[00:00:00] Welcome to Gracious Words. Gracious Words is taken from the weekly women's Bible study, top by Cheryl Brodersen at Calvary Chapel Host a Mesa, California. We'll be home to Lori God in the face of Christ. Joseph, to you, Christ, in the future.
[00:00:35] As Christians were not promised a life free from trials, but we are promised God's presence with us to get through them. On today's program we'll see how Joseph cultivated the presence of God during the hardships of His life.
[00:00:51] We will come before you, and wonder what is this surrender we surrender to. And now here is part one of Cheryl's message titled, learning to cultivate the presence of God. Alright, here we are. So I want to say this about the Lord's presence.
[00:01:26] We too often think that the Lord's presence is an exemption or a get out of jail free card. God's presence will keep us from bad things happening. It will keep us from trouble and hard places. It's not an exemption.
[00:01:42] In fact, in Isaiah 43 too, the Lord says this, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned nor shall the flame scorch you.
[00:02:00] Notice that it says, when, not yet. You see, when is an eventuality? It's inevitable. It's going to happen at some time. So God's presence doesn't say, you'll come to the river but you won't have to cross
[00:02:16] it or you'll come and it will never be deep but will only be up to your ankles. Nor does it say that you'll never walk through fires or flames. It says when, when these things happen.
[00:02:31] But it is in these things that we realize that God is a help. God is not a help from but a help in. It's through these things that we give a witness and it testimony to others. We can say, you know what? The water was deep.
[00:02:46] The water was raging but it did not overflow because God was with me. It is a directive through. God's presence gets us through the river. It gets us through the fire. You'll other people, they hit the river and they drown. This becomes their burial.
[00:03:07] That place where they died, the fire becomes the place that destroyed them but not so with the presence of God. The river, the fire becomes just part of the path. God brings us through. Not only that but there are lessons of maturity in the river and the fire.
[00:03:30] We learn. We learn that God is good, that God is great. We learn how to forward the rivers. We learn how to survive the flames. Lessons that we would never learn. If it wasn't for the rivers, if it wasn't for the fires.
[00:03:46] We learn that God has divine purposes even in the waters. The waters he uses to cleanse us. The fire he uses to refine us. Now we learn that it's actually the river and the fire that move us into the fulfillment of God's promises.
[00:04:07] They are part and parcel of what God wants to do in us for us through as biased to get us into the place that he has for us. When Israel was making their way into the Promised Land, there was a sea to cross,
[00:04:25] the desert to travel through, on a raging river to be forwarded as well as enemies to fight and vipers to avoid. So the circumstances of life are not about if but when. Because bad things happen to both good people and bad people.
[00:04:46] Bad things happen to believers and unbelievers. Bad things happen to the guilty and to the innocent. This is the consequence of living in this fallen and broken world of sin. But there's good news.
[00:05:02] And the good news is, God's presence will go with us and bring purpose, success and power to every hard place in life. When I moved to England and that would be like 25 years ago almost. I was unprepared for so many of the adjustments we had to make.
[00:05:24] Chief alone those adjustments was the loneliness. I was so unprepared for the loneliness. I had left friends and family back in America and I realized it takes time to make friends and it takes time to nurture those friendships and to deepen those friendships.
[00:05:42] Not only that but when I moved to England, I received two letters. Both of them written in pencil. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But let me say this, they were a letter. A letter letters in that they were mean.
[00:05:57] One of them said, I didn't tell you this before but I've had bitterness towards you because you didn't do this and you did do this. And I thought this girl liked me and I liked her.
[00:06:06] I thought everything was great and all of a sudden to find out that there was this bitterness. I mean it was shocking and it was painful. Same week I got a letter from a woman who was one of my closest dear friends.
[00:06:19] And she told me that looking at my life, she felt like I had been mindful of the things of the flesh and not the things of the spirit. Being a Bible student, I knew that was exactly what Jesus said to Peter in Matthew chapter
[00:06:35] 16 when he said, get thee behind me Satan for thou art not mindful of the things that he had got but the things that are of men. This woman was in effect calling me Satan. I was just, I was shocked, I cried.
[00:06:52] I remember just leaving the letter as it was just to go have a good cry. Prasalor Brankyma Crossful Letter, he brought it up to me and said, this is not true which I totally appreciated but nevertheless I had lost my spiritual support system.
[00:07:10] I didn't realize how much I had depended or rested on my mother or my father. If something was bad or something was hard, they had only been a phone call away and I could even drive get in the car drive to their house and say, you know what?
[00:07:26] I have an hard day, I just need my mom, I just need my dad but when we lived in England the phone calls were too expensive and we were on a budget.
[00:07:36] Now the outcome of all of this is for the first time in my life, I began to struggle with depression. The reports that I was receiving from California only made me go deeper into that depression.
[00:07:49] Now the reports were good and California seemed like the chicana glory was falling from my own church and vista, all the lunchons that they were putting on were being sold out.
[00:08:01] I mean sold out, they said, oh my first service we had sold out, we had to call the restaurant and ask if they had more places so we could have more women come.
[00:08:11] Now that had never been a problem for me why I was the pastor's wife of this step. I remember my mom saying, oh our retreats are so blessed, they're packed out and we've got
[00:08:21] waiting lists and all the Lord was just so at the retreat. In the meantime, I was there in England struggling emotionally, financially and spiritually to say in Lord where are you? They're in a Christmas card arrived late in January. How many people get a Christmas card in
[00:08:40] January but this one had been delayed and I remember it was just you know a Christmas card it was signed but there was a scripture reference on the envelope and it was from Matthew 20, 2020 and I
[00:08:52] thought that's not a Christmas scripture everyone knows that the Christmas scriptures are at the beginning of the gospels, not at the end of the gospels and when I looked it up you know
[00:09:02] I know that scripture I even know the reference but for some reason my mind was blanking you ever have that your mind just blanks you forget something that you know and that's what happened to me because
[00:09:15] I believe the spirit of God when I made a look at that scripture and this is what it said it said low I am with you always even to the ends of the earth that is just how I felt like I was in
[00:09:32] the ends of the earth but God was saying to me, Cheryl I don't care what you're feeling I am with you that same day my devotions fell in Psalm 139 and here's a crazy thing about 139
[00:09:49] I memorized the entire Psalm when I was 14 years old I knew this Psalm by a heart but here I was in my devotional study and it was speaking to me more than ever especially verses 7 through 12 where can I go
[00:10:07] from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence if I ascend into heaven you are there if I make my bed and hell behold you are there and here's the part I really liked
[00:10:20] if I take the wings of the morning dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea remember England is an island and from California it seems to be in the uttermost parts of the sea
[00:10:33] even there your hands shall lead me and your right hands shall hold me if I say surely the darkness shall fall on me even the night shall be light about me indeed the darkness shall not hide
[00:10:47] from you but the night shines as the day the darkness and the light are both alike to you it was then as I realized that the Lord was with me the problem was not with God but with me
[00:11:02] I needed to cultivate an awareness of the Lord's presence with me because you know what the Lord was available and accessible I just needed to cultivate that awareness this is what we learned from
[00:11:20] Joseph's life he is an example to us of how to cultivate the presence of God I admit and women like how do I do that how do I cultivate that because it needs to be cultivated from Joseph's
[00:11:35] life we observed seven ways to cultivate the presence of God I want to list these seven ways before we go into the story of Joseph just so as you hear it you'll be aware like aha aha
[00:11:49] aha I want you to have lots of aha moments as we go through this story now let me tell you this about these seven points they are not choices like I'll take number two and number four
[00:12:02] but I want to leave off the lettuce and the hamburger bun can't do it we need all seven we need to use them congruently together they're going to help us cultivate um it's not even steps it's
[00:12:18] not like I do step one step two step three step four they're not even steps they are to be done two together and repeated recently and a conversation with my son-in-law I told him Michael I
[00:12:33] read this article that in order to ward off Alzheimer's I need to lift weights can you give me a routine he said of course yes I will because Michael my son-in-law among other things have been a
[00:12:46] professor and a pastor and a sometime model he is also a weight trainer a personal weight trainer so he said you know mom I want you to get a cowbell and I want you to you know lift like this
[00:12:59] in fact I said to him Michael make me a video and he did he so kind at you know do 10 of this and 10 of that and I want to tell you this any day now I'm gonna do it just one day very soon when I'm
[00:13:12] finished eating all my cookies I am going to start consistently lifting weights but I say that because cultivating the presence of a God it takes repetition and it takes a daily consistent
[00:13:30] activity of all seven principles one he remembered the word God had given him he remembered the dreams we need to remember the promises of God and the word of God in every circumstance of our life
[00:13:50] secondly he served God where every was and in whatever way he was asked to do he considered whatever work he was asked to be a divine work for God third he made God his highest authority
[00:14:08] he was not under pot afar but under God fourth he was dependent on God in everything Joseph realized that his very survival relied and depended on God without God he wouldn't make it he needed God to survive the house of pot afar he sought to bring God glory
[00:14:34] to those around him he sought to be a testimony he recognized that wherever he was whether in pot afar's house in the dungeon or the house of Pharaoh he represented God he was an ambassador
[00:14:51] for God for some of those like pot afar Joseph was the only encounter they would ever have with God he was as close as they would ever be to God he was the only representation of God that they have
[00:15:09] had ever met or interacted with six Joseph sought to learn mature and grow from the circumstances he was in he didn't try to escape them he said, Lord what do you have for me in this place
[00:15:28] 7th he entrusted his life his welfare and his future entirely to God he yielded himself to God and he yielded his faculties to God to be used as instruments for God's purposes
[00:15:45] as we enter Genesis chapter 39 we find Joseph in the house of pot afar even this placement in pot afar's house were told that the Lord was with Joseph God brought Joseph success
[00:16:04] even in pot afar's house it was no accident that it was pot afar who was an officer of Pharaoh who was over the prison of Pharaoh who bought Joseph and in pot afar's house is in godly house
[00:16:21] God was still available and accessible to Joseph as Paul brings out in Romans 8 there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God not pot afar's house not the job of being a servant
[00:16:41] these cannot separate us from the love of God so Joseph proved himself trustworthy in pot afar's house he was trusted and interested with everything that belonged to pot afar Joseph learned how to be
[00:16:58] honest he learned how to honestly administer it over a household remember back in the land of Kenan Joseph was wearing the coat of mini colors he was the specified next patriarchy of the clan
[00:17:16] of Israel and Joseph wanted to be over that household but he was inexperienced and his inexperience brought the iron and jealousy of his brothers Joseph did not know how to work with his brothers
[00:17:30] he did not know how to be a team player in fact even tattled on his brother rather than worked with them trained them or tried to motivate or influence them for good now Joseph in pot afar's house is
[00:17:45] learning to navigate and administer it over others we read then pot afar's wife begins to cast longing eyes on Joseph this is not we're cast just speak to you i mean it's just like her
[00:18:01] her little rod and real just go out with longing eyes like she keeps just fishing for Joseph with her eyes she I just want to say beware those longing eyes when we were young and in ministry
[00:18:20] and we were both much better looking both bright and eye there was a woman in our congregation who felt in love with Brian I'd heard about this because she confessed it to others and they came to me
[00:18:31] and I said you know what it's not my problem and tells you make some move well at one retreat she felt led to come and confess her longing eyes towards Brian and I told her something that I think is
[00:18:45] very important to now I said to her you're not in love with Brian you're in love with Jesus but you see Jesus in Brian and Jesus came to you through Brian you were led to Jesus by Brian
[00:18:58] and the enemy wants to come in and corrupt that affection that you feel for Brian as a pastor as a godly man in fact I feel like the enemy wants to use this for evil in order to keep your husband
[00:19:12] from coming to Jesus and I'm going to warn you about this because you are not in love with Brian you are in love with Jesus well she proceeded to tell me why I was wrong and she actually challenged
[00:19:24] me we'll see what Brian thinks about this crazy huh she felt led then to confess it to Brian and Brian did just what Joseph did he told her I'm not interested I don't want this
[00:19:39] and she ended up leaving our church crazy enough within two months of leaving our church which I think was a wise thing to do her husband came to Jesus and their love for each other was
[00:19:52] rekindled as that man began to grow in the Lord and she began to see Jesus in her own husband the enemy is always there to corrupt to trip up but what happened was potifars why began to
[00:20:06] pursue Joseph it was a daily thing she was always trying to allure and seduce that Joseph's resistance was strengthened because it had to be exercised every day this would keep Joseph from being
[00:20:25] felt by the very things that removed his brother Ruben from being the patriarch of the tribe of Israel you see Ruben could not resist bill hop that here is Joseph actively daily pursued by this
[00:20:47] ungodly woman and he resist any continues to say no I love Genesis 3910 where it says he did not feed her in other words he wouldn't give her the time of day he wouldn't pay attention to her he didn't just say no he absolutely did not heed her
[00:21:13] in verse 9 chapter 39 we read that Joseph said how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God Joseph recognized that all sin is ultimately against God willful sin as an
[00:21:30] affront to God you know too often we try to make sin impersonal I just did this for me I just felt I needed this and we don't recognize that when we sin we are insulting God we are saying God
[00:21:46] I want my will about your will I want to meet my desires even though they are in direct violation of what you say I prefer this over your word in your will Joseph had the right perspective
[00:22:04] sin it was ultimately against God it was a great wickedness in the sight of God and Joseph couldn't afford that his survival depended on God oh how we need to get to a place where we can
[00:22:22] not afford sin because our daily survival depends on the companionship of God and we don't want to do anything that would violate that anything that would bring a distance one day alone in the
[00:22:40] house with Mrs. Potafar she corner Joseph she tried to force herself on Joseph even grabbing Joseph's garment Joseph fled even leaving that garment behind but as the same goes hell how no fury
[00:23:00] like a woman's scorned Mrs. Potafar now scorned made up an elaborate tale of being attacked by Joseph you know it's interesting to me it says that she called together the men in the house this
[00:23:14] is one wicked walkie me she doesn't call together the female slaves she doesn't even call her made in no she calls the men of the house she had influence with those men then she tells Potafar and his anger becomes aroused perhaps the way she told it
[00:23:37] but maybe because he felt betrayed by Joseph who we had entrusted with everything how difficult this must have been for Joseph in doing what was right he was slandered it was not only the loss of his job the loss of his responsibilities the loss of his freedom
[00:23:59] but I believe more than that the loss of his reputation you see a reputation takes a long time to build and losing your reputation hurts in the ministry personally one of the hardest things I had
[00:24:13] had to face has been the slander and the loss of my reputation hated by his brothers and sold into slavery Joseph's ordeal was probably worse than any of us have ever gone through
[00:24:27] he seemed to have no control over his destiny and was bought and sold like a piece of property it may have seemed like God abandoned him but he didn't even as a slave Joseph was promoted in
[00:24:40] his position he could have ended up with anyone but Potafar brought him and entrusted him to work in his household and the Lord blessed Potafar for Joseph's sake in the same way we can be assured that
[00:24:53] God has not abandoned us in our hardships no matter how the circumstances may appear we can trust in the promise of his presence even in our most difficult times we hope you happen blessed by today's
[00:25:06] Bible study for more information about the gracious words radio program and the teaching ministry of Cheryl Broderson please visit our website at GraciousWords.com coming up next time on the Gracious Words program we'll look at God's presence with Joseph as we continue our series our great creator
[00:25:23] in the book of Genesis with Cheryl Broderson we do hope you make plans to join us again for more information please visit our website at GraciousWords.com this program is sponsored by Calvary Chapel coast de Mesa, California
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