Restoration 2019:  Brokenness

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Restoration Ministry

2019:  Motivations of Bible Characters (Noon Meetings)

Dean Cullinane

How to Say No

Father in heaven, Lord, this is your time.

We thank you for the physical food, and we pray that you would now bless us with the spiritual food.

Father, we desire for your presence to be here in this room.

We beg and plead, Lord, that You would speak to us, that we would hear Your voice.

Our theme for this program, for the entirety of the program, is brokenness.

And I don't know if there's many more characters in the Bible that have experienced brokenness quite like Joseph.

Just a show of hands, you can keep your burrito in the other 1.

How many of you feel like you've experienced brokenness at some point in your life?

Maybe not a complete shattering, but some brokenness nonetheless.

Alright, so I want to take you through just briefly some of the brokenness that Joseph suffered and you tell me if you can relate.

Joseph grew up in a household where His dad was married to both of his moms.

Joseph was brought up in a household where he was married to both of his moms.

His biological mother and his mother by marriage.

He grew up in a household where he had 10 older brothers.

His mother died when he was relatively young.

And then after her death, listen to this, his oldest brother went and slept with his dad's concubine.

He was best friends with his mom when she was alive.

Not to mention the fact that his brothers came together and decided that the best thing to do to him and with him would be to take his life because essentially God spoke to him.

After the passage that we're about to look at today, he found himself in prison again because God spoke to him, albeit in a different way.

So, we're going to look at Genesis chapter 39, and I'm going to read from verse 1.

And Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, brought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither.

And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man, and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

It seems like at least at the beginning stage that Joseph made no real effort to share his faith.

It seemed like he didn't really try and proactively reach out and say, hey Potiphar, hey Potiphar's wife, and hey everyone that's in Potiphar's house, I just want to let you know that even though I'm a slave and even though I've been delivered here, in actual fact, I am a Hebrew.

In actual fact, I believe in a God that trounces and trumps all of your gods.

He doesn't really seem interested in sharing that, at least from the offset.

But notice that Potiphar still sees God in Joseph.

It seems like there's very little intentional evangelism, intentional outreach, but it says in verse 3, and his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

Reaching out to people just by literally being there, by being there with the Lord, by praying and by trusting that all that you do, that everything that you put your hand to doing would be blessed by God.

However, I do think that perhaps maybe we've taken it now to the extreme because sometimes I feel we sacrifice actual intentional verbal evangelism in the hope that our presence evangelism will be all that we need.

It's kind of a cover for the fact that we say, yes, I'm Christian, yes, I'm Adventist, or yes, I know the Lord and I want people to know, but I'm kind of embarrassed and I'm a little bit shy and I don't wanna be rejected.

So if I just try really hard to live like a Christian, then maybe someone that's never even heard of Jesus will come up to me and say, hey are you a follower of Jesus?

And then I'll say, yeah how did you know?

And they'll be like, oh I just saw in the way that you walked and in the way that you dressed and the way that you talked and the way that you combed your hair and tied your laces, I just seen Jesus in you.

Now, I don't know if many of you have had that experience.

People have come to me and said, hey, I really saw the way that God used you when you were preaching or when you were studying or when you were doing this or that.

But I don't know anyone that's just come up to me, I don't think so, maybe my wife can correct me, although I don't think she will, will come up to me and say, hey wow I just really saw God in you today.

Like I just saw it and now I want to give my life to the Lord.

Now, fair enough Potiphar hasn't taken that stance, but I think that Joseph is really the exception to this rule rather than the rule itself.

Presence evangelism, being an active witness is awesome and I bid you this Matthew 24 14 that the gospel goes to the world as a what?

Sure people people need to see it and not just hear it But if they see it, if they just see it and they're not hearing anything, then they might just think that we're just really nice people.

And I don't know about you, but nice people is kind of the in thing right now.

I'll try and treat you well and I'll make sure not to judge you.

And if anything, just being nice and not sharing Christ intentionally sometimes looks like the opposite of Christianity.

It says, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

And Joseph, it says, found grace in his sight, and he served him and made him overseer over his house and all that he had put into his hand.

And it came to pass from the time that he had made him an overseer in his house and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake, presence evangelism.

And the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field.

And he left All that he had in whose hand?

And he knew not what he had save the bread which he did eat.

Now listen, Potiphar was no doubt a very wealthy man.

Everything that he owned was left in the hand of Joseph.

He took no care on his own personal things that had to be done.

He put no thought into his own finances or accounting.

Nothing, everything that he had was trusted into this 1 man who was not from Egypt, who was not bowing to the same God, who was not even intentionally reaching out, who was just someone, and here's the point that I think is key, he was just a man that had integrity.

And we don't really use that word anymore, right?

Potiphar knew that his entire household could be left in the care of this man.

It said he knew nothing that he had save the bread that he put in his mouth.

Everything was left in the hand of Joseph.

And then it gives us this tad little piece of information.

And sometimes, sometimes we go through the Scriptures and we think that all we're being presented with is information until we get to the main thing, right?

Until we get to the action set piece, when everything kind of goes down and everyone loses their rag.

Charge That to My Account

What images come to your mind when you hear of the word slavery?

Boats, now we're looking at actual images.

The word that rarely comes to mind, and there's a good reason for this, is freedom.

When we think of slavery, we rarely think of freedom, but I want you to imagine a slave that is introduced to the word freedom.

Can you imagine the difficulties that they might have in their mind comprehending such a concept?

There is a lot that the Bible has to say about slavery.

It's often those part of the Bibles that we like to jump over.

We like to pretend that they're not there.

You read Exodus chapter 20 and it's wonderful.

The 10 Commandments are there for all to see, but it's almost as if Exodus 21 and Exodus 22 just simply don't exist.

Because they might have a few things to say that we aren't too excited to hear.

But in my studies at least, I've seen that slavery is probably 1 of the most misunderstood things within the Scripture.

Slavery in the Scripture is what you and I today might call, invention servitude.

In fact, there were worse things than being a slave in the times of the Bible.

There were basically 3 categories within society.

There was of course the wealthy, and they contained their own slaves.

There was then the free, free from slavery, yet not a part of the wealthy, and then there were of course the slaves.

However, the hierarchy, it went something like this.

Of course, the wealthy sit on top of the pile, but it was the free, the free men and the free women, they made up the bottom.

The slaves were essentially what you and I might call the working class.

You see, it wasn't the best thing to be free.

In fact, it was more desirable to actually be a slave.

Because these slaves, at least if they were slaves of Christian owners within Christian nations, is the Bible instructed these Christian owners very, very clearly, you need to make sure that if you have slaves, that you look after them, that you treat them well, that you make sure that they're fed.

If you can, you make sure that not only when they become your slaves, but you take their family and you try and keep them together.

Every 7 years that pass, you make sure that you give them an opportunity to leave for free.

Such a concept would be rather strange if slavery in the Scripture was just what you and I picture when we look back a couple of hundred years in this country.

I mean, what slave would want to remain with their master?

The fact was it was simply like employment.

In fact if you were a free man, if you had no 1 by which you could run to, no 1 that could look after you, then you were essentially in greater danger than those that were slaves.

And there's a story in the Bible that speaks about 1 particular slave.

There's a story in the Bible that If you were at Cutler the night before last, I shared with you that I think that the most under-read book in the Bible is probably Songs of Solomon because it speaks about sex.

As Christians, we don't have anything to do with sex, really.

But if there's 1, especially in the New Testament, I think it's the letter that Paul writes to the slave owner Philemon.

Now Some of you are like, there's no book in the Bible called Philemon.

If you go to the book of Hebrews, it's just before that.

It is only 25 verses, and I believe contained within these 25 verses is the entire picture of the ministry of Christ.

Let's have a word of prayer before we break it down.

We pray that you would speak to us through your Word.

Father, whether it's something that we read every day or whether it's something that we've never read before.

Lord, we ask that you would make sense of it.

We ask that we would be able to learn from it.

We ask, Lord, that a change might even take place in our life today.

Paul in verse 1 is writing, it says, Notice that in Paul's time, they didn't have great cathedrals, they had church in houses.

They had social groups, they had small groups, they had prayer groups, if you would.

They just had small home churches for the most part, but it works.

For we have great joy and consolation in thy love because the bowels of the saints are being refreshed by thee, brother.

In other words, Philemon is holding a house church and it's working well.

But Philemon is not writing this letter merely to congratulate, sorry, Paul is not writing this letter merely to congratulate Philemon on his hospitality.

He has something that he believes is extremely urgent and important.

This is Paul writing to Philemon, Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to command you to do what is appropriate, yet for love's sake I beg you." Listen to this.

Paul says, at this current moment in time, there is none on the face of the earth that has more authority in Christ than me.

A lot of the disciples have passed away Paul is responsible through the work of the Holy Spirit for writing the majority of the New Testament He said because of my position because of who I am Because as we see here, he's He's towards the end of his life.

He said I could be bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is right He hasn't told him what he's asking him to do yet But he's prefacing it by saying listen if I really wanted to I could force you I could command you to do this But he said instead of taking that step, in actual fact I'll beg you.

Can you imagine working under such leadership?

Ransom and Reunion

I want you to imagine that This is actually a true story.

That there was a father who had lost his son.

And he had put out a ransom for his son for $900, 000.

Everything that I have comes to this sum.

And I'm willing to give it all if someone can bring my son back to me.

So he's walking the streets, looking desperately, putting up signs, hoping that he'll see his little boy.

And this man comes up to him and says, Sir, I heard that you lost your boy.

And I've heard that you have this mega reward for anyone that will return him to you.

And he says, yes, that's true, up to $900, 000.

And so the man says to the broken father, Hear me out.

Like you wouldn't believe how much he looks like your son.

They have the same eye color and the same hair color, and they're exactly the same age.

And listen, sir, I'd be willing to give you this son for only $20, 000.

You literally wouldn't really be able to tell the difference and you'd save what $880, 000 $20, 000 and you can have a son just like your 1.

How many of you think the father took the deal?

I mean people could come to the house and they could look in the pictures and then they could look at the son and never really know that it wasn't him.

I think we're unanimous this afternoon in that the father doesn't accept the deal.

He doesn't accept the offer, and the reason is why?

Because that's not his son and It doesn't matter how close this young boy looks to his son or what?

Physical similarities they have none of these things matter what matters is that that is not his son That is not his son No 1 listen to me now no 1 on the face of the planet can take the place of that man's son.

Father in heaven, Lord we ask for your spirit to be here with us this evening.

And Father we pray once again as we are having this physical food that Your Word would become real in our lives.

Bless us at this time we ask in Jesus name, Amen.

The Bible lists a handful of people at least by name as being friends of God.

Abraham is 1, does anyone know the other?

Here's something that I read a very long time ago and I hope you can grasp this because it literally changed my entire life and I don't say that in the cliche way but I read this from from 1 of my favorite Christian authors and she said this we were brought into We were brought into existence because we were needed we were brought into existence because we were needed.

And if that is true, then it must be true that the 1 that actually needs us is God Himself.

From 1, from the day that I came to the realization that there was actually a God out there, it struck me almost Instantly just how much I needed God.

I Mean if he's there It struck me just how much I needed him, but you know, do you know what took a while?

But when it hit me just it hit me like a ton of bricks How much God needed me?

That's that's a whole that's a whole new paradigm Because everyone will tell you everyone tell you listen you need God in your life.

If God was in your life then this would be different and this would be different and this would be different.

My life changed when I realized how much God needed me.

How far he was willing to go to pay for me.

The Bible lists a few people as God's friends.

But listen to me, just because Abraham is God's friend, Just because Moses and David are God's friends doesn't mean that these friendship slots are all taken up.

There's a place in God's heart that Abraham can't fill.

There's a place in God's heart that even Moses, who was resurrected so that he could literally be with God, can't fill.

There's a place in God's heart that David can't fill, that Enoch and Samson and Solomon and Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel.

There's a place in God's heart that they can't fill because there's a place in God's heart that they can't fill because there's a place in God's heart that has been specifically designed for you.

And you might be thinking, well, that's just not possible.

But you know what we're talking about here?

We're talking about the love of a parent.

Something that often time we can't even comprehend.

But here's the thing, here's something that I've just learned on my short journey.

It's not about how much you can comprehend.

You might think, oh, well, that love is just too great.

Can you comprehend how much air exists on this planet?

Is your decision to breathe in and breathe out dictated to by your comprehension of the amount of air on this planet?

You can't comprehend it, but if there's something that you do, it's you enjoy it.

The sun, the great sun is another glorious example of this.

Did you know that the sun doesn't sit down before it comes up in the morning and do some quick mathematical calculations to see as to how many people are on the face of the earth so it knows just how much it needs to shine to warm everyone equally.

No, it just shines And it doesn't matter how many people are on earth at any given time, the sun, if we're in the same place, hits us as if we were the only 1 that it was designed to warm up.

Anyone here have, let's see, 5 siblings or more?

How to Know God’s Will for Your Life

The last message that I would like to share with you today is 1 that has helped me so much in my own walk with Christ.

If any of you are Christian already, I'm assuming some of you are, then you'll know that something that gets thrown around a lot is this idea of God's will.

I struggled with this concept That my life was not in my own hands the first time that I came to that realization that God is in fact a real being.

I struggled with the idea that, hold on, does that mean that there's someone up there that just makes all my choices for me, that I'm just walking through this life, but every choice that I think I'm making, it's actually not me, it's God that's making it for me.

It just feels like it's me to help me to play along with it maybe.

And so I remember sitting down, talking to a good friend of mine.

He's a mentor of sorts, I guess you could say.

And so that's really where I'd like you to turn if you've got your Bibles or if you've got your phones, Maybe a Bible app on your phone or just on a website.

Let's have a word of prayer before we read God's word.

Dear Lord, We thank you for these lunchtime meetings that we've been able to have together.

And Father, now we want to know what your will is for our lives.

Bless the food, both physical and spiritual, Lord.

Nourish our entire being, we ask in Jesus' name.

The Bible says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go.

You want to know what God's will is for your life?

God says, I will instruct you and I will teach you in the way that you should go.

God isn't just going to leave you there to just wander around aimlessly until you find the right place to be.

I will teach you in the way that you will go.

And then he says, I will guide you with my eye.

This is great, this is all very nice, but I don't know about you, but when I read verses like this, it just doesn't seem very practical.

I'm like, okay God, you said that you'll guide me, you said that you'll instruct me, but exactly how is it that God is leading me with His eye?

Series

2019: Motivations of Bible Characters (Noon Meetings)

How to Know God’s Will for Your Life

Transcript

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Parent Conference

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