Devotion over Desperation | Adam French

Welcome to A Word From the Word. I wanna talk to you about Joseph, how in his most desperate moment, he didn't act on his desperation, he acted on his devotion. If you remember the life of his story in the Bible, it starts in Genesis 42 is when we first see it. Joseph is about 17 years old, and up to that point we don't know anything about his life, but it just kinda drops us in this life that he's living, and immediately he begins to have struggles and trials. And for 17 years, many things happen that are out of his control. One is that his own brothers throw him into a pit. Not only they throw him into a pit, they let him beg and continue to allow him to stay there. We know in later chapters that as Joseph describes it, he talks about, or actually his brothers when he's standing before them in Pharaoh's palace, they hear, he overhears his brothers talking, and they say he was begging for his life, he was pleading for his life. So Joseph, their little brother, who their father loved and had his own special coat and didn't do anything to them, is thrown into a pit and he's begging, begging, pleading for his life, and they let him stay there, and eventually they would sell him off to, as a slave. He finds himself in Potiphar's house where he's falsely accused and thrown into prison.

While he's in prison, he uses a gift of being able to interpret dreams, and at some point believes maybe he's gonna have a chance to get out, but he's left and forgotten. So this time, when he was a child, till he reaches this pivotal moment when he comes before Pharaoh, he's roughly in his 30s, so we're talking 15, 17, 18 years where Joseph is just going through a struggle. And I believe this, is that pain and obedience often share the same seat. Let me say that again. Pain and obedience often share the same seat. So even though Joseph was obeying, even though Joseph was doing what he was supposed to do, he was still struggling and suffering. I was taken back, I was even brought to tears when I was reading this week, specifically in chapter 41, when Joseph finally hits this kind of moment of triumph. They remember him, the cupbearer remembers Joseph. You can go back and read in Genesis 42 all the way up. They remember, he remembers what Joseph's gift is, and he brings him to Pharaoh. And remember that the scriptures paint Joseph as a guy that was handsome and concerned about his appearance. And it says that before he could even come to the Pharaoh, they had to give him a bath, change his clothes. He was in a desperate, desperate state,

in the dungeon, forgotten about. And he stands before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says, can you interpret my dream? And his answer touched my heart. He says, no, I can't. Now, I don't know about you, if I had this moment where I'm standing before my freedom, I'm standing before the one thing that can get me out of the situation that I'm in, I'm gonna say, oh yeah. And if I have the answer, I'll say, oh yeah, I got you. I got you, I know what it is. I can tell you your dream. But Joseph says, no, I can't, but God can. But the God that I serve, the God that I know. And I was struck by that, and when I look back, I realize that he didn't answer out of a desperate place. He wasn't answering out of his circumstances or the struggle that he was in. He was continually honoring God. And he had such a devotion for God that the desperate times didn't knock him off, or didn't cause him to answer out of pride. You know, Spurgeon says this a lot about his own life. He battled, I don't know if you know this, one of the most well-known preachers of the past, had a very, very difficult struggle with depression. He was deeply, deeply in anguish off the road about it. And he talks about one of his famous quotes, and you probably know it.

He says, he says, I kiss the wave that beats against the rock. And I probably butchered that, but he's talking about when a wave comes and hits the side of a cliff, and the wave is his depression. And he says that he kisses that. He was being funny, but he says that because he's trying to show that he wants to be endeared to that. Because he learned to embrace the struggle. He learned to embrace his own depression. And the reason why he embraced his own depression, because he realized that it brought him. him so close to his Father in heaven. And that's what I see in the life of Joseph. There's so much you can get, and as you read through it, you'll probably learn a lot. You can comment on this and tell me about what you got, or you can write us at Long Hollow Church and talk to us about Joseph. I know he can speak to many people in many places through the Holy Spirit. I just wanted to share with you that when I read this, I was struck by his humility. And not only do we need to be humble when we get our way, or we get the blessing, or we get the trophy, or when God shows up, but learning to be humble when it's uncertain, or when it's hard, or when it's difficult.

The obedience is right there with pain. I found this in many other ways in my life, that my greatest fear, around the other side of my greatest fear is faith, right? Right around the thing that I need to learn to accept and let go of, it could be anger. So it can work both ways. And it's that place where the Spirit of God and the truth of God rubs against our own flesh, our own worldly behaviors, our own, the old way of thinking, the old way of life is where we have to consciously choose God, consciously choose to pray in that moment, consciously choose to say, no, I'm gonna forgive. No, I'm gonna let go. No, I'm gonna say it was God and not me, because I'm gonna follow what the scriptures say, and I believe that's what sustains us. That's the bread of life. That's what fulfills me. That's what I've found over the last 17 years of my sobriety and of searching the scriptures and trying to live a life that's honoring to the will of God. So if you're in a desperate place right now, don't respond out of desperation. Don't let your mind, your actions, your choices come from that desperate place. Let your thoughts, hold to your thoughts captive. Renew your mind through the word of God.

Let your actions and everything else instead reveal your devotion to God. What would God have you to do? And I think you'll find that your heart will be changed. Let me pray for you, please. Father in heaven, I pray for whoever's watching this and wherever they're at, in a jail or a prison cell, God, that you would comfort their heart. And I pray as they read through the life of Joseph that they would find comfort and solace that Joseph was not forgotten. And that through all those years of struggle, he was preparing him for something good. It may not be that he was gonna get out of that circumstance or get out of that struggle, but it meant that he was gonna have a comfort that surpassed all of his circumstances. And I just pray in Jesus' name that your Holy Spirit would move in the heart of the listener. You would touch them and empower them to seek your word and to follow it and to stay devoted to you and not their situation. It's in Jesus' name that I pray, amen. Amen.