Title: Sovereignity of God In Trials
Contents br> A ROCK IN A HARD PLACE
Gen 45:1-8
o All of you have invested so much time and energy in your seminary training.
o Let me throw some is at you. By this time, most of you have completed 66 units or more..
o We are all familiar with all those sleepless nights, reading through massive amounts of books and journals, and lots and lots of coffee.
o Your lifestyle took a huge turn for you and your family when you stepped onto this campus. Needless to say, we are all been through a lot.
o But what we went through is nothing compared to what Joseph went through.
o And Joseph persevered under trials because God sovereignly worked in Joseph's life.
Title: the sovereignty of God in trials
Sold into Slavery
You remember Joseph. How he was hated by his brothers and when they were given a chance, they came just short of killing him and ended up selling him into slavery. Have you ever experienced such intense hatred? Were you ever in danger of getting killed by your own brothers? Joseph was 17. What were you doing when you were 17?
Attempted rape
And later, he ends up in a maximum security jail for attempted rape of his master's wife. When what he really did was the opposite of that. He was suffering for doing good! How would you have responded if you were Joseph?
Personal secretary to Pharaoh
God blesses Joseph and he becomes the most powerful ruler of Egypt except Pharaoh for interpreting Pharaoh's dream. Famine hits and Joseph's brothers came to Egypt seeking for food. Joseph takes Simeon as hostage and sends them back and tells them to get Benjamin.
The brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin for the second time, and Joseph tests them and tells them to leave Benjamin in Egypt but Judah says that he will take Benjamin's place.
Joseph sees that the brothers cared for the safety of Benjamin and their father, he reveals himself to them.
Gen 45:1-8
Joseph may have not embraced the doctrine of sovereignty until later in his life but in Gen 39, the narrator tells us that God was sovereign over Joseph's life.
39:2-3, 21, 23.
God was sovereign over Joseph,s life. God was the main character.
So Joseph's account is really about God! His sovereignty and his plan. And not only Joseph's life but also your life. Think about the trials you are going through.
How are you handling them?
Are you trying to fight it with your own strength?
Are you turning to things or other people? God is sovereign over your life.
And you must believe in God's sovereignty in your trials in order to overcome them.
3 motives to believe in God's sovereignty so that you may persevere in trials
In order to persevere in trials, you must believe that?br>
1. God is the DRIVER of your life
Joseph fully understood that God was the driver of his life (5, 7, 8).
Can YOU say that about yourself? Do you acknowledge that God is the driver of your life?
Can you say with all your heart, that it was God who sent you here to the Master's Seminary?
Or are you doubting whether you are in the right place?
Ill.
I came to the states when I was 13. That's when I left home. When I first came here I wasn't sure if this was where I was supposed to be. But now, I think I know why I am here.
God didn't send me here so I could enjoy In-N-Out and go to Disneyland.
God sent me here to prepare me for ministry at the Master's Seminary. The reason God brought me here from Korea 14 years ago was to send me to the Master's Seminary.
Now, therefore, like Joseph, I could say it was not I or my parents that sent me here but God.
And he has placed me at the Master's Seminary so I can learn to preach God's Word.
Who was the driver of your life?
Looking back in your past, who was the driver of your life? Was it you or was it God? Was it the circumstances or was it God?
In order to persevere through trials, you must believe that God is the driver of your life.
2. God is the Defender of your life
The reason for sending Joseph to preserve life
v. 5, God preserved Joseph. God was the defender of Joseph. He protected him. He made sure Joseph was safe. For 13 years Joseph was away from home and through all kinds of hardships and dangers, God protected him because he had a plan for Joseph.
Do you believe that God is the defender of your life?
When people accuse you of being arrogant or unloving because you preach the Word boldly, do you remind yourself that God is your defender?
When people spread rumors about you, do you remember that God is your defender?
When the future seems unclear, do you fall into the hands of God and believe that God has a plan for your life?
God is not only the driver of your life but he is also the defender of your life. Protector.
He doesn't just get you into hardships, he protects you and takes care of you.
Psalm 23:1-5 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.
Psalm 121:5-8 The LORD is your keeper [protector]; The LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun will not smite you by day, Nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. 8 The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in From this time forth and forever.
3. God is the DELIEVERER of your life
Greater Plan
v. 7,God sent Joseph to Egypt to save Joseph's family. And by doing so, he was staying faithful to the Abrahamic covenant, which Paul calls the gospel. God delivered Joseph in order to preserve his brothers namely, Judah because he was going to bring the Messiah through the line of Judah. Joseph probably just thought that God's plan was to save his family and his people. But God had a greater plan. And that was to deliver his people from their sin.
Rom 11:25-27 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery-- so that you will not be wise in your own estimation-- that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, "THE DELIEVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB." 27 "THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS."
You may not see the big picture now. But God does. He has a much greater plan for your life than what you perceive right now. The only way we could persevere through trials is by knowing who is in charge.
God brings trials because he is making us more fit for his service
Warren Wiersbe says that Charles Spurgeon used to have a plaque in his bedroom with Isaiah 48:10 on it: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." "It is no mean [or average] thing to be chosen of God," Spurgeon wrote. "God's choice makes chosen men choice men...We are chosen, not in the palace, but in the furnace. In the furnace, beauty is marred, fashion is destroyed, strength is melted, glory is consumed; yet here eternal love reveals Its secrets, and declares its choice." (W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching & Preachers, p. 223).
Brothers, we don't belong in the palace but in the furnace. God is purifying us so that we may be useful for his kingdom. Embrace God's trials because he is treating us as his sons. And as Paul says in Heb 12:11 all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of impartiality.