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This is an important day for us as a nation.

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I hope that you will do your duty as a Christian citizen, go to vote, and vote your conscience,

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vote your values.

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Tonight at 6 o'clock we're going to have an impromptu poll meeting regarding our nation,

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and I invite you to come.

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I know we have elections going on, and if you're involved in those, that's fine.

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But there may be of us not involved in elections, and tonight we're going to get in here and

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have a time poll for our nation.

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I don't think the IRS has outlawed our having poll meetings yet as churches on behalf of

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our country.

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I haven't heard about that one yet.

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We're planning to do that, whether they like it or not anyway, tonight at 6 o'clock.

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And I hope that you will come.

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We're going to turn our Bibles to Genesis chapter 37.

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I'm going to begin reading in verse 2 of Genesis chapter 37.

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Now, the Bible says that Jesus, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers,

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the sons of Bila and the sons of Zippor, his father's wives, and he brought to his father

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a bad report about them.

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Now, Israel loved Joseph more than any of his sons because he had been born to him at

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his old age, and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.

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When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him

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and could not speak a kind word to him.

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Joseph had a dream, and he told his brothers they hated him all the more.

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He said to them, listen to the dream I had.

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With the binding shades of green out in the field, when suddenly my sheep rose and stood

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upright, my sheep gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

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His brothers said to him, do you intend to reign over us?

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Will you actually rule us?

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And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

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Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.

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Listen, he said, I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and stars were

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bowing down to me.

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When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, what is this

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dream you had?

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Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?

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His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

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Now his brothers began to graze their father's flock near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph,

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as you hear your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem, come, I'm going to send

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you to them.

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He said to him, very well, he replied.

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And he said to him, go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks and

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bring word back to me.

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Then he sent him off from the valley of Hebron.

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When Joseph arrived at Shechem, that's 50 miles to the north by the road, a man found

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him wandering around in the fields and asked him, what are you looking for?

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And he replied, I'm looking for my brothers.

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Can you tell me where they're grazing their flocks?

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They have moved from here, the man answered.

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I heard them say, let's go to the basin.

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So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near the basin, another 10 miles to the

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north and west of Shechem.

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But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

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Where comes that dreamer they saw to each other?

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Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of those cisterns and say that a ferocious

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animal devoured him.

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Then we'll see what comes of his dreams.

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When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands.

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Reuben's not taking his life, he said.

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Don't shed any blood.

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Throw him into the cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him.

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Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

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So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his word, the richly ornamented

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robe he was wearing, and they took him and threw him into the cistern.

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Now the cistern was empty, there was no water in it.

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As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming

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from Gilead.

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Their camels were loaded with spices, balm, and myrrh, and they were on their way to take

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them down to Egypt.

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Reuben said to his brothers, what will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his

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blood?

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Come, let's slay him with the Ishmaelites.

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And not lay our hands on him.

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After all, he is our brother.

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I won't flesh and blood.

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The devil agreed.

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So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern

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and told him to 20 shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt.

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When Reuben returned to the cistern and told that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.

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He went back to his brothers and said, the day isn't yet there.

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Where can I turn now?

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When they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.

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They took the animated robe back to their father and said, we found this.

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Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe.

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He recognized it and said, it is my son's robe.

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Son of Colossus, any mother has desired him.

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Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.

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Then Jacob tore his clothes, tore his sock cloth and mourned for his son many days.

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And then I add to that one verse from Genesis chapter 50.

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It is the 20th verse.

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For Joseph said to his brothers, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good,

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to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

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Life, like a good novel, I suppose, seems to unfold line after line and paragraph after paragraph,

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putting in routine, everyday, ordinary details.

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The narrative seems to go on and on without change.

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And then, then suddenly with one word or one sentence, the story changes forever.

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Life is that way.

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That one sentence that changes life may be the death of someone very significant to us.

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It could be the last of the job, who would labor for decades of our lives.

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It might be an illness that's been diagnosed in us that will change our lifestyle forever.

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As a result of that one event, no matter how you look at life, it can never be the same again.

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Now, it is one thing to experience these kinds of changes as a member of the human family

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and to recognize that these things happen to all people.

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They're inevitable, even if shocking.

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But it's another to experience traumatic change as the victim of a crime.

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A young woman is raped.

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A child is sexually abused and murdered.

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A teen is hit by a drunk driver and crippled for life.

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A businessman trusts his financial affairs to an employee only to be cheated, causing him to lose his business.

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When change crashes into our lives because of criminal activity, it is especially difficult to handle.

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Joseph not only experienced the change in life's circumstances,

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he was the victim of crime, a terrible crime, and that by the hand of his own brothers.

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Perhaps you have experienced this kind of change in your circumstances.

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And perhaps you, as Joseph may have, cried out, who is God?

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Why did God permit this?

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We ask those kinds of questions because we mistakenly think, somehow, that God wants us to be happy every day of our lives.

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And nowhere does the Word of God promise that.

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In Joseph's life, there was terrible change.

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And God was there. God was there.

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Others may affect your circumstances, but God's providence will ultimately administer the outcome.

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I want you to remember that statement.

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Others may affect your circumstances, but God's providence will ultimately administer the outcome.

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Just think about this as we examine the biblical account of Joseph's experience.

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The first thing I want to talk about this morning is the account itself.

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As we do that, there's one word that seems to summarize this 37th chapter of Genesis, and that's the word conflict.

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Joseph's circumstances were surrounded with conflict.

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The conflict arises from Jacob's preferential treatment of Joseph.

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The evidence of which is this finely ornamented robe that is mentioned several times in this chapter.

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That's not an accident.

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As Joseph lights this chapter, he wants us to notice this robe and what it represents.

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This robe seems to have been a long-distance clinic that went down to the hands, which is literally what the word means.

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The word, in that family, is the symbol of favoritism.

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Joseph's brothers keenly felt that favoritism, and they deeply resented it.

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This conflict, created by parental favoritism, was exacerbated by Joseph's telling his dreams.

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These dreams were understood, rightly, by his brothers and his father as denoting his eventual superiority over them.

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The conflict increased.

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Their jealousy devised a scheme then to kill Joseph.

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No conflict.

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Orban, who was the firstborn of Jacob, persuaded his brothers to do other than to kill Joseph,

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with the intent in his heart to eventually rescue the young man.

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In his absence from the rest of them, the leader offered another idea.

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He did not know what Orban was thinking.

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Instead of perhaps rescue Joseph from death, he suggested that the brothers sell him to the Ishmaelites as a slave.

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And that's what they did.

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Orban was distressed when he found out what had happened.

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Together, the brothers concocted a lie to tell their father and to return the body coat.

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We notice the human and the sinful elements in this account.

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We have an indulgent father who shows favoritism that is always destructive in a family.

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We have what may be a baseless son who has pathetic dreams and then shares them with his brothers with some insensitivity as to how they were feeling regarding him.

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We have a divided family, one father but several mothers, leading to jealousy and then a plan for murder.

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We see lying and deception, with which, by the way, Jacob was well acquainted from his own life.

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We look at this account from Joseph's perspective.

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We see that he was betrayed by his brother.

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We see him abducted and sold into solitude in a foreign land.

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And we see a dramatic change in his life from a favored son to an obscure servant.

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Can you imagine any change greater than that?

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The pampered son of his father, the slave of a man in Egypt in the course of a few weeks.

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Others had affected the circumstances, but as we see, God's providence ultimately administers them.

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Having looked briefly at this account, I wanted to think about an analogy, secondly, because this is part of Joseph's experience.

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And it's good for us to remember this.

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And the analogy with Jesus Christ, because the Lord Jesus Christ also experienced dramatic change in his life.

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Dramatic change from one week being proclaimed the King of the Jews, being heard as the hero welcoming him into Jerusalem,

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and then a few days later being nailed to the cross.

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Dramatic change in circumstances.

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Others may affect your circumstances, but God, my friend, God is administering what's happening to you.

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Joseph is one of the most remarkable analogies of Christ in the Old Testament.

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Christ, like Joseph, suffered traumatically at the hands of his brothers at the end of his life.

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And like Joseph, he too was cut off in his young adulthood.

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I think of Jesus in connection with Joseph because Jesus also knew what it was to suffer the pain of betrayal and loneliness and rejection.

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J. Bernard McGee, in thinking about this analogy between Jesus and Joseph, this analogy this way,

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he says the birth of Joseph was miraculous in that it was the intervention of God in the name of the prayer.

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The Lord Jesus was working more. His birth was certainly miraculous.

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Joseph was loved by his father. The Lord Jesus was loved by his father.

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Joseph had the coat of many colors that set him apart.

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Christ was set apart in that he was separate from sinners.

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Joseph announced that he was to rule over his brethren.

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The Lord Jesus presented himself as the Messiah.

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The just as they would have killed Joseph's message, so they also would have killed Jesus.

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In fact, males to his cross were the words, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

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Joseph was treated by his father to his brethren.

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Jesus was sent to his brethren. He came first to the last sheep of the house of Israel.

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Joseph was treated by his brethren without a cause, and the Lord Jesus was treated by his brethren without a cause.

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To these words in the Jews, and the author, on having been rejected by his brethren,

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each of them became a blessing to the Gentiles living among them and then calling from them a bride.

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Then there was the subsequent rescue of Joseph's brethren when he was in Egypt.

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One day there will be the rescue of Jesus' brethren when he comes again.

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There is a wonderful analogy between Jesus Christ and Joseph.

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We see in the lives of both of these men the same truth, that others may affect the circumstances of their lives,

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that God is working in them all, administering the outcome to his purpose.

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That brings me finally to the application, which I want to summarize in one word, and that is the word certainty.

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And that you and I can be sure that whatever changes take place in our circumstances,

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God will miraculously, providentially work in through them.

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He will not permit change in circumstances to permanently harm us or to fool his purpose in our lives.

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God's purpose is that I terrifically conform to Jesus Christ.

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That is his ultimate purpose, and we will allow nothing in our lives to force that ultimate purpose.

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Regarding Joseph in this regard, Warren Hughes denotes, regarding the special tunic,

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Warren Hughes, he had wanted to make Joseph a ruler before he had really learned how to be a servant.

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And so God allowed these circumstances to come into Joseph's life as a peaceful and traumatic,

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but even now God was teaching this young man how to rule, giving him the character of a ruler.

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And so as they're not the same in our lives, in Romans chapter 8 verse 28, the New Testament equivalent,

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in Genesis 60 verse 20, we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God,

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to them who are the called according to his purpose.

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And what is that purpose?

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The pride of the minister.

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That we might be conformed to the image of Christ.

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And so he goes on to say, who can be against it?

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Who can know anything to the charge of God's elect?

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Who can separate us from the love of Christ?

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And the Apostle Paul reads some of the traumatic circumstances that can come into your life and mine.

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He says, no, and all of these things who are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

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Others may affect your circumstances.

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They can make decisions that harm you.

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Inadvertently, but purposefully.

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Others may affect your circumstances. You can't stop them sometimes.

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Others may affect your circumstances.

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But remember, God is administering the outcome.

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God has providence at work in your life and mine.

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God is administering the outcome and delivers it for good.

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And so my bottom line for you this morning in closing is this.

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I want to encourage you to see change in your circumstances as God at work.

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Will you?

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I want you to see change in your circumstances as God at work doing something that is new and exciting.

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Because that's what it's about.

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Dr. Alan Ross in commenting on the article writes,

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The Bible's wisdom literature assures the faithful that God brings good out of evil and suffering.

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Though the wicked may prosper for a time, the righteous hold fast to their integrity because there is a higher, more enduring principle of life.

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The wise recognize that the Lord God will sovereign over nature and the nations.

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And that he will righteously order the author of his people.

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At times, God's ways seem unfair and paradoxical.

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But if endured by faith, they bring blessings to the righteous.

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That's what God is doing this morning in your circumstance.

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And we now have a Savior who understands change in circumstances, who understands the trauma that it brings,

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who understands the human emotions, who is human as well as God.

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And who suffered like none of us has suffered in change.

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And that's what we remember when we come to the Lord's table this morning.

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Where our Savior has suffered, being one of us.

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And who has suffered for us on the cross.

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And we remember his death as we celebrate his resurrection and his intercession in heaven on our behalf.

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And as a wise and sovereign ruler, who is providently working in your life and mine.

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Working out his purposes.

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But ministering to outcome of the affairs of our lives in such a way that good will be accomplished.

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And blessing will come to others.

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What a wonderful state that looks like.

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I don't know what the change may be in your circumstances.

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I don't know the change that God does.

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And I hope this brief look in the life of Joseph this morning will assure you that even though others may have reflected your circumstances for ill,

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and placed you into shock or into trauma,

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God is at work.

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And he's doing something new and exciting in your life.

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I hope as we come to this table this morning, you'll come with an attitude of faith.

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Believing that the Lord Jesus is at work.

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And thanking him for what he is doing even though you may not understand it today.

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And partake of these elements being reminded that he suffered.

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And he understands your suffering.

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Lord Jesus, we prepare our hearts as we come to the table.

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We confess our sins.

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And some of us this morning acknowledge to you the pain and the uncertainty that we're tempted with inside.

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Our lives have been uprooted by others.

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But as we partake of this table, we are reminded that not only did you experience change, traumatic change,

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but all of that was superintended by God for the salvation of sinners, including us.

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To help us to believe.

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Help us to be strong.

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As we partake Lord Jesus of this bread we do it mindful that it represents your body broken for us.