The Dream Fulfilled

we're going to read several verses from genesis chapter 41 and chapter 42. we've been studying the life of joseph and we will wrap that up with this lesson today so from genesis 41 the first verse says this read the first part of that it came to pass at the end of two full years that pharaoh dreamed now if you remember that was two full years that joseph was in prison at that point and so it said after two full years then it goes on to verse in 14 then pharaoh sent and called joseph and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon he shaved himself he changes rhema and he came in unto pharaoh jumping down to verse 38 pharaoh said unto his servants can we find such a one as this a man whom the spirit of god is and pharaoh said unto joseph for as much as god hath showed thee all this there is none so discreet and wise as thou art thou shalt be over my house and according to thy word shall all my people be ruled only in the throne will i be greater than thou and pharaoh said unto joseph see i have set thee over all the land of egypt pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and he put it on joseph's hand he arrayed him investors of fine linen he put a gold chain about his neck and he made him ride in the second chariot which he had and they cried before him bow the knee and he made him ruler over all the land of egypt and then from chapter 42 the first few verses there said now when jacob saw that there was corn in egypt jacob said unto his sons why do you look upon one another and he said behold i have heard that there's corn in egypt get you down hither and buy us for us some that we may live and not die and joseph's ten brother went down to buy corn in egypt but benjamin joseph's brother jacob sent not to his brother and for he said lest per adventure mischief befall him and so the sons of israel came to buy corn among all those among those that came for the famine was in the land of canaan and joseph was the governor over the land and he it was that sold all the people of the land sold to all the people and joseph's brethren came and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth lesson today is about the dream fulfilled the dream fulfilled quick question as we get into this lesson do any of you like to do puzzles anybody put puzzles together there's a few of you that do and i'm not it's not really a hobby not something i do on a regular basis but if there's one going somebody's got one out i'm ready to sit down and help piece it all together so i do like the challenge of putting putting a puzzle together and everyone probably approaches a puzzle differently but i think probably most do it the way i do usually try to put the frame together first because it's all the pieces with straight edges usually so you find all of those and you get the frame put together and and with that out of the way then we begin filling in the rest of the puzzle and putting it together and fortunately most puzzles will come in a box or some kind of a container with a picture of what the completed puzzle should look like you look at the picture and say okay let's see all these blues go over here that that leg goes down here this goes here and we we put it together and without the picture the puzzle becomes infinitely more difficult doesn't it if you've got a pile of pieces and you have no idea what it's supposed to look like when it's through it becomes very difficult to put that puzzle together i don't know what the artist had in mind when they took this picture or drew this picture you know do the blues really go up here at the top or is this water and it's going to go where is it going to go and so we're trying to put it all together it becomes difficult to look at random pieces with no idea what the final result will be leaves us mostly just trial and error well you know eventually it starts to come together and you see what's going on but it just isn't so easy and life is like a puzzle isn't it every day another piece we're given that we have to fit into our story and here's the thing about life none of us know what the final picture is going to look like i would venture to say if we would take the time right now and most of us if

we would sit down and say 30 years ago here's where i thought i'd be and here's where i thought what i thought we'd probably say no i had no idea did not know this was going to happen in my life this is not where i figured i would be or how it would all end up we really don't know what that final picture of our life will look like now wouldn't it be nice if god just laid it all out for you said here's your life and here's a picture and here's how it's going to end here's where you're going to be here's what what you're going to be here's where you're going to go this is how it's going to happen this is when you're going to get there wouldn't that make life easy well we think it would we think it would except i imagine if if he gave you that dream at a young age that we would probably spend our life trying to make it happen to come out the way we think it should and how often the truth is we'd probably mess things up trying to reach the destiny that god has for us perhaps that's why so few have that kind of experience now joseph was an exception and i'll give just a quick recap here at 17 god gave him two dreams showing him that he was going to be a ruler and one day his entire family would bow down to him so rather than start that journey toward becoming their master joseph's life seemed to go in the other direction he did not immediately say well god said i'm going to rule so i'm going to rule he didn't take that attitude he just lived life and and took what happened as it came so he studied in the two previous lessons joseph life at first with the dreams it seemed to go good and then it got bad and then it got worse and then it got to the unimaginable his father had promised joseph the birthright in other words he was going to get the largest inheritance that usually went to the eldest son and he gave him a special garment the code of many colors that we talk about to solidify that promise so everyone would know joseph was going to be the leader or the one with the birthright his jealous brothers found an opportunity when joseph was out in the wilderness where they were herding sheep and they took his coat away from him and they put joseph down in a pit or a dry well with the intentions of letting him die however the opportunity came to sell him into slavery some people were going through heading toward egypt and so they jumped to the chant said why kill him let's make some money on this deal so they sold him made a little profit and joseph finds himself in egypt sold into the house of pro potiphar which ultimately ended up being a fairly cushy job he was over everything that potiphar had everything seemed well he was doing really good potiphar's household was doing well and joseph was managing it all for him and it all seemed well until potiphar's wife sets her eyes upon joseph and joseph continually refused her advances and so she takes an opportunity to frame him and he ends up in prison even in prison though god blesses him while there and although he was still a prisoner he still couldn't get out yet he became the right hand man to the prison keeper and so that status put him in contact with two men close to pharaoh himself two people that had worked with pharaoh directly who were for a short time in prison they both have dreams joseph interprets them to one he says you're going to die in three days to the other he said you're going back to work with pharaoh so you will be back in pharaoh's presence and so he asked then he said pharaoh when you get back there he said can you mention him to me to pharaoh hoping to get a pardon or get out and that's where we left joseph at the end of the last lesson he was still in prison and but the butler had forgotten him and so this story starts out two years after that it said it came to pass at the end of two full years no doubt joseph as he looked at the puzzle of his life there were a lot of pieces that just didn't seem to fit the picture he remembered from his dream here's the promise i'm going to be the leader i'm going to be the ruler i'm going to be the one they bow down to and here's the reality i'm hundreds of miles away in another country in a prison and it seems like everyone

has forgotten me even the butler who was supposed to be helping me out it's a testament to joseph's character i believe that he didn't try to force his way into the role that he saw in his dream god had spoken to him and gave him direction but he didn't say you know what i'm gonna get there i don't care what anybody does who i have to step on but rather he continued trusting god to work things out in his life even when he couldn't see how it would ever come to be i look at these pieces and none of it makes sense i thought this goes over here evidently it doesn't it doesn't work i thought this part goes over here i thought this is what the picture was going to be and nothing seems to be right but through it all he continued trusting god to work things out that's that ever more thing that's that faithfulness saying you know what i'm going to believe and i'm going to keep my hand in hand even when he could not see how it was ever going to be so genesis 41 opens with a report that pharaoh has a couple of dreams given in probably the same night the way the passage reads and in the first dream pharaoh saw 12 well-fed cattle come up out of the nile and begin to feed on its banks big fat cattle they looked like they had been eaten and enjoying a lot of good food and so he was looking at those and then all of a sudden seven more cattle that looked like they were starving and diseased they come up out of the river and they ate the well-fed cattle well you know that's kind of disturbing dream and he wakes up and puzzles like what in the world was that about and thought about it a while and finally falls back asleep no interpretation no insight not really knowing wow what a crazy dream and he falls asleep again the second time and he dreams and this time he sees a stalk of corn with seven full ears that's a lot of ears on a stalk of corn i've been around corn fields that's a lot on one stock but seven nice plump ears of corn and all of a sudden seven more ears pop out that are withered on that same stalk and they consumed the full ears of corn again pharaoh awake and it troubled him it said in verse eight and it came to pass in the morning that his his spirit was troubled strange dreams i'd like to know what in the world is this all about and so he sent and called for all the magicians or the sorcerers of egypt and all the wise men that were there and all the astrologers and everybody that he could get a hold of and he told them his dream and the bible says there was none that could turn interpret them unto pharaoh we don't have any idea what you're talking about pharaoh now the interesting thing was in the religion of egypt the pharaoh was believed to be almost a god he was a demigod if you will he was the embodiment of the will of the gods at least that's how they looked at him and the fact that pharaoh couldn't even figure it out really said something about well maybe you're not who you think you are right and then he calls in all the wise men and they can't do it either and pharaoh is getting pretty upset you see a failure to interpret failure to do those things in those days was often grounds for death i think of daniel's story when nebuchadnezzar had some dreams and he answered to his wise people he said if you will not make known unto me the dream with the interpretation you're going to be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill so there's a little bit of pressure there you either tell me what this dream is and what it means or you're gone and when they could not do it the bible says in daniel 2 12 it said for this cause the king was angry and very furious and he commanded to destroy all the wise men of babylon and the decree even went out forth that the wise men should be slain now fortunately daniel stepped up and said wait a minute don't be so hasty king i got the interpretation but all of this occurred while joseph was still in prison he was completely unaware i had no idea what was going on he wasn't part of it he wasn't part of the wise men that were there he wasn't part of that group and so had no idea the events that were taking place in pharaoh's court in fact if you recall from that last lesson joseph did

request assistance he said this to the butler he said think on me when it should be well with me show kindness i pray the end of me make mentioning me into pharaoh and bring me out of this house or out of this prison butler forgot him and so joseph is there in prison having no idea what was going on but in the midst of all of that just at the opportune moment when pharaoh was ready to destroy the wise men and have them all killed or whatever things reach that pitch the butler suddenly says hey wait wait a minute you know what a couple of years ago when i was in prison i remember there was a guy there and i had a dream and he interpreted it and it came out just like he said it was going to do and he finally after those two years he remembered joseph but here's what's even more certain than the fact that the butler remembered joseph god never forgot joseph he knew exactly where he was and he was putting those pieces together while joseph was in prison trying to put those pieces of his lives together god was working beyond anything joseph even know about putting in place things joseph could never even imagine can i tell you this morning that he is doing the same for you whoever you are wherever you are whatever you are in life perhaps even today none of the pieces of your life seem to make sense and you put it together and you're just going through life and you say here i really don't understand there's no purpose there's whatever yet god is working to do his will and purpose in your life i believe you're here today even whether it's the first time or the ten thousandth time that you've come to this this assembly and you're here but it is because god has a purpose for your life in fact he said this in jeremiah 29 he said god speaking said i know the thoughts that i think toward you saith the lord he didn't say you know what they are but he said i know what they are he said and they are thoughts of peace and not of evil and here's why to give you an expected end now that may not be what you expect but it's the end that god expects for your life and so he says i know the thoughts i know what i want to do in your life to give you the correct in the expected end to bring you in to the things that i have from you and so with all speed pharaoh calls in joseph probably just a matter of a few short hours joe's entire life suddenly turns around here he is in prison and now he is standing before the most powerful king on earth at that time and pharaoh recognized that his fate hung on joseph's ability to interpret dreams and as crucial as that moment was for pharaoh no one else could answer his dreams it was even more crucial for joseph that moment was really going to determine the kind of leader that joseph would be you see joseph probably had an opportunity to capitalize on his ability he could have said now wait a minute wait you want me to go to pharaoh interpret his dream well first off i've been in this prison long enough and here's what i want if i'm getting out of here he's going to put potiphar in jail make up for my problems maybe put the wife in there too that caused all the trouble he said that's going to happen and then i'm going to become this and you're going to do that no he didn't do any of that stuff he humbly came before him and said you know what god will give the interpretation he didn't take credit he didn't say well you know what i'll come in there and i'll just show them what i know or what i can do he said the answer it's not in me god is going to give pharaoh an answer a piece so he used that moment to become instead of using it to become the focal point joseph pointed away from himself you know what god has been faithful to me that would be hard for some of us to say wouldn't it have this dream god said here's where you're going i end up in a pit brothers want to kill me i end up getting sold into slavery i end up in jail they forget me while i'm in there and yet he's saying you know what god has been faithful and he is going to give the answer joseph chose the path of humility and faithfulness and service we again see him refusing to put the pieces of the best puzzle together but rather let god do it for him and

the bible says in verse 25 41 25 and joseph said unto pharaoh the dream is one in other words both dreams are the same dream or have the same result god has showed pharaoh what god what he is about to do and so joseph recognized the dreams were the same sequence of events and he said this and that the dream was doubled unto pharaoh twice in other words and since you saw two dreams that have the same outcome he said it is because the thing is established by god and god will bring it to pass shortly so know this pharaoh it's certain it's going to happen god's saying so and he is going to bring this dream to pass shortly it is going to happen so those dreams the interpretation were the next 14 years of harvest for the first seven years he points out to pharaoh egypt was going to have an incredibly rich harvard bumper crops everything's going to be perfect the rains are going to come at the right time it's going to dry out everything's going to be good so you have great crops unlike anything you've ever seen before in egypt great fat harvest and at the abundance of that are coming seven years of famine that are going to be so severe that it's going to just literally consume everything that you stored everything that you had in the first seven years and so it's going to be a terrible time again sometimes if we're not careful we already mentioned that you know they looked at pharaoh was almost being a god and his wise men who were serving him and it's easy to miss the significance of the challenge here to the egyptians religious convictions these years of plenty and famine were pictured as issue and forth from the nile river they expected that they worshipped the nile they expected those great things to happen but now he's saying denial out of that same nile is going to come famine you're relying on this this river and there's going to be a famine and it was the god of the hebrews a god they didn't serve or worship that was explaining and revealing to failure really his superior power and showing that hey i know what's going on well pharaoh recognized it enough to put joseph in a position you see joseph had learned the crucial lesson of patience and lying relying on god unlike pharaoh when confronted with an unknown and an unexpected future joseph didn't panic instead he had learned that god's going to speak in his own time in his own way and to be sure but always not not really to know what it was but always exactly the voice that was needed and joseph could stand with confidence before pharaoh he could say it boldly knowing that the same god who had given him interpretations of the butler and the baker's dream would not fail to give him this interpretation and so with complete confidence he spoke to pharaoh and told him what was going to happen i think there's an important principle at work in this story and this one one that can help us as we look toward our dreams and it's this joseph was faithful to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker while he was in prison where no one else would know where no one else was around was just the three of them talking and he interpreted it and often god will ask us to work or he will put us in places that are obscure and kind of out of the way now when we get a promise or a calling or a gift or something from god our first thought is i'm going right to the top i'm going to go make this happen and we'd all like to do that but jesus said this and gabe gives us this axiom and this is a good thing for us to remember he that is faithful in that which is least he said will be faithful also in much and he said and if you're unjust in the least then you will also be unjust in love in much what he was saying is you have to be faithful in all the little things well god called me to do this and instead i'm cleaning the church or god called me to this and said i'm just teaching a sunday school class and i feel like i ought to be doing this and i ought to be you be faithful wherever god puts you you continue to do that evermore kind of thing joseph learned to exercise his gift in a place where nobody's gonna see and literally no one even found out about it until two years later but because he was

faithful in little and he was faithful to god god was faithful to him and brought him into a much greater role we see the same principle at work in david's life you remember david he was before saul and he was going to challenge goliath why was david so confident that he could beat that giant what was it about that david lets us know he said this in first samuel 17 he said david told saul he said thy servant or me i kept my father's sheep he said and there came a lion and there came a bear and they took a lamb out of the flock and i went after him and i smote him and delivered it out of his mouth and when he arose against me so he goes right to this lion pulls the lamb out of his mouth and when he rose against me i caught him by his beard or his mane and i smote him and slew him thy servant me slew both the lion and the bear and this un circumcised philistine this goliath shall be as one of them because he has defiled the armies of the living god david had a confidence because he was faithful in a little judean hillside tending some sheep when no one else was around just doing what he was supposed to be doing at that time and he saw god help him and strengthen him and because he was faithful in that he knew that god was going to help him now on a larger stage be faithful in the small things and in fact later on it came to pass as they came david returned from the slaughter of the philistines a woman came out of the cities of israel singing and dancing to meet king saul but what were they singing hey we're coming out to meet saul and we've got tambourines and we're in music we're singing and dancing and here's what they sang saul you've slain thousands but david he's slain ten thousands begin to sing his praises why because david was faithful when no one else was around and when the opportunity came god put him in that position and god was faithful to him james remind us this humble yourselves in the sight of the lord and he will lift you up joseph don't try to put all the pieces together and make it work out the way you think it ought to be just let god continue to work in your life now it's interesting and it was a pretty bold move joseph didn't stop with offering pharaoh the meaning of the dreams he immediately begins to suggest a plan so since that's going to happen here's what you ought to do you ought to search you out somebody that's wise and someone that could go around it and chances are he wasn't necessarily thinking of himself he was just saying find somebody you know he'd never managed a farming operation or anything like that but he said find somebody that's wise can take care of it and we'll gather in and take a portion of every crop and store it and we'll buy it and you can have them store it away and then when the seven years come then you'll have all this storehouse and you'll be able to distribute it and pharaoh looked at him and said well i don't see anybody around here any more wise than you are you're the guy nobody else could interpret the dream no one else could tell me what it was you must be pretty wise and so as the rest of the narrative bar bears out joseph's plan succeeded so well that egypt not only had enough grain to eat but they began to sell it to other nations as in the story of joseph's success in potiphar's house we mentioned this a couple weeks ago the success he had in potiphar's house once again there's a little word that we see here used several times in this description that word all remember we talk about potter potiphar's house how god blessed all the things of his house and joseph was over all the things of the house here's what it says in 41 and 37 of genesis the thing was good in the eyes of pharaoh and in the eyes of all his servants in verse 39 for as much as god hath showed thee all this there's nobody else as wise as you are in verse 40 he said according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled and in 41 he said see i have set thee over all the land of egypt is it amazing how god can work on all in any situation it can be in potiphar's house it can be in the jail where he was over all the other people that were in that jail except for the the one prison keeper he was over all

and here he is now he's over all of egypt as joseph would shortly learn with the arrivals brothers the dream had become a reality and the next verse i think is interesting it sets a stage for what would occur next it said pharaoh made joseph to ride in the second chariot which he had and they cried before him or people walked before him as he rode through the streets bow the knee bow down and he made him ruler over all the land of egypt the entire civilized world there not just his family would from then on have to bow in respect to joseph now joseph didn't see that in his dreams he saw his brothers and then a little later on he saw his father and mother and his brothers bowing down to him but now everywhere he goes people are saying bow down joseph's coming through bow down joe who could have imagined the puzzle was going to look like this more importantly this was bowing down not out of fear of what he was but it was out of respect and out of gratefulness for his wisdom that quite literally was going to save the nation of israel of egypt and in fact the entire area and the world around them at that time they were bowing down because they realized you know what god works in him he is a great man now the most we would seem the dream seems complete it's far beyond what i ever imagined far beyond what i would have expected joseph is raised to the second highest position in the most powerful nation on earth at the time everyone who sees him has to bow down their knee to him but you know what god is very specific when he makes a promise i think sometimes we look at generalities and we think that dreams are fulfilled because they kind of fit the narrative well it looks like it's kind of what i thought god was leading me to and this is this kind of works out but you know what it's not so with god in god's economy jesus said it this way till heaven and earth pass not one jot or one tittle you could say one dot of the eye or cross of the t it's never will pass till everything is going to be fulfilled now jesus was specifically speaking of the law there but it is equally true that anything god says falls under that category because god cannot and does not lie furthermore god is not into almost well how'd that game go well we almost won how'd that battle go we almost did it god isn't into that if he declares it it's going to come true it will come to pass and in joseph's case he was told all his siblings as well as his parents would one day bow down to him that hadn't happened yet yeah i'm going through the streets and everybody else is but that wasn't what the dream was at that point in the story that had not happened we read the portion in genesis 42 jacob joseph's father saw that there was corn in egypt the fandom was all throughout canaan also and he looks and he his sons are sitting around he said what are you doing sitting around looking at one another why do you look one upon another he said behold i've heard there's corn in egypt get out of here go get some get you down hither buy for some we might as well live and not die what's wrong with you guys these were all adults at the time you got to think joseph was the second from the youngest at 17 before he was sold into slavery so now he's probably about 30 years old and the rest of them are all older than him and they're all sitting around dad's house staring at each other saying wow it's sir i'm hungry sure we're some food in the house what's wrong with you guys this corn in egypt go get it now i think few authors could have come up with a story that has the twists and turns and as powerful as this have we don't have time to go into all of it but we see in this passage here's what we see god just providing another piece and another piece to the puzzle when joseph's brother sold him into slavery they knew that they would never see him again at least that's what they thought you know egypt that's several hundred miles away he's going into slavery they'll probably work him to death maybe beat him who knows what'll happen and we'll never see him again he's out of our sight out of our hair we don't have to worry about it and when they arrive in egypt the bible says joseph was the

governor over all the land he it was that sold to all the people sold the grain to all the people the land and joseph's brothers came the bible said joseph had made himself strange into them so he had covered his face done something so they wouldn't know who he was and they walk in he knows who they are and the first thing that happened is they bow down whoa i was 17 and this was the dream i had and when i had that without even realizing it they fulfilled joseph's first dream in fact that was the dream the bible said when we studied it he had that dream and he tells it to his brothers and the bible said and they hated him for it and then he got that coat of colors and they hated him even more for it and they hated him they hated him until they tried to get rid of him and now they're bowing before him now joseph said oh no wait a minute guys this is joseph sorry he didn't know who it was but he took this opportunity to see if his brothers had a change of heart he questions him so you say you're you're all 10 brother the same father where's you know is that all there are well no there's another one still at home there's a younger one and there's one that's dead and we don't know what happened to him and again talks to him well how about your dad do you have a father yeah we have he's he's an old man and he's still there and and so he's just trying to get some information find out what's going on the family they have no idea why he's asking so joseph looks at them and says okay you've got a younger brother one of you go get him and bring him back here so i know this is all true oh now wait a minute dad said he can't come the rest of us are okay but not him and he puts him in locks them up for about three days and then finally says okay i'm going to let you go home but don't you come here again without that brother because you're not getting anything so they go home they tell jacob jacob laments this he said me you have bereaved my children joseph is not simeon had had to stay behind as surety so he was still in egypt so he said simeon is not and he said now you want to take benjamin away all these things are against me you know what even when other people look at the puzzle that god's doing here they're not going to understand what's going on jacob had no idea what god was working in joseph's life he didn't even know joseph was still alive and yet god was still putting the pieces together of course at first jacob refuses to let benjamin go the family grows worse and worse and so finally it's like there's no other option we have to go so judah says i'll take care of benjamin we'll go again joseph hides his identity and finally he can't take it anymore this is a scene i don't think hollywood could write a scene like this i mean genesis 45 1-9 just an amazing passage joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him and he cries tears come to his eyes and he says tell everyone to get out of here cause every man to go out for me and there stood no man with him and joseph made himself known unto his brethren hey guys it's me and he wept aloud in fact so loud the egyptians in the house of pharaoh heard him and joseph said unto his brother am i i am joseph is my father still alive and his brothers they were so upset you're joseph you're the guy we're buying you're the ruler that everybody's bowing down to and we wanted to kill you and we ended up selling into slavery now what's going to happen you know they could not answer him they were troubled at his presence and joseph said in his but come near to me i pray you and they came near and he said i'm joseph your brother you sold me into egypt now don't be grieved don't be angry with yourselves that you sold me for and here it is god did send me before you to preserve your life don't you see you thought it was all going a different way god did this what a perspective first off that joseph would have that he could be that forgiving to look at his brother saying you know what don't worry about it god did it i know i was in potiphar's house and i was in prison for several years and this all happened don't worry about it god sent me here for these two years it's already been

two years there's still five more years of famine you're not going to have food so god sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance so now and here's here's what it was it was not you that sent me but god and he hath made me the father to pharaoh i'm lord of all his house i'm a ruler throughout all all of egypt go get dad and say unto him joseph's still alive and bring him down here terry not hurry up get going and with that joseph's dream was complete joseph's entire family comes to live under the authority and their protection of joseph the story of joseph's family coming to egypt was the climax of the narrative about the power of god-given dreams every step even every misstep like the trap set by potiphar's wife or the butler's fault in faulty memory are seen a lot of times from our point of view aren't they i mean we've read the story we've heard it we've seen plays we've seen whatever we understand you know 20 20 visions always hindsight's always 20 20. you know exactly what's going to happen joseph's limited knowledge was just day by day we've heard it many times but he lived at once and he had no idea where all the pieces of the puzzle were going to fit the story of joseph is a prime example of the psalmist wisdom he said this in psalm 37 the steps of a good man they're ordered by the lord that's why i said god has brought us here today and he delights in his way even if he falls he's not going to be utterly cast down because the lord is going to uphold him with his hand david said it this way i have been young and now i'm old yet i've not seen the righteous forsaken in other words god has never left them god's faithfulness here's the key did not eliminate difficulties from joseph's life you know he didn't say okay here's the dream it's all just going to be great from here on out but rather god's faithfulness helped joseph overcome the difficulties joseph's final confession that in i love this verse genesis 50 and verse 20. he said but as for you you thought evil against me but god meant it all unto good grace did not keep joseph out of a pit or the prison but it did get him through those experiences and what an encouragement today if we walk faithfully with a god who will do all things well looking back from this point it's easy for us to find identify defining moments in his life first defining moments from others defining moment when he's put in a pr pit a defining moment when potiphar sends him to prison defining moment when the pharaoh calls him out but also defining moments in his life his decision to share his dreams with his family his decision not to fall for the seductions of potiphar's wife his decision to continue to serve with excellence even in prison all of those were momentum and all changed the direction of the story everything mattered more than joseph could have known at the time what i'm saying is all pieces of our lives even though we don't really understand it or see it the same is true from our earthbound perspective limited as is by the pain and the circumstances things that we face we can't see the puzzle that god is putting together we can't tell when we've made a trajectory defining choice in our life that well i'm going to do this and and i have no idea where this is going or i'm going to end up because of it a lot of times we make decisions we think we're everything so stressful and we're busy and we find ourselves often just surviving and not thriving it seems and our best efforts to be faithful are often not met with commendation but with complication and things come in our life and it seems to go from bad into worse and like joseph we sit in pits and in prison not of our choosing hoping and dreaming for something else but in the midst of all of that we have the promise that one day we will finally see as joseph did the puzzle complete the way god intends it in fact he says it this way paul writes it to the corinthians he said when that which is perfect is come when it's all complete then that which is in part and all these pieces are going to be done away with for now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face i know

part he said but then i shall know even whom's also known it is precisely that hope that dream if you will that grants us the grace to keep coming to church and to keep serving god in faithfulness even in trying circumstances joseph's greatest wisdom was his unfailing faithfulness there's a chapter in hebrews we call it the faith chapter it mentions a lot of people talks about moses having faith it talks about noah having faith and building an ark it talks about abraham having faith and then it gets down to bottom and it says and there are others they were stoned they were mocked they were tortured they were fed to lions and it talks about all the things that they went through because they served god and then it says this and these all died in faith i don't know how all the pieces of the puzzle are gonna fit in your life but what i do know is this if you die in faith in faithfulness still living for god going to see the beautiful picture that he has for your life keep serving god keep trusting in god let's stand your puzzle may still just look like a pile of random pieces and no idea what's going on maybe it's almost together and you can see it and say thank god for what you've done in my life whatever it is i just want to lift a hand and say god let me trust you until the