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Father, that is our prayer that we might know you more.

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But often we do not want the experiences of life that in fact become the answers to that

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prayer.

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As we look at the life of Joseph beginning today, I pray that you will indeed help us

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to know you more and to understand how and why you are working in our lives as you are.

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In Christ's name, amen.

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Eight-year-old Danny Dutton lives in Chula Vista, California.

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For his third grade class, he was given a homework assignment to, quote, explain God.

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This is a third grader now who is attempting to explain God in his own language.

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One of God's main jobs is making people.

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He makes them to replace the ones that die so there will be enough people to take care

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of things here on earth.

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He doesn't make grown-ups just babies.

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I think because they are the smaller and easier to make.

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That way he doesn't have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk.

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He can just leave that to mothers and fathers.

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God's second most important job is listening to prayers.

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An awful lot of this goes on since some people like preachers and things pray at times besides

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bedtime.

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God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV on account of this.

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Unless he hears everything, not only prayers, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his

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ears unless he has thought of a way to turn it off.

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God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps him pretty busy.

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So you shouldn't go wasting his time by going over your parents' head asking for something

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they've said you couldn't have.

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Atheists are people who don't believe in God.

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I don't think there are any atheists in Chula Vista.

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At least there aren't any who come to our church.

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Then he makes some practical applications to his beliefs about God.

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He says you should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy.

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And if there's anybody who want to make happy, it's God.

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Don't skip church to do something you think would be more fun like going to the beach.

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This is wrong.

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And besides, the sun doesn't come out of the beach until noon anyway.

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I love that.

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If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely because

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your parents can't go everywhere with you, like the camp.

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But God can.

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It's good to know He's around you when you're scared in the dark and when you can't swim

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very good and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.

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But you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you.

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I figured God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases.

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And that's why I believe in God.

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Isn't that great?

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If you were given the assignment, explain God, how would you go about that?

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Well, obviously the first thing that most of us would think of, ideally at least, is

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that we ought to go to the Bible, God's Word, to see what it says about God.

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But I wonder if practically speaking too often we don't interpret God by the experiences

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of our lives, so that if our circumstances are unpleasant, we would explain God one

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way.

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But if our circumstances are disagreeable, we might tend to interpret God another way.

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It is really a big mistake to paint a portrait of God with a palatine brush that are formed

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by the happenings of our lives this past week or in the week ahead.

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We will create a likeness of God if we do that that is distorted and untrue.

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What we need rather to do is to let God interpret our circumstances instead of letting our

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circumstances interpret God.

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And Joseph did this, as we're going to see.

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And although his life was not fair in many respects, the result of Joseph knowing God

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through his experiences is the life of a man who was unblemished as far as the Bible is

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concerned.

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Joseph became a preeminent example of a man of faith.

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There are four men who dominate the last thirty-nine chapters of Genesis.

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Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and now, as we're going to see, Joseph.

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Nothing about Joseph is recorded that is immoral or unfavorable.

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He stands unique as an example of a man of sterling character, but his life was not easy.

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In fact, in many ways he was the victim of the hatred and jealousy of others.

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His circumstances were unfair.

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And so today I want us to think about when life is unfair.

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Life's circumstances may in fact be unfair.

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God does not promise that otherwise, as a matter of fact, life was unfair for Joseph

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and we're going to see that in the narrative today.

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First, we're going to see that Joseph is hated unfairly.

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I begin reading in verse one of Genesis thirty-seven.

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Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan.

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That brings us to an end, the section of Genesis that we've been working our way through.

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And now we pick up a new section where it begins by saying, these are the records of

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the generations of Jacob.

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So now he is going to tell us about Jacob's family and Joseph is going to be the preeminent

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one on display.

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Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pastoring the flock with his brothers while

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he was still a youth, along with the sons of Billa and the sons of Zilpa, his father's

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wives.

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And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

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Now Israel loved Joseph.

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Israel as you know is the new name for Jacob, God's new name for his new man.

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Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age and

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he made him a very colored tunic.

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And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they

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hated him and could not speak to him in friendly terms.

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

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And he said to them, please listen to this dream which I've had.

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And behold, we were binding sheaves in the field and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood

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erect and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.

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Then his brothers said to him, are you actually going to reign over us?

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Are you really going to rule over us?

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And so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

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Now he had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, lo, I've had

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still another dream and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars were bowing

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down to me.

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He related it to his father and to his brothers and his father rebuked him and said to him,

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what is this dream that you've had?

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Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before

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you to the ground and his brothers were jealous of him but the father kept the saying in mind.

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Joseph is the son of his father's old age as we read here.

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He had ten older half brothers and one half sister who was older.

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Why did they hate this young man of seventeen years of age?

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He is a fine young man.

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We get three times in this chapter as we've read, they hated him.

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They hated him.

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Moses summarizes it by saying that they were jealous of him.

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Well notice some things that we can point to in this chapter that help explain why they

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were jealous and therefore hated Joseph.

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In the first place we see the issue of their father's partiality in verse 3.

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He favored Joseph above all of the rest and was not embarrassed at all to proclaim this

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openly by giving to Joseph a very special robe.

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This robe or this coat which is probably best understood as one that had long sleeves in

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which reached down to his feet rather than as being many colored was a special coat.

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It symbolized his exaltation above the others in their father's mind.

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This robe was one that marked him as a man of distinction.

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It was a robe that would be worn by the prince or by the primary heir in an eastern clan

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or family.

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Joseph's brothers understood very, very well what this coat symbolized in their father's

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mind and that he was indeed the primary heir and considered to be the prince of the family

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although they were older.

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We see this word for the robe used one other time in 2 Samuel chapter 13 verses 18 and 19

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where it is there said to be the dress or the apparel of the child of the king.

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And so that gives you the idea of what this robe symbolizes to Joseph's brothers.

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Their father's partiality was one reason that they hated him but there is another.

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It is this bad report that Joseph brought back to their father.

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Both disclosed to Jacob some evil in his brother's conduct.

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The word evil here is a rather general word but it suggests some kind of moral evil in

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their conduct.

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And so Joseph came back home to dad and told dad about it.

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And as a result of that his brothers hated him.

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So this raises an issue that is a problem for some people and especially for younger

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people in life.

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And that is when is it right to tell someone that another person has done something wrong.

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We grow up with the idea that being a tattletale is wrong.

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You remember the little rhymes that you had in grade school regarding tattletales.

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I remember one which I will not repeat this morning.

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But I grew up not wanting to be a tattletale, didn't you?

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And in fact the book of Proverbs warns us that we should not be tale bearers.

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The idea there being gossips.

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But when is it right to tell on someone?

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I think it's good to ask three questions of myself before I decide to tell.

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In the first place is the tale true?

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Is it accurate?

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Is it verifiable?

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Am I sure of the authenticity of what I'm considering telling?

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Is it true?

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Secondly, are my motives pure?

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Are my motives with concern and love or with malice and jealousy?

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Am I doing this for the good of the person who needs to be told on?

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Or am I doing it to make myself look good?

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Am I doing it to gain some personal advantage?

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Are my motives pure?

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And third, who needs to know?

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Not everybody does.

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But if somebody is in trouble, somebody has done something wrong, they are endangering

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themselves, then someone may need to be told.

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So if today you are the possessor of information about somebody, you need to ask those three

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questions at least before you decide exactly what you're going to do.

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I believe that Joseph could have asked each of those questions of himself and passed the

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test.

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For whatever it was, it was some kind of conduct that jeopardized Jacob's flocks, Jacob's

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reputation, and therefore Joseph was concerned about it.

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His motive was pure.

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We see in this young man a certain innocence, almost a naivete.

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There's a purity about him.

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And as I've said twice now, the Word of God never says anything bad about Joseph, and

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so we would merely assume that his motives were right.

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And he told the right person, he told his father, who was in charge of everything in

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that eastern clan.

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But that bad report got him into big trouble with his brothers.

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There were consequences because he told, and sometimes that is the case when we tell.

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They were jealous of him, and they hated him all the more.

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And then there's the matter of the dreams, thirdly.

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Joseph had two of them, both of them, indicating that he was superior to his brothers.

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Now we could wonder about his wisdom in telling the dreams to his brothers, and yet again

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the Word of God never says that he was wrong in doing so.

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And indeed, as the story plays out over the coming years, we see why he did tell them.

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But at this point they misinterpret what he's saying, and they hate him even more deeply

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because he seems to be arrogant and proud in saying that he is going to rule over them.

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Now are there other reasons why they might have hated him?

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Well undoubtedly there were.

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Perhaps even his moral uprightness brought a certain conviction to their hearts because

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of their corrupt behavior, and they hated him for that.

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Was this fair?

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No, it was not.

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It was not fair, but Joseph nonetheless was hated.

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Then we see that Joseph has rejected it in verses 12 to 28.

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Jacob sends Joseph on an assignment to check on the welfare of his brothers.

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And so he begins a rather long journey actually.

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The total of the journey is about a hundred miles.

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This was not go over to the next valley or go to the mountaintop that you can see there

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in the distance.

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He traveled a long way to find his brothers, and they saw him coming in the distance.

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They knew him, perhaps from the coat he was wearing.

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And it says in verse 18 that they plotted against him to put him to death.

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My, how they hated their brother.

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They said, we are going to kill him.

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And they said to one another, here comes that dreamer.

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Now then come and let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.

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And we will say, a wild beast devoured him.

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Then let us see what will become of his dreams.

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Well you can see what's sticking in their crock, can't you?

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But Reuben, remember that Reuben is the firstborn who blew his privileges as the firstborn.

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But nonetheless the firstborn of the family.

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He heard this and he rescued him out of their hands and said, let us not take his life.

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Reuben further said to them, shed no blood.

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Throw him into this pit that is in this wilderness, but do not lay hands on him.

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Then Moses notes that he might rescue him out of their hands to restore him to his father.

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And so Reuben did not really go along with this plot to reject and to kill Joseph.

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He had another scheme in mind.

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And so it came about when Joseph reached his brothers that they stripped him of his tunic,

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the very colored tunic that was on him.

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And they took him and threw him into the pit.

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Now the pit was empty without any water in it.

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This pit is to be thought of as perhaps a water cistern that was empty.

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It was deep.

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He could not get out by himself.

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And so their brother is in this pit.

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And it says in verse 25, then they set down to eat a meal.

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Isn't that amazing?

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Their brother is in the pit.

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They can hear him yelling and screaming, and yet they sit down to eat a meal that tells

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you the hardness of the heart that is infected by hatred.

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And as they raised their eyes and looked behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming

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from Gilead with their camels bearing aromatic gum and balm and myrrh on their way to the

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pit to bring them down to Egypt.

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And so they were very near one of these trails, these caravan routes.

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And Judah said to his brothers, what profit is it for us to kill our brother and cover

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up his blood?

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Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother,

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our own flesh, and his brothers listen to him.

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Then some Midianite traders passed by.

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These are the same people as the Ishmaelites.

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And so they pulled him up and lifted Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites

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for 20 shekels of silver.

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Thus they brought Joseph into Egypt.

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So Joseph is not only hated, Joseph is rejected.

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He came to do a good deed.

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He came to fulfill the assignment of his father.

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He came on a mission to his brothers, but was rejected by them.

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And they rejected him with a particular cruelty.

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It wasn't that they merely said, go away from us.

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Go back home to your father.

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Rather they initially intended to kill him, then threw him into a pit and ultimately sold

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him as a slave.

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Joseph is rejected.

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Is this fair?

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I should say not, but it happened.

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The chapter concludes telling us that Joseph is lost.

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Verse 29, Reuben returned to the pit and behold, Joseph was not in the pit.

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So Reuben had not been a part of this whole thing up to this point.

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He did not know of the plan to sell Joseph as a slave.

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He came back to the pit, saw his brother was gone, and he tore his garments, an evidence

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of the grief and the sorrow in his heart.

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And he returned to his brothers and said, the boy is not there.

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As for me, where am I to go?

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That is, he felt responsible as the oldest of them, for this the youngest of them.

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And so they took Joseph's tunic and slaughtered a male goat and dipped the tunic in the blood.

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And they sent the very colored tunic and brought it to their father and said, we found this.

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Please examine it to see whether it is your son's tunic or not.

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Then he examined it and said, it is my son's tunic.

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A wild beast has devoured him.

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Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.

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And so Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many

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days.

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Then all his sons and all his daughters rose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted.

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And he said, surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.

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And so his father wept for him.

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Joseph is lost.

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He's gone.

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Jacob doesn't know the truth.

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His sons have schemed against him as he schemed against his father, Isaac.

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But Joseph is lost.

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He greatly grieved the death of his beloved son, and the screen fades there in Canaan

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and in Hebron with this old man dressed in sackcloth, weeping day after day after day

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that his son Joseph is gone from him.

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But as the screen fades there, there is another screen that lightens up.

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This is down in Egypt, verse 36.

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Meanwhile the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaoh's officer, the captain

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of the bodyguard.

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And so the story is going to go on from there, and we'll see what God is doing.

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But I ask you, in this chapter where Joseph has been demoted from prince to slave and

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is lost to his family, he will not return to Canaan in his lifetime.

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He is lost to his father.

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Is this fair?

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Did this young man deserve this?

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Are the circumstances of his life such that we would say this is fair?

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No.

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Everything in this chapter is unfair.

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And I tell you it would be a big mistake, a big mistake to interpret God with these

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wrongful and unfair circumstances.

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Joseph might have done that, but he didn't.

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Joseph might have tried to explain God by the unfair experiences of his life.

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Had he done so, his explanation of God would have been distorted and untrue.

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Life may be unfair, but I want to close by saying God is faithful.

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Life may be unfair, and it often is, but God is faithful.

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Ask the young couple who have been married for ten years and whose peers have all had

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children, and they themselves are childless and they long for children.

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Ask them if they feel that that's fair.

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Ask the person who works for a company where he deserves a promotion or she deserves a

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00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,600
promotion.

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And because of the policies of the company, they're looked over in favor of someone else

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who has less seniority, less ability, because of perhaps affirmative action.

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Is that fair?

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00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:42,320
Ask the senior adult who is just struggling to make it on social security, and then the

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health care doesn't come through in some way that it should.

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And they're plunged into increasing poverty because of that month by month.

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Is that fair?

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Friends, life is unfair, but one thing I want to write on your heart this morning is this.

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God is faithful.

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We must let God interpret the circumstances in Joseph's life as well as ours.

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We might think ourselves that God has somehow missed Joseph, that he's overlooked Joseph,

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00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:30,880
that he's perhaps turned his back on Joseph in the events of chapter 37, but that is not

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the case.

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In fact, in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit says through Stephen in the chapter 7, verses

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00:27:38,360 --> 00:27:46,920
9 through 10, and the patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, and yet

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God was with him.

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God was with him.

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00:27:55,640 --> 00:28:02,640
And the hymn writer William Cooper writes, stands in one of his hymns that says, blind

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00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:10,640
unbelief is sure to err and view God's work in vain.

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God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.

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How big is our mistake when we allow our circumstances and our experiences to interpret

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00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,240
what God is like?

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Let God be his own interpreter.

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00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:40,240
Let him interpret your circumstances and experiences, and he will make it plain.

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00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:45,440
I would be remiss this morning if I did not point out some of the ways in which Joseph

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wonderfully prefigures the life of the son of another father, the father in heaven.

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Warren Wearsby puts this succinctly when he states, Joseph was greatly loved by his

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00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:11,600
father, hated and envied by his brothers, plotted against, sold as a slave, arrested

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unjustly and made to suffer, but he went from suffering to glory and became the savior

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of the people who had rejected him.

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How well that paragraph summarizes how Joseph was like Jesus.

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00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:37,000
In fact, there is no other Old Testament character that more completely foreshadows Christ than

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does Joseph, and was life fair to Jesus?

339
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:49,080
Of course not.

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Like Joseph and like Jesus, you too can expect that life is going to hold its share of unfair

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00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:06,600
experiences, but like them also, you can trust that God will be faithful to you.

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00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:13,320
That's why I want to close with that familiar text in Proverbs chapter 3 that seems to be

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such an exhortation to us in light of the fact that life is unfair.

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It begins by saying, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

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What is it saying?

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Number one, depend on His name, the Lord's name, and not your own understanding.

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00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:42,800
I remember that a name in the Bible stands for the character of someone.

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Jacob means deceiver and schemer.

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His name was changed to Israel, which means a prince with God.

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A name represents character.

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Here we are told, trust in the Lord.

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That is His name.

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It means that He is the eternal covenant keeping God.

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Trust in the Lord.

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That idea of trust says Dr. G. R. Driver, that idea of trust is lying helplessly faced downward.

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So that when you and I are trusting in the Lord, it means that we are giving ourselves

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up to depend entirely upon Him.

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We are as it were on our faces before Him.

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He says, do not lean on your own understanding.

360
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:54,040
That is, do not support yourself with how you interpret things.

361
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Do not lean upon your own explanation of your circumstances.

362
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:02,360
But trust in the Lord.

363
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,360
He keeps His word.

364
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:12,720
Therefore you can live on His promises, but don't live under your circumstances.

365
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:21,400
Place your entire confidence in His wisdom, in His goodness, in His power to keep you

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from when life is unfair.

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Secondly the verse says, in all your ways acknowledge Him.

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00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:30,760
Notice the second all there.

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00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:32,840
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

370
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,200
In all your ways acknowledge Him.

371
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:38,200
What's He saying?

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00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:43,360
Number two, discover Him in your circumstances.

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00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:44,360
Acknowledge Him.

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That is, know Him in all your ways.

375
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,880
Learn Him.

376
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,880
Learn of Him by your experiences.

377
00:32:55,880 --> 00:33:01,720
Come to know Him by reflecting upon what you are experiencing and thinking about that.

378
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,720
Be aware of Him in all of your circumstances.

379
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,760
Fellowship with Him when life is unfair.

380
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,200
Cry out to Him.

381
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,960
Seek His face.

382
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,760
When your life's circumstances are pleasant, then give thanks.

383
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,680
Know when your life is weary, some submit.

384
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But discover Him in all your circumstances.

385
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,440
And then number three, He says, He will make your path straight.

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That is, divine direction is assured.

387
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:38,760
You see the process?

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00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:47,720
Depend on His name, His character, not upon your own understanding of your unfair circumstances.

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00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,960
Discover Him in all of your circumstances.

390
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:53,600
Divine direction is assured.

391
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,680
He will direct your paths.

392
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He will make them straight.

393
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:00,520
Did God do this for Joseph?

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Oh, yes He did.

395
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:03,940
He did.

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00:34:03,940 --> 00:34:05,800
God was faithful to Joseph.

397
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We're going to study about that in weeks ahead.

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00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,640
But He will direct you to your destination.

399
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:21,520
As we were driving back from Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, we got just outside of Madison,

400
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:28,400
Wisconsin, and came across one of those summer expectations of road construction on Highway

401
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,800
9, Interstate 94.

402
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:37,880
And there was this sign blinking that said, one hour delay ahead.

403
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,120
That's enough to pull off to a motel, as far as I am concerned.

404
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,840
But then it said, take detour.

405
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:52,560
So we took the detour, and we went out of our way, so it seemed, to Stoughton, Wisconsin.

406
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:58,120
And we drove, and we drove behind this line of trucks that was infinite in front of us.

407
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:03,680
We went through this small town with two stop lights and backups for two miles at each one

408
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:05,080
of them.

409
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:09,640
We finally got out of the town and drove further behind this long line of trucks into

410
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:18,520
the south part of Madison until we saw another sign that finally said, Interstate 94.

411
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,520
We got back on the Interstate and went without a hitch.

412
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,200
No one hour delay.

413
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:27,640
That seemed rather frustrating and unfair.

414
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,640
After all I've been driving all day.

415
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:35,160
Hours had passed since we had our last meal.

416
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,080
And now I'm going to be delayed.

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00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,840
Life is so unfair, but you know what can you do?

418
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:43,320
We followed the directions.

419
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,920
We got right back to the Interstate.

420
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:51,600
There are times when detours come into our lives too.

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00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:55,280
And we say, this isn't fair.

422
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,360
I've been doing this a long time.

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00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:58,360
I'm tired.

424
00:35:58,360 --> 00:35:59,640
I'm weary.

425
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:00,640
This is delay.

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00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:05,800
What is the purpose in this?

427
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:13,640
But if we will do what Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 tells us to do, to trust in Him, His character,

428
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:19,920
and lean not to our own understanding, if we discover Him in all of our circumstances,

429
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,440
then divine direction will be assured.

430
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:30,120
And eventually we will see where the road resumes and we'll understand why the detour

431
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:31,120
was there.

432
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,440
When I got home, I got out my atlas.

433
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:40,280
I always bring my atlas, not this time of course, when I need it.

434
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:44,560
So I got out my atlas and I looked, and you know something?

435
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:46,520
It was hardly a detour at all.

436
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:47,520
It was a slower highway.

437
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,320
It was a two-lane highway.

438
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:58,000
But the mileage was almost the same on the detour.

439
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:03,680
Let God be your foundation when life is unfair.

440
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:08,320
Let God interpret your circumstances.

441
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,800
Let Him do that this morning.

442
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,680
Let's pray.

443
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:23,960
Are you being tempted to explain God out of your unfair experiences of life?

444
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:33,280
Friend, if you do that, you will have a distorted picture of God.

445
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:41,240
Rather today you need to lean not any longer upon your own understanding, but lie face

446
00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:48,880
down helplessly before Him and say, I place my confidence alone in you.

447
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:54,840
Try out to Him, discover Him in your circumstances.

448
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,880
He will give you His divine direction.

449
00:37:57,880 --> 00:37:59,080
Will you do that today?

450
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:04,240
I hope you will.

451
00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:08,160
Let's sing together with our heads bowed.

452
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:27,720
It is so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word, just to trust upon

453
00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:37,040
His promise, just to know the saith of the Lord.

454
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:55,000
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I've proved Him more and more.

455
00:38:55,000 --> 00:39:14,080
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, oh for grace to trust Him more.

456
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:18,160
Lord Jesus, you know that life is unfair.

457
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:22,720
You have lived in this world.

458
00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:34,440
Give us when we strive and fret and misunderstand you, misinterpret your hand in our lives.

459
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:44,520
Today we lay aside those fleshly human tendencies and determined by your grace to trust you

460
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,520
more.

461
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,520
In your name we pray.

462
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:51,520
Amen.

463
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,320
God bless you, we're dismissed.