in Egypt.

And the Bible records his arrival in Egypt like this.

And the Lord was with Joseph.

From Genesis 37 to like Genesis 44, 12 different times, in one wording or another, it says, no matter the season that Joseph was in, the Lord was with Joseph.

That ought to be the most comforting, reassuring things in your life.

When everything else is shaken apart, and when everything else is breaking, and when you have no idea what way you're going, can I just tell you today, in a promise from the Lord, that He is with you.

He has never left you, He has never abandoned you, and He has never forgotten about you.

The Lord is with you in Egypt, He's with you in the uncertainty, He's with you in the pain, He's with you in the grief, He's with you in the season changes of your life.

He's with you in every single moment.

And then Joseph becomes a servant in Potiphar's house.

And the Bible says the Lord was with Joseph even in Potiphar's house.

And Joseph does something that we would say that's really hard to do.

That's a really daunting task.

In the midst of all the uncertainty, you know what we never find Joseph doing?

We never find him one time refusing to work in Potiphar's house because this isn't where he was supposed to be.

Not once does Joseph say, I'm not operating here.

I'm not getting involved in this church.

This isn't where I was supposed to be.

Not once does he say, I'm not doing anything because this isn't what God initially planned for me.

No, Joseph got in and he began to work and he began to toil and he began to do things with integrity and he began to do things with character.

And he would say, God, if you've brought me here, I'm gonna plant my feet down.

I don't know where I'm going, but I know that I can work for you where I am, and so I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna get my hands dirty, and I'm gonna trust the process and trust the plan that where I am, this is where you have called me to be.

And then we find Joseph in a different robe.

He doesn't spend every morning sitting in Potiphar's house saying, I'm not participating in this life because this isn't the life I wanted.

He begins to live the life that God has placed him in.

And then everything falls apart again.

Potiphar's wife grabs Joseph by his garment and tries to pull him into sin.

And the Bible says that Joseph runs and leaves the garment behind.

There it is again.

Having to live without the robe.

Oh God, you don't understand.

I was respected in Potiphar's house.

I finally got my life back on track, and everything was going good.

I had respect and I had dignity and I was somebody again, and yet you took the robe again.

Another garment, another drastic life change.

Now he loses even more.

First he lost home.

Now he loses his reputation and he loses his freedom.

In Genesis 39, 21 it says, But the Lord God was with Joseph.

No robe, but God was with him.

No father's house, no honor, no reputation, no freedom.

But in the midst of it all, there is God.

Joseph keeps losing things around him, but he never loses the presence of God.

Maybe we have spent too much of our lives looking for robes as the evidence that God is with us.

Look at this robe.

I'm highly favored of God.

Look at this gifting.

God must love me.

Or maybe if God were really with me, this would all have worked out.

If God really was with me, the door would have opened.

If God was with me, I wouldn't be going through this.

But hear me in the spirit this morning.

The presence of God is not proven by the presence of the robe.

The presence of God is present because before you ever had a robe, you were a son and a daughter of Christ.

What talent you have and what gifting you have does not mean that you are a child of God.

You are a child of God, and God gives liberally to his children because he loves us, which means that we will go through seasons where everything is stripped away.

But in the middle of it all, he is still God, and he's still with you in the middle of every change.

Stand with me this morning.

Years pass.

Years pass.

And when we talk about Joseph, it's always Joseph and his coat of many colors.

Ninety-nine percent of what we know about Joseph was when he did not have the coat.

99% of what we know about the integrity of Joseph and the character of Joseph and his pursuit of the things of God, we find out when life didn't treat him fair.

When the future didn't look like what he was hoping it was going to look like.

When the robe was gone, that's when we find out who Joseph really was.

The robe did not make Joseph.

Joseph made the robe.

Can I tell you today, I don't know what season of life you're in, I don't know what you're dealing with, and I don't know what you're going through.

And I don't know what feels like a closed-off future to you.

I don't know what has been lost, and I don't know what you're grieving today.

But can I tell you today, no matter what robe you lost, and no matter what God has transitioning or shifting in your life, can I tell you one thing?

Can I make you one promise?

That God loves you, He cares about you.

You are a son and a daughter of the Most High.

And no matter where you are, God will robe you for the season, not robe you to for the rest of your life.

We are robed for seasons.

In his father's house, he was robed as the most honorable of the children, the most loved of all of them.

He took on a new robe in Potiphar's house.

It's a new season.

But we find him again at the end of the story, standing before his brothers.

And just a few verses before he's standing there, you find a verse, it's just a little small verse.

Where the Bible says, Pharaoh handed him a ring and handed him a garment.

There was a season of Joseph's life where he was the most favored in his father's house.

That led him straight to be the most favored in Potiphar's house, that led him to be the most favored in a prison, which led him to standing before his brothers as the second in command in all of Egypt.

And you want to know what I believe in the inside of Joseph, he could say today.

I don't know how I got here.

This isn't the way that I looked at my life, and I never thought when I was 17 years old in my father's house that I would end up second in command in this place.

But what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

And I am standing here today, not by my own strength and not by my own might, not because I got it all together, but I am standing here because I refuse to keep tending the grave of a robe that died thirty years ago.

But I am operating and living in faith and in trust that what I'm in right now, God has got a plan in all of this for me.