Pastor's Corner
September 2007
Dear Church Family,
It is a story of a family feuding which turns into an inclination to murder and eventually a kidnapping. Add to that deception and duplicity and then sorrow and grief. Include as well elements like jealously, favoritism and sibling rivalry. What do you have? A soap opera episode? Some television show or novel on the bestseller list? Would you believe you would have a story from the Bible, the word of God? Indeed that is what you have in the story of a man named Joseph and his family in Genesis 37-50. However, these are not the total elements of that story. We would also have to add lessons on the sovereignty of God,forgiveness, grace and how God honors integrity, faithfulness and godliness. That would be, then, the whole story of God working and teaching through one man’s life with God in the Old Testament.
Starting on September 23 we will begin a series of sermon messages on the life and legacy of a man named Joseph. I mention it here because I need to encourage you to read Genesis chapters 37-50 before we begin the study. The reason is the richness of the narrative cannot always be covered in detail in each sermon. By reading ahead I hope that you will be able to have the background from which we will draw many lessons on what God and His word has to teach us about how He works in our lives today! In Romans 15:4 Paul writes, “For whatever was written in earlier times (i.e. in the Old Testament) was written for our (i.e. Christians) instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Thus, we take the Old Testament as the teacher of lessons we need to learn to live out the Christian life today!
My prayer is that this study will resonate with us today in dealing with so much of the life God has called us to live. In this study we will learn many things from how to avoid “family feuds” to how God sovereignly takes even the most evil attempts of others toward us and can turn them into good. We will see how grace and forgiveness changes our lives and we will see how honoring a father can lead to great blessing beyond an immediate family to even fulfill a great promise of God for all of humanity.
I invite you then to pray with me as we take this “Journey with Joseph”! It is a journey of intrigue, temptation, testing and trials. Yet it is also a journey of great triumph in one man’s life that becomes a wonderful picture of so much of God’s working in our lives today. Thank you for praying for me in this study and for “reading ahead” to find a very happy ending to “the journey”! Well I did it again. I took on a home repair project! Now to those who know me, you know that this can be rather disastrous. You have heard me share how, what should be a rather simple job, turns into hours of work, many trips to the store and twice the money as planned!
Serving with you,
