Investing for Life | Part 2

From the Love We're Finding studios in Memphis, Tennessee, I'm Byron Tyler, here with Kerry Vaughn, the CEO of Love We're Finding.

Kerry, today Adrian Rogers, Investing for Life Part 2. And you know, life is not lived in length, it's lived in depth. Absolutely, and it's lived every single day, and what a great passage out of Genesis 37. You know, we should really desire that our life counts for the Lord. Every aspect of it counts for the Lord.

Right? And one of the things I love about this sermon, and we've heard it many times, and God was with Him, and God was with Him, and God was with Him, but God was for Him. God was for Joseph, and God is for you, and He's for me. I think that's so important to remember when we're facing deep trials and valleys in life. When we're there, God is actually for us.

That's exactly right. Not only is He with us, but He is for us, and He is the way, the truth, and the life, which means He will make a way. Well, Adrian Rogers says, God doesn't promise to fulfill our fantasies, but God does want to give us a divine aspiration, divine inspiration, divine inclination to be what we ought to be. I love the way he words that.

I do, too. There's another Adrianism that says this, God doesn't want you to have an easy life, God wants you to have an exciting life. John 10, 10, I've come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.

Well, this world, Kerry, as you know, wants to squeeze us into its mold. Well, we're set apart, and we know that Joseph was faithful in the small things way before he was faithful in the big things. Something else Adrian Rogers says, training him. Well, look, that's a good way to look at it. I think when we go through trials or tribulations, what if we just took a step back and say, okay, I'm in training day today. God is training me.

He's refining me, and it's going to be okay. Sometimes we don't like that training. No, we don't. We don't.

We've heard many times, you know, from the pit to Potiphar's house to the palace, God was training Joseph every step of the way. Well, Kerry, we always love hearing from our love we're finding listeners, and I believe you have some one now who has written in. I do. It says this, I have listened to Adrian Rogers and grown as a Christian for many years. I recently downloaded the Love Worth Finding app and have enjoyed listening to him so much more. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping Love Worth Finding going. You know, for our listener, you may have received information through radio only, and I can say that this provides another venue.

It's another way. To check out our digital format through Love Worth Finding, the message will be Christian citizenship. I was reading the booklet the other day, and I had really two takeaways. Number one, I have the responsibility to pray for my nation, and I need to do that on a regular basis. Regardless of who's in leadership, I need to pray.

Number two, I also have the opportunity, the distinct opportunity to participate. What better way to move the needle across our nation? What better way to support our leadership than to be a true Christian citizen? Again, friend, that special broadcast this Sunday night, July 4th, 7 p.m. Central Standard Time, Christian citizenship.

It's available on our digital platforms, Facebook, YouTube, and LWF.org. Well, with today's message, Investing for Life, part two, here's Adrian Rogers. The thing I want to use as a framework is the life, one of the most noble young men that I know anything about in the Bible, whose name was Joseph. Now, I want to give you some things that will help you to invest in life and to live life in depth, not merely in length. Number one, learn to dream. Dare to be a dreamer. Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. This was not some inordinate, silly ambition, but God had given to him a dream. It was a God-given dream that one day the world's rulers would bow at his feet, and the world's resources would be in his hands. God gave him that dream, and when he told the dream, he was not boasting, he was not bragging, because the dream was for God, and the dream was for the benefit of other people.

Now, let me say this, that if you would invest your life, you need to get a dream, a God-given dream. Do you have a vision? Have you dreamed a dream? Again, I want to say I'm not talking about carnal ambition.

I'm not talking about silly daydreams. God doesn't promise to fulfill our fantasies, but God does want to fulfill our dreams. He wants to give us a divine aspiration, divine inspiration, divine inclination to be what we ought to be. Now, number two, not only do you need to dare to dream, but you need to remember your distinctiveness. Remember that the you you see is the you you will be. God made you very, very special.

You're different. Look, if you will, in verse three. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. Now, Joseph stood out from his brothers. He was different.

He dared to be different. Now, his brothers resented him for it. I have had people to try to get me to back out of the ministry. When I was announced as a teenager that God had called me to preach, there were those who said things like this, you can make more money doing something else, or you will never succeed in the ministry, or you'll never make it, you won't last, and all of those things.

You can put wet blankets to put out your fire. Why do people resent it when you go on in the things of God? Because your spiritual success shows them up for what they are, spiritual failures. Now, Joseph was surrounded by negativism.

And these brothers of Joseph resented him because he wanted to go on and claim his distinctiveness for Christ. Do you know, we live in a very negative society. Paul Harvey said that 97.2% of the news that we read is negative. You think about the newspaper. When's the last time you read some good news on the front page? It's so depressing.

Every morning, you get up and read the newspaper before breakfast, the riots, rapes, murders, bombings. Even we read the weather report as negative. They say 20% chance of rain. Why don't they say it's 80% chance of sunshine? You go down the road, there's a thing, they call it a stoplight.

Why don't they call it a go light? We are, we're just negative. We live in a negative society.

And if you're not careful, you're going to fall right into it. To see yourself as special, to see yourself as somebody, is not pride. Remember that verse I told you, be not conformed to this world.

Don't let Joseph's brother squeeze you in, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what is that good, perfect, and acceptable will of God. And then he said, I say to those, every man amongst you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man a measure of grace. And in that passage, he says, think three times. Think, think, think.

Not think more highly of yourselves than you ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man a measure of grace. What do you do with your renewed mind? You think with it.

And what do you do? You assess yourself. You say, who am I?

Where am I? I'm not talking about sinful exaggeration. I'm not talking about false humiliation. I'm talking about sober estimation to see who you are. God made you special. Don't think that just some people are special. And so, learn to be distinctive, to stand out, and to say, I am special, that God has a plan, a destiny for me, and I want to discover that destiny.

Now, here's a third thing. Learn to turn your problems into possibilities. In this life, you're going to have problems. All people have problems. Don't get the idea that there's some people who have problems and other people don't have problems. This is the 37th chapter of Genesis that we're in. We're going to find out. Here's some of the things.

You think you have problems. Joseph was scorned by his brothers, hated by his brothers, in verse 8. In verse 18, it tells about a conspiracy that they got together against him. Verse 24, they tied him up and threw him down into a slimy pit. In verse 28, he sold as a slave and carried off to a foreign country. If you go on and read the book of Genesis 9, he's falsely accused of rape, put in prison.

In chapter 40, he's forgotten in prison, and those who are supposed to help him to get out of prison and remember him forget him. This man's life is replete with problems. What's the difference in people? Some have problems and some don't have problems.

That's not the difference. I love the ocean. And I used to have a sailboat that I sailed around some when I was in Florida. But if you will notice sailboats, one will be going in this direction and another will be going in this direction, both of them sailing with the same wind.

Do you know how that works? One boat goes this way and one boat goes that way, and they're both sailing with the same wind. Well, the poet put it this way. One ship goes east, another west. By the self, same winds that blow. Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale that determines the way they go. And then the poet said, like the ships at sea are the ways of fate as we voyage along through life. Tis the set of the soul that determines the goal, not the calm or the strife. That's a lot of wisdom in that point. Problems don't mean that God doesn't love you.

Problems don't mean that you cannot attain in life and maximize your life and invest in life. Joseph, in Genesis chapter 50, when he looked back on all of his life, all of his ups and downs and ins and outs and the problems that he'd had, his brothers had sold him into slavery. He looked them in the face, and this is what he said to them. But as for you, ye thought evil against me. But God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day, and to save much people alive.

Do you know what that is? That's just an Old Testament statement of Romans 8, 28. And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. God doesn't want you to have an easy life. God wants you to have an exciting life. God put Joseph through all of these troubles because he was training him. Learn to talk to God.

Turn those problems into possibilities and learn that because you're having difficulty, God is still working in your life. One great man said the door to the room of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition. Now here's the final thing that I want you to do as you are investing in your life and determining that you're not going to live a shallow life, that you're going to live a life in depth.

And not in mere length and width. And it is this. Learn to practice the presence of God. Fast forward to chapter 39 and look with me for a moment. There's one sentence in verse 2 that is repeated over and over again that epitomizes why Joseph was such a great man. Look, if you will, in chapter 39, verse 2. The Bible says, And the Lord was with Joseph.

Then skip down to verse 3. The Bible says, And the Master saw that the Lord was with him. Then look, if you will, in verse 21. But the Lord was with Joseph.

Look, if you will, in verse 23. The keeper of the prison looked not at anything that was under his hand because the Lord was with him. And the him refers again to Joseph. The Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. The Lord was with him. And in the New Testament, in the book of Acts, when Stephen is preaching that magnificent sermon, he says in Acts chapter 7 and verse 9, And the patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him.

And that's the thing that Stephen remembered. God was with him. God was with this young man. He sold, he's put in a pit. He sold it to an Ishmaelite caravan going to Egypt.

I can see him there as he's put on the slave block and the whip whistles through the air. His hands are tied and some barker, some auctioneer says, Oh boy, old Potiphar was there and looked at Joseph. Potiphar was the head of the Pharaoh's KGB. He was the chief enforcer, the head of Pharaoh's guard, and he buys Joseph. And the Joseph goes to serve Potiphar, not with rebelliousness, not with a sullen look. Joseph, now who is a slave, makes his job, his temple of devotion. And in the New Testament, there's a verse that describes the life of Joseph. It's Colossians 3 verse 24, Knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.

He's talking about slaves. He said, Just serve the Lord. You're serving the Lord Christ. Verse 3 chapter 39 verse 3 says that Potiphar took notice of this. And the master saw the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. And what a testimony Joseph had. Potiphar, who has bought this boy in the slave market, says, Hey, I've got a pretty good bargain. Look at this.

Everything that lad touches, it seems to prosper. Look how hard he works. Look how wise he is. He serves a God named Jehovah. I wish I had more servants who were servants of Jehovah. Joseph learned to serve Potiphar before he was faithful in small things, before he was faithful in big things. God makes servants before he makes rulers. Then I want you to see that God was with him not only in this mundane servitude, but God was with him when he was facing the great moral issues of life and his self-control.

And I'll not take time to read the story because you know it. But in verses 6 through 21 about in this chapter, the Bible describes how handsome Joseph was. He was a virile young man. The Bible says he was a goodly young man.

It means he was very physically attractive. And his master Potiphar had a wife who began to have impure inclinations. And she began to lust after Joseph. And she began to make overtures to Joseph. And tried to seduce Joseph. And Joseph, in order to keep himself pure, just distanced himself from her. But upon a time she caught him there at what she considered to be an opportune moment and tried to drag him into an adulterous bed. And Joseph so fled that he left his coat in that place. And she, so scorned and so angry in a pit, in a fit, she tore her own clothes and took the robe of Joseph and began to scream, help, help. And they all came running in there and she said, that young man tried.

He tried to rape me. And Joseph is cast into prison. What else could Potiphar do? His wife had accused this man. Could Potiphar say to his wife, you're telling a lie?

She was lying. But God was with Joseph. Do you know what kept Joseph from sinning? Look, if you will, in verse 9.

Joseph said to her, there's none greater in this house than I. Neither hath he, that is, my master, kept back anything from me, but thee, because thou art his wife. How, then, can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? You see, God was with him.

God was with him. You know what kept me pure as a young man? Not reading books about purity. God himself. The fact that I could not sin against God. This sin is not primarily against your wife or against your husband or against some other woman or against your own body.

It's against God. And so here, God is with Joseph. Joseph just gets out of there. He runs away. The Bible says there's a way to escape.

Sometimes it's two legs and a hard run. And that's what Joseph did. And again, God was with him when he was suffering.

And I don't have time to tell you that. You don't have time to listen except to say this, that Joseph is in prison. And the last few verses tell us in verse 21, the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him deliver in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hands all the prisoners that were in the prison. And whatsoever they did there, for he was the doer of it, the keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand, because the Lord was with him.

And that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper. What I'm saying to you, my friend, is practice the presence of God. If God gives you a hard job to do, do it as unto the Lord. If God puts you in a situation where you're tempted to compromise, to steal, to commit adultery, to tell a lie, practice the presence of the Lord and say, I cannot do this thing against God.

If God gives you an opportunity for leadership, do it as God enables you to do it. And whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might and practice the presence of the Lord. You say, well, Adrian, all that you say tonight about living a life of depth is good, but Adrian, God called you when you were a teenage boy.

God put his hand upon Joseph when he was a 17-year-old lad, and even before that. I'm an old man. I've missed the call of God upon my life.

Friend, let me tell you something. The wisest thing that you could do, whether you're 17 or 18, 50, 75, or 95, right now would be to make a full surrender to the Lord and say, Lord, I want you to help me to make up for those wasted years. I want you, Lord, to give me a dream. Give me a dream today if I have five years, one year, three months, 20 years, whatever it is. Lord, I want to go out with a blaze of glory. Lord, I want to know your will for my life.

God, give me a dream. Help me, Lord, to dare to be different. Help me, Lord, to turn my problems into possibilities. Lord, help me to practice your presence wherever I am. Lord, if you won't make me the prime minister of Egypt or keep me in prison, it makes no difference. Lord, if I'm in your will, that's all that really matters. The highest place is just in the center of God's will wherever it is.

But I want to be like that soldier. I met on that airplane. I want to say that my life was lived not in length, but in depth.

Don't you? Let's bow together in prayer. Father God, I pray that you'll just help us, that we'll dare to dream big dreams because we serve a big God. Lord, not to aspire to carnal ambition, but, Lord, to want to lay hold of that for which you've laid hold of us. And, Lord, that we might so yield our lives that you can take ordinary people like us and do extraordinary things. For we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Whatever it is. Maybe today, as you've listened, there are questions you have regarding your faith in Jesus. We'd love to offer an insightful resource at the website. It's our Discover Jesus page. You'll find answers there you may need about your faith.

There's a response section. You can share how this message or others have made a difference in your life. Just go to lwf.org slash radio and click the tab at the top that says Discover Jesus.

We can't wait. We'd like to hear from you. Well, thanks for studying in God's word with us today. As a reminder, if you'd like to receive daily devotions and links to our program, be sure to sign up for the daily heartbeat emails at lwf.org slash radio and tune in next time for more profound truth simply stated through the messages of Adrian Rogers right here on Love Worth Finding. We'll be right back.