Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Glory to God. Well, we have a very very.
Special album that we just released this week, and.
I also want to echo what Chris said that it is.
An amazing, amazing church to be a part of that releases songs into the world. Have you thought about the fact that the songs that we release from this place, somebody say, from this place, might end up helping somebody in the most difficult season of their life, maybe a year from now, maybe in several years. They'll need those
words at just the right time. And that is what I love about Elevation Church is that our partnership in the Gospel enables us to take our ministry places that we may never physically go, but the word of God goes. And when God sends his word, healing always follows. So we do pray that these songs the new album. I'm not so much doing a promotion when when meets fire available everywhere music is downloaded, stolen, or stream But I am just making sure that you are aware that.
You can worship God anywhere.
Oh yeah, tell your neighbor, I can worship him anywhere. Come on, clap your hands. Look at your neighbor again and say, I can do this anywhere. I can do this anywhere. I can start clapping my hands when my kids are acting crazy. I can do this anywhere. I can lift my hands when the weight is too heavy. I can do this anywhere. Put it in the chat right now, Epham say I can do it anywhere.
I can do it anywhere. So that's so exciting.
And let's also thank God for all of our youth team, our volunteers are sad our eGroup leaders, our security teams.
What an amazing week we had. And since you know that I haven't preached in a few weeks.
I want to thank everyone that stood in the pulpit and shared God's word with you. I trust that you receive exactly what you needed from God's word. Also, since I haven't preached in a few weeks, I'm ready to do it right now without further ado. I want to share with you today from Genesis chapter forty one.
Please remain standing as.
I read my scripture Genesis chapter forty one.
And be patient with me. I may be a little rusty, but I'm ready. Oh that would preach. I'm rusty, but I'm ready.
Like Moses eighty years old, stretching out of staff over the red Sea.
I'm rusted, but I'm ready.
How many of you have had the devil tell you're too old to do something that God's calling you to do?
All right, Well, you just got your word. I'm rusted, but I'm ready.
I like that. This is what I do while i'm off by the way, I think of things to preach.
Well, I'm not preaching. I'm really, really, really messed up. But it is great to see you.
We've had a great time of rest, reflection, study, and creativity with the family.
And thank you.
You said welcome home, Thank you, thank you so much. I wanted to make sure he said something nice before I agreed with it. And what people are shouting out sometimes well. In Genesis chapter forty one, verse fifty, a very interesting moment in Joseph's life, and the Bible says, before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by asking that daughter of Potipherah priest avonn and Joseph named his firstborn Manassa and said, it is because God has made me forget.
The name Manassa in Hebrew sounds.
Like the Hebrew word for forget, so he said, it is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household verse fifty two. The second son he named Ephraim and said, it is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.
Now that's powerful, but let's read just a little more.
The Bible says the seven years of abundance in Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began. Just as Joseph had said, there was famine in all the other lands, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh.
For food.
Then Pharaoh told the Egyptians, go to Joseph and do what he tells you. Go back to verse fifty two for a moment. He named his second born Ephraim and said, it is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering, and I want to appreach to you from a subject today about increased in Egypt. Increased in Egypt. And the subtitle for this message is is going to happen here. It's going to happen here. And tell your neighbor it's going to happen here, and tell them. Now,
sit down, you may be seen him. How much would you love it if you could go back and give yourself a name rather than letting your parents do that. I asked my kids the other day, if you could rename yourself, what name would you choose?
And they all had different names. Elijah wanted to be Justin after of course.
Justin Bieber from earlier fascination in his life. Everybody went around the table shared what their name is would be. It's an interesting thing when we read the Bible. There is so much significance given to the names of the characters culturally. And the name Joseph is a name that
was given to him by his mother, Rachel. She wanted a baby for so long and she couldn't have a baby, and her sister was able to have babies, and when she was having babies, she was doing it through maid servants, and so when she had her first natural.
Baby biological baby.
She named that baby Joseph, and it means he will increase or may he add that's the meaning of the name Joseph, because she wanted more babies. Well, a lot has happened since the birth of Joseph, and this particular instance in Genesis chapter forty one, and just to bring you up to speed on some of the things that Joseph has been through his life really reads like the resume of somebody who does not have God involved in their life. And you may take issue with that, because
obviously God was with Joseph. But I'm just saying if you didn't assume that God was with him, you would probably infer from the events that transpire that God was not, because you.
Know how we do.
When somebody's doing really good in life, we assume they're blessed and God is with them and God's hand is on them. But if someone struggles, a lot of times will think that, well, they must be doing something wrong, or they must be disobedient, or and sometimes it is sometimes we suffer for different reasons. And I do want
you to know this before I go any further. Everyone suffers somewhere everyone, what I just told you, those three words can kill your jealousy about anybody that you envy, because anybody that you envy in your life, there is something in their life that if you knew about it, you wouldn't trade places with them or ten minutes. And this important to point out. Maybe else should do another youth x around. This whole subject is about influence, about the misery of influence in a day and age where
the term influencer is almost meant to sell something. Influence is expensive, and so anybody who has a lot of influence, they.
Often pay a great cost.
It has cost Joseph a lot to stand in this moment, That's all I'm saying. And so we're reading about him naming two sons that are born to him. But the Bible says something really interesting, huh. It says that these sons were born to him before the famine. Now, Joseph has predicted a famine in the land. He had the ability to interpret dreams, and so when Pharaoh called Joseph to interpret his dream, Joseph said, well, you're gonna have seven years of plenty or abundance, and then you'll have
seven years of famine. So wisdom would dictate that you take the good years, set some aside so that you are ready for the lean years. When you have a lot, don't just consume the lot that you've got, but keep a little so that when it gets lean, when it gets lean. Sometimes, even in church, if we're having a really good Sunday, I'll pull out my phone and take a quick video to show the devil the video for.
The sundays that don't feel so good.
I want to remember this moment because the next moment might not be as wonderful.
I want to treasure this, I want to take this in.
I want to take the good things that happen to me and bank those blessings so that when I go through a season of discouragement or defeat, I can point back to something that I know God did for me. Now, this is a physical famine, but we could apply this to our emotions. We could apply to our experiences. However, Joseph has been elevated to a position where the only person more powerful than him in all of the land of Egypt is the Pharaoh. He's done this by administrating the food supply.
He's taken grain from.
Each of the cities in Egypt and stationed on the outposts in silos some grain so that when the famine hits, there will be food in Egypt. And in doing this, Joseph has given himself a lot of significance nationally in a place called Egypt. It's hard for us to read about Egypt, knowing what we know about Egypt that is about to happen. As a matter of fact, when I say Egypt, most of us think of the place where God's people would be enslaved for four hundred and thirty years.
To be enslaved in Egypt happened generations after Joseph was gone, and God raised up a man named Moses to say to Pharaoh, let my people go. Isn't it interesting that the same place they escaped to from the famine was the place they became enslaved in and needed to be set free from the Truth of the matter is a lot of the things that feed us in one season of our life, A lot of the things that help us in one season of our life. A lot of the things that serve to shelter us in one season
of our life, will shackle us in another. Have you ever run to something for shelter, but it turned into shackles. Just in case y'all forgot how this works, I am preaching already, and y'all can talk back to me.
I haven't been gone that long.
I ran to Egypt for shelter, but I left Egypt in shackles. In Egypt, not only would the people of God experience great pain, but Joseph never wanted to go to Egypt in the first place. Egypt wasn't on Joseph's bucket list. Egypt wasn't on Joseph's itinerary, his travel dream destination list.
Joseph was let me give you a little recap.
Pushed into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, picked up by the Ishmael like caravan, put in the house of a man named Potiphar, treated as a slave for almost a decade, rose to prominence in that house, and then, after rising to prominence, was falsely accused of a sexual offense, landing him in prison for a space not.
Less than two years.
In prison, he met a man whose dream he interpreted, who was released because of Joseph's gift. And when that man left prison, he was the cup bearer to the king Joseph said, tell your boss about me, so I don't rot in this prison. Well, the cupbearer gets out and forgot all about Joseph.
Can you believe he did that?
He forgot all about the man who gave him the prophecy of freedom. He forgot all about the man who gave him the hope to hold on. He forgot about Joseph for two years until one day Pharaoh had a dream that needed Joseph, and the cup bearer remembered there was this guy in the prison who had a special ability to interpret dreams. And I wonder if we go get him right now, could he tell you the meaning of your dream?
And here's where I want.
To pause and point out that God is sovereign in his scheduling of your life. Think of the two years that Joseph sat in prison, wondering, will they ever remember me?
A lot of good that did?
Nobody appreciates me ever tells me thank you for washing the dishes. Maybe I'm not talking about Joseph now, maybe I'm talking about you. Nobody ever appreciates me for giving them awry. What do they just think I'm a free uber black? What do they just think I'm a free Do they just think I'm a free door dash? Do they just think I'm a free private chef? Did they
just think I'm a freehousekeeper? Nobody appreciates me? And yet there seems to be a sense in which if Joseph had gotten out of that prison any earlier than he did, he wouldn't have been in position to fulfill his purpose that he was created for.
I think of it in terms of food.
You know, we're talking about a famine because Holly and I have different definitions of when food is too old to eat. Yeah, she has a very elastic understanding of an expiration date. She calls it an expiration recommendation, recommendation, and she goes by smell and I go what it says on the label. And especially when it comes to fruit, she likes a little bit of brown. I went to throw a peach away the other day, and she caught the peach before it went in the trash can.
I didn't even know she was athletic.
I've never seen such hand eye coordination from this woman in my life till I went to throw away a peach and she caught it, and she said, put that back. I said, put it back. Is brown. She said, brown ain't bad because she knows the difference between when it's
rotten and when it's ripe. Now, if you are Joseph sitting in a prison for a space of two years, feeling as if the prime of your life is rotting away, and you're riding away and your physical strength is rotting away, only to find out that maybe the reason that God kept you in that situation for that length of time, maybe the reason the cup bearer forgot you so you stayed in there, was because if you had been released from that prison one day sooner, you would have missed
the window of opportunity for you to demonstrate the gift that God gave you.
So tell your neighbor you're not rotten. You're right. Yeah, yeah.
I see people in my heart who are feeling right now like it should have happened a long time ago, Like I'm behind all my friends, Like it's not gonna happen for me because I'm supposed to be married by the age of twenty four. But God said, I know what ripe looks like.
God said, I know the.
Difference between when you're still getting ready and when you think you're ready. God says I know how to leave the thing in the obscure place until the opportunity has reached its optimal positioning high five three people say, I'm right.
I'm right. Now.
This will work against discouragement, because the enemy will tell you that too much time has passed, Too many years have gone, too many other people have gone ahead of you, too many experiences have eluded you. Too many things that you should have learned you didn't learn. I feel like preaching to tell somebody at just the right time, if you humble yourself under his mighty hand. I'm rusty, but I'm right. Mixing my metaphors. Let's get back to the text.
The Bible says that Joseph had two children.
Before the famine.
Now it's good that he had them before the famine, because sometimes God will send you a blessing before a trial to remind you of who he is, so that you don't let the trial discourage you to the point that you want to quit.
The Bible says that.
Two sons were born of Asanath, the daughter of Potipharah, the priest of an In case you're wondering who that is, she was really important.
These people were royalty, but they were not Hebrews. They were Egyptians.
Imagine Joseph's surprise when he realized God is going to give me a family, but He's going to do it through foreigners.
You know how we get in.
Our mind how God is going to do things in our life. You know how you were picking out what college of kids were going to go to. When they were three months old. You bought them a little duke passe and they had to be a tar heel. But you know this serves to illustreet the principle that I really stood up to preach to you today, and it's this.
It's going to happen here.
Long were the days that Joseph would think, maybe one day I'll get to.
Go back home to Canaan.
Maybe one day I'll get to reconcile with my brothers who betrayed me.
Maybe one day they'll tell me that they're sorry and that they were wrong.
Maybe one day I will again get to take in the familiar sights and sounds of the place where I came from. And imagine Joseph's surprise when, instead of God taking him back to his homeland, he gave him the gift of a family in the place of his hardship. Usually when we preach about Egypt, we talk about coming
out of Egypt. In fact, the Bible says, give me the scripture from Leviticus that I sent earlier, or Deuteronomy, rather, where the Lord tells his people he brings them out of Egypt, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you what out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. God's warning his people after he brings them out of that place that grew to be so dreadful for them, breaks without straw and forced labor under the heavy whips of their.
Masters, who knew not of Joseph.
He said, be careful, don't forget when I bring you out. And yet we're reading a passage today that suggests that even in Egypt. Everybody say, even in Egypt, there are some things that God can do.
Even though you didn't choose to go there.
I am preaching to somebody today who is in a place in your life where you did not choose to go there, dealing with the situation that you did not choose to create for yourself. Joseph did not go to Egypt as a traveler. He went to Egypt as a slave. And yet the Bible says in verse fifty two, watch this God has made me fruitful in the land of my sufferings.
So now here.
Comes the question, how can God make you fruitful in something that you want to be free from? We all have things, and you can shake me off if you want to, And you can.
Pretend like this is for the person sitting on your row, if you want.
We all have things that we need to be free from want to be free from. We all have places that we never plan to go. Some of us have mental conditions that were passed on to us genetically. They are not even the result necessarily of behavior. Some of the demons that you're fighting are from your daddy. And the demons don't leave just because you said the name of Jesus. They still have to be fought against.
For the rest of your life. And you imagine a.
Day when I'll be free of this, when I no longer desire this, when I no longer feel this way, when depression will no longer show up like a dark cloud over my life, when anxiety will no longer overwhelm my soul. One day I'm gonna be free from this. But I came to preach you can be fruitful in it. Why you're waiting to be free from it? And it's gonna happen the moment you'll decide to name it manassa. Manassa means forget.
Yet, No, let's study this, say down, we gotta study it. We gotta study it. Sounds good, but let's study it, he said.
Joseph named his first one and verse fifty one Nasa say manassa, and said, it is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household.
Why if you forgot it, why are we still talking about it? You don't forget something like this.
You don't forget having your your coat of many colors stripped from you, dipped in animal blood, presented to your father as a proof or a token of your death when you are still very much alive. You don't forget being pushed in a pit, half dead and carted to a foreign place to serve as a slave. You don't forget any of that. And the Bible says that he said he forgot, so is he lying? No, No, it's not a lie. It's a lens. Because when he says that what God gave me.
How many have something God gave you, God gave you, God gave you, He.
Says, when I consider what God gave me, and then I think about what was taken from me, the years that were stolen from me, the peace that was stolen from me. I believe Joseph probably struggled with intense self hatred temptation, because when you are treated this way by
your brothers, it makes you doubt yourself. Many people who come through abuse, they take the anger that they cannot bear to project outward or do not have the power to project outward, and turn it inward, and then it eats you alive, and it chows through all of the fruit of your future because you are stuck in something that someone else did.
But Joseph said, Joseph said, when I.
See what God gave me, this baby that I'm holding in a place I never chose to go to, in a situation that I never thought I would have to settle into, in a season of my life that I never saw coming. It isn't that he stopped remembering what he went through. He just refocused what he was looking at. And the word of the Lord is refocus, Refocus, Refocus. I know your body is holding a lot of trauma, but refocus. I know you have abandonment issues because everybody
who you let in somehow let you down. But refocus. There's a manassa in your arms. Refocus. I know that some things you were cheated out of were unfair, and I know that if you could go back and have it happened.
Differently, you would. You didn't choose it.
And the things that you never chose don't mean you can't grow through them.
Just because I didn't choose to.
Go through it doesn't mean I can't choose to grow through it. So it is a mass matter a focus.
LJ. You played so good on the album, don't y'all love l J?
L J.
Scottie shay Ois is over there.
They played so good, y'all.
When you go on YouTube and look at the songs, don't go into comments. The comments will kill your joy because we will put a song out that says, oh my God, you've been so good to me, and someone will put in the comments, well, what if he hasn't been that good to me?
That must be nice for you that God has been good to you. But God hasn't been that good to me, you know, and I want to One day, I'm.
Gonna make up a name, so I'm go on YouTube and say all the stuff that I want to say back and nobody knows me, and I'm gonna have the IT department set it up real secure where nobody can track it back through any kind of AI or AARP or any of that stuff, and then.
I'm gonna go on there and say the goodness of God is a perspective, a perspective.
The goodness of God is not freedom from problems. The goodness of God is not freedom from pain. The goodness of God is a perspective that starts with him and works its way outwards. Joseph is not saying it didn't happen. Joseph is not in denial. Joseph is not stuffing it down,
so it's just gonna come out sideways. As a matter of fact, when he says I forgot my father's household, all of us who know what happens in Genesis forty three, forty four, and forty five, we kind of want to laugh because the people that he's trying to forget, his brothers who betrayed him, they are actually about to show up asking him for food. Sometimes God will call you
to feed something that you wanted to forget. Sometimes God will call you to go back to a place that caused you so much pain, and from the wounds that you suffered will become a womb that birth's healing for someone else. And that's what I think Joseph is saying. He caused me to forget, to refocus, to see what God is doing right here in Egypt. I never thought I would have an Egyptian wife. I never thought i'd
had these have Egyptian kids. I definitely never thought that I'd be overseeing all of the grain in a time of the famine. I never thought people would be asking me what to do. People been telling me what to do my whole life. My big brothers told me what to do. Potiphard told me what to do. The jailer told me what to do. And now all of a sudden, I find myself in a position where God has given
me the ability to make a decision. And he realizes that while I was enslaved in Egypt, God was increasing me in.
The very place where I was enslaved.
And now he can look at his other child Ephraim and say something so powerful that I don't know if we truly understand the meaning of it. He says, God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering. Don't you wish God would just keep you from the suffering? He doesn't do that. And right now I think we need an illustration. So bring out my bring out my illustration devices. Boys, y'all, give them a hand as they come. This is gonna be good. Thank you so much. Appreciate
you very much for that, y'all. I got two things that I have on my person right now. I was praying about how to bring this message home because I thought, man,
I don't just want them to feel like today. I just told them a bunch of stuff about a guy who lived thousands of years ago, and they just talked about these metaphors and abstract analogies, and you know, with the things that people are going through in their life today, I really want them to understand what it means for God to make you fruitful in the land of your suffering. Because the thing about fruit in the land of suffering is that the earth makes whatever is inside the thing grow.
The earth is neutral, The earth is not good or bad until somebody works it, then it can become fertile. But all that the earth can do is pull out what's inside of the sea. Now we live in a time where we respect a whole lot more about the external appearance than the internal reality.
Oh yes we do.
If you do bicep curls for the next year every day, get some big muscles or something like that. Where you go people talk about sons out and guns out and put those away, and you have license to carry those and everything like that.
You read the.
Bible for one hundred days or a year or something like that, Nobody's go walk around being like, man, your Philippians knowledge is really like you know what I'm saying, sons out, son of God.
Therefore, I want to illustrate what I think we don't.
Understand about suffering, because everybody suffers somewhere, but not everybody gets something out of it.
Not all suffering is productive.
There is a difference between the suffering that brings forth fruit and the suffering that increases fear and shame.
And the issue comes down to.
What was in Joseph when Joseph went into Egypt.
That's the issue.
When Joseph went to Egypt, he already had his integrity. So when they took his coat, it didn't matter because it wasn't about what was on him, it was about what was in him. When Joseph was accused, they tried to throw dirt on his name. But even though they put dirt on his name, it didn't change his nature because Joseph went into Egypt fruitful. And the Bible says that when the whole world was suffering from a famine,
there was food in Egypt. And I suggest that the only reason there was food in Egypt was because there was Joseph in Egypt. Sometimes God will put you in a situation because He puts something in you that that situation needs. So all the prayer, so if God get me out of this, God get me through this. There are things that God wants to do as you go through them that if you don't do those things, you.
Can't be fruitful.
And I will demonstrate why some of the stuff that is happening in your life right now that you feel is shameful and embarrassing and terrible, and it may be. I will show you why it might not be what you think it is. And I'm gonna use two objects to illustrate one I have in my pocket and one I'm wearing on my feet. So I'm gonna show you two items and then you can decide what you think about my illustration. These items seem to have not much in common, but I promise you they do.
This is a sneaker. This is a seed.
Technically it's a peach pit, but inside the pit is the seed, so it's a seed.
Now look, what does a sneaker and a seed have in common?
Uh?
Answer class.
Both of them have to get dirty sometimes, but one was made to.
Follow me, this seed.
If I take this seed, this peach pit and put it in this dirt, in the dirt, and then yeah, I should use to headset Mike today. The there was no part of you that found any of that tragic.
Nobody winced, nobody cringed. But if.
What's wrong with y'all? I just did it to the sea. But if don't do it, don't do it. Don't do it?
Why oh oh?
Because this only has value externally.
So if I do this to these, it ruins them. If I do this to these, I just.
Decreased the value. Because the value of the sneakers was how clean the sneakers were.
But if I have a seed, and I take the seed. I just put the seed in.
The same stuff up put the sneakers in.
And when I did this, you didn't say no.
You realized that what ruined the value of the sneakers revealed the potential of the seed. And I came to declare that you're one of these.
You're one of these, kam No, one of these.
What the seed of Abraham? How the seed of Abraham?
So so when the devil does this, realize I'm one of these. And it didn't ruin you what you went through, And it didn't ruin you that they rejected you, and it didn't ruin you that you made a mistake, and it didn't ruin you because the value of you has never been the shoe were increased. The value of you has never been that you were squeaky clean. The value
of you is that Christ is in you. And if Christ is in you, and I'm preaching in my socks to let you know, the seed is still good, the seed is still clean, the seed can still.
Work high five three people say is in you? Is in you? The value is in you? So now I hear.
Joseph saying he made me fruitful in my suffering, y'all missed it. He made me fruitful in my suffering. My faith turns suffering to soil. My faith turns suffering to soil. Jesus didn't resurrect till they put him in the soil. Jesus didn't get up until they put.
Him in the ground.
And some of the fruit that God has produced in my life happened when I was in a place that I never wanted to go.
I can't believe you were so worried about my sneakers, and you're not worried about your mind, your soul, your purpose, your destiny, your gratitude, your kids, your integrity, your habits, your prayer life, your discipline. You see what I'm saying. That dirt did not hurt that seed. It turned it to a harvest. That's why you came to church today because some of the things that you have been through in your life. If your value were external, it ruined you.
But if your value is internal, it did not ruin you.
It revealed you. So that this can become this, So that this.
Can become this, so that Joseph can stand before his family. He was ready for the famine, but he wasn't ready for his family, because that's.
Where he really hurt.
But understanding that you are fruitful in the place of your suffering, well, it makes you look at It makes you look at bad things people say about you a little differently. It makes you look at the things that you don't like a little differently.
You go, wait a minute.
If if this goes in this and I'm a lot of seats now that was my last one. If this goes in this, then it will begin to absorb the moisture. If this goes into this, it will begin to spread apart and shatter.
If it starts to shatter, then it can start to sprout.
If it starts to sprout, it can grow down to get the nutrients and the minerals and reach to get the light. But it starts, Joseph said, in the place of my suffering. And this is why it's really important that you don't get stuck in what you suffered. Because you've already suffered enough. Don't you want to have something to show for it. We'll say that again, you have already suffered enough.
Don't you want to have something to show for it?
And I'm applying this to every type of suffering, even if your suffering was caused by your sin. You've suffered enough, don't you want to learn from it and repent and cling the blood of Jesus and get clean so you can help somebody else not fall into the same pit. Ooh, I wish I had another peach pit, I thought, Oh, I got one, I got one more. I thank you, Lauren. Joseph was put into a pit, and the seed is
in the pit. Help me, where's your sern? And the pit represented potential because God was keeping him there to get him to Egypt. Your life is not random. God is sovereign. Your life is not rotting, it's ripe. Everything you've been through is for this moment. If Joseph had met his family one year earlier, he wouldn't have been ready to embrace them.
He would have retaliated.
So stop telling God when he needs to do stuff and be a seed.
Be a seed.
And when you are a seed and you are in soil, and you are in darkness and you are in obscurity, it can begin to feel like nothing is happening. But anybody who's ever planned and anything can tell you the most activity is happening once the seed is no longer visible. So do not let the absence of visible activity in your life confuse you to think that the presence of God has weakened or taken a day off. That seat is doing stuff, not that one that I just put in.
It would have to be taken care of. But you get the analogy, right, it's breaking so that it can but blossom. And so was Joseph, and so are you. And he was in a place that he never wanted to go. Are you there right now you're like, yes, I didn't want to come to church.
My mom made me come. I'm not talking about church. You wanted to be here. You love to hear me preach, It's one of your favorite things in the world. To do. That response was so weak. Y'all made me want to take another vacation. And then some of y'all didn't even want to be in Charpe.
Some of you didn't want to live in a city or Rono, Goorli or wherever you want to put this camera. You know, we could, we could, We could go around the world and say I didn't want to I didn't want to be here in this soil. Soil isn't sexy. But that's where it happens, that's where the heart shell breaks off, so that what is inside then grab on
and shoot forth and fill the world with fruit. Now, the beauty of this message is that we can apply what I have just said to any situation in your life, because I just told you about a God who can increase you in Egypt, a place that God's people would celebrate coming out of, and Joseph said, he increas me in the very place where I was dragged, kicking and screaming.
It doesn't have to be a situation that you chose for you to grow through it.
It doesn't have to be a situation that you like for you to stay in it. It doesn't have to be a state of mind that you enjoy for it to be productive.
Every time I get ready to preach, not.
Nine out of ten times, not ninety nine out of one hundred times. Every time I prepare to preach to you, just before the breakthrough of the word comes mounting anxiety. Almost it feels like the flu. I want to go to bed, I want to call in sick. I have learned that that is a sign that I'm in.
The rich soil.
Now that I have broken through the surface and I'm in the soil.
And now.
If you don't ever sit with your anxiety and process it with God, but you just run straight to pills, You just run straight porn. You just run straight to people who will say what you want to hear. If you don't ever sit with it and work through it, you will never see what was in you that was designed to be broken away in the soil of your fruitful.
Place.
I thought Canaan was the land with fruit. I thought the Promised Land was the land of fruit.
I thought that was the land God was taking them to. Joseph said, I have a god who.
If the land doesn't have fruit, he'll bring fruit out of you.
He'll do it in your school. If every kid in.
Your school is crazy, you'll be the sane one. Just so am out a walk in the ways of God. That's what the seed was made for. I see some of our kids going back to school in August and saying, it's gonna happen here. There's gonna be a revival here, there's gonna be an outpouring here, there's gonna be a day of Pentecost. Fully come here, I'm gonna do it here. It's gonna happen on YouTube. It's gonna happen here. It's gonna happen in my family. It's gonna happen here. It's
gonna happen in my mid life. It's gonna happen here. It's gonna happen in my old age. It's gonna happen here. It's gonna happen in my failure. It's gonna happen here. It's gonna happen here. Tell the person next Year's gonna happen here, here, here, here. I read about a God who would give me a land with fruit in it, But I also have a God who put fruit inside of me. This is for those difficult situations that you can't change. This is for those decisions that others made
that set you back. This is for those times where you can't reverse course. This is for those things that you can't see how God is working.
This is for.
Those things you are not this, you are.
One of these.
Get your hands sturdy, Come on, get your hands sturdy. Dig till you find what you were designed to do.
Dig till you find the source of the pain.
Dig till you find the will and resolved to forgive what you can't forget Dick till you get it, and everything you've been through, even what broke you, was only designed to show you what was in you and the God who put you there.
I believe every.
Place in your life you walk into you can have the confidence God put me here. Now, don't be an alcoholic and go to the bar and say, God put me here. Don't take my words, make something stupid out of it.
Don't twist my sermon.
But the state in life that you are in is the soil. God changed things. No, God change me, God change me. Let me tell you something in my sock feet with my dirty right hand that I hope you never forget this picture. That man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. And my Bible says in Romans eighteen that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed.
It will be revealed. Is happening here.
Let God have it. Let God have it. Your surrender turns soil into a place of new beginnings.
Or maybe I should say it the way I wrote it in my notes before.
I just messed it up because that didn't make a bit of sense. Your surrender turns your suffering into soil.
That's what I meant to say. That's what I want to say.
So stand up on your feet, lift your hands to your Father in heaven, who knows what he put in you.
Thousand lives can be put on you.
If the truth is in you, what does it matter the weight of others that expectations maybe put on you. But if God's approval is in you, this is my beloved son with him.
I'm well pleased.
Even Jesus went to Egypt and he's with you in your Egypt.
Today.
You are increasing in Egypt. Things are going to happen here that are going to blow your mind.
I need you to.
Stop delaying the idea that God has to do everything you want him to do before he can use you, before you can be happy. Eat your lunch today with gratitude, and every bite you to thank God that you have something to put in your mouth.
I don't care what the four ol one k is. Be grateful is God in you.
It is God in you, willing and acting to his good pleasure. Father, I thank you for all of these seeds. Who knows what Joseph's are increasing even under the water of this word. Today, Father, as we confess that the dirt that was meant to hurt us actually produced to harvest from what is inside of us, I pray that this would be rayma and flesh to everyone who hears it, that they would know exactly what it is that they were meant to see and what they were meant to
release and refocus. For Father, if we stay mentally in our father's household and do not release those things, we can't hold Manassa, we cannot hold e from I want you to turn your palms up to Heaven now, just like you're offering something to God, and like you're receiving something from God. I want you to first give him what happened. Give him what happened, hard as it was,
awful as it was, give him what happened. And now I want to tell you that in his presence, there are some things he wants to put in those empty hands, and it's going to happen.
Here, is going to happen here. This is a place of healing, This is.
A place of newness of life, This is a place of salvation, and this is a place of freedom right here. I know you don't want to be in Egypt. But let's get Egypt out of you. He called it Manassa. That's a Hebrew name. He called it Ephraim, that's a Hebrew name. I will not let where I am defind who I am. I am a child of God. Oh yeah, begin to celebrate. That's good. That means you're receiving. That means your receiving.
Oh how great the love of the Father. Oh how great the gift of the Sun. Oh how great the power?
Jeez? What a save? What a save? I was lost in sin and you found me, Hollliah, you save my soul. I was saying money, raise what I mean?
What?
Oh? How great? Thank you for joining us.
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