Are you looking back on a year that included unwanted surprises? Why did God allow you to suffer? He causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Why does He do it?
Look, look. Because God knows His people and He knew us in advance, and He chose us to become like His Son. When assaulted by pain, it's natural to question God.
Why would He allow us to suffer? Well, we never know where these daily programs find you, but perhaps the unwanted surprises of 2021 have caused you to wonder if God knows or even cares. Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll presents a brand new message prepared with the New Year in mind. His goal is to help us see God's providence in every aspect of our lives, the good moments and even the not so good moments.
Chuck titled today's message, A Treasure You Must Not Miss. As one thing to sing, I surrender all. It is another thing entirely to do that. We want to do that. That is our deepest desire spiritually. But we have within us an old nature that fights.
Everything about that. I pray that you will hear within us today, Father, a willingness, a deep desire to let that happen. It cannot be done without your Spirit at work within us to energize us, to motivate us, to lead us into that direction of life of surrendering rather than resisting. May we do so and find delight in the surrender. Enable us, Lord, to hear from you today so that in fact we do not miss this treasure you have for us. For many, it's a hidden treasure, but it's never meant to be hidden.
It's meant to be claimed. May we understand as best we can what it is about. May we accept it, embrace it. And as the year unfolds, may we live it out so that by the conclusion of the year, we look back and say we are more like Christ than we have ever been in our lives. For that is your goal for us. Now minister to us in a deep way, we pray, as we continue our worship. May the things of this earth fade as the things of Christ emerge as they are highlighted in this passage we are examining today and living out in the unfolding of the year. We pray this through Christ, our Savior and Lord. Everyone said, Amen. You're listening to Insight for Living.
To search the scriptures with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. Chuck titled his message, A Treasure You Must Not Miss. So as we begin the year, we say to him, take charge. Remind me every day, Lord, and the passing of every day that you're in control. Your plan is unfolding. We know God causes.
Maybe you've never paused at that point, and I want us to do that now. God causes. So the project is God's, it's not ours. The year before us is all about God.
We have the opportunity to live it, but we are living out what God would have for us. A good analogy would be we're like clay on the potter's wheel, and God is the potter. I have my Bible turned back to Jeremiah 18.
I invite you to go back with me. Take a look at these words where the Lord invited Jeremiah the prophet to make a trip to the potter's house. Jeremiah 18, the Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, Go down to the potter's shop, and I will speak to you there. So I did as he told me, and I found the potter working at his wheel.
But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped. So he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Then the Lord God gave me this message. O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand.
If I may broaden the application to go beyond the nation Israel and apply it to us personally, I'll draw on the words of Eugene Peterson as he writes of this scene in his book Run with the Horses. Jeremiah's imagination went to work as he stood before this potter with his lump of clay and his wheel. Jeremiah had seen potters at work all his life, but today he saw something else. He saw God at work.
By the way, that's what you do when you stay aware of the treasure. You just don't see what's happening, you see God at work in what's happening. You just don't see a potter at the wheel, you see God at work on the clay. You see God at work in your life, in your circumstances, in that disappointment or that surprise. Reading on, persons created in the image of God or people of God, necessary but not only necessary, each one is also beautiful and beautiful, not only beautiful but each one is necessary. Each human being is an inseparable union of necessity and freedom. There is no human being who is not useful with a part to play in what God is doing.
And there is no human being who is not unique with special lines and colors and forms distinct from anyone else. All this came clear to Jeremiah in the potter's house. The brute fact of the clay, lumpish and inert, shaped for a purpose by the hands of the potter, and then as it took shape, the realization of the uniquely designed individuality and wide-ranging usefulness it would acquire as a finished pot, painted, baked and glazed.
God shapes us for his eternal purposes and he begins right here, reminding me he begins this year right now, as you hear these things. And then the pot was spoiled, Peterson continues. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hands. Jeremiah knew all about that. He knew about spoiled vessels, men and women with impurities and blemishes that resist the shaping hand of the Creator.
He rubbed shoulders daily with people who were not useful. Imperfections made their lives leak, holding neither wine nor water. A failure of proportion made their lives wobble or tip, unstable and undependable. Jeremiah continued to observe, what would the potter do now? Kick the wheel and go off in a sulk, throw the clay at the cat, go to the market and purchase another brand?
Neither. He reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do. God needs and presses and pulls and pushes. The creative work starts over again. Patently, skillfully, God doesn't give up. God doesn't throw away what is spoiled. Under a different image, God shapes the vessel.
George Herbert saw this and said the same thing. Storms are the triumph of his art. You'll remember that when you take this warning. As the storms of this year unfold, as they hit us, today we don't know what they will be. They may come in a political setting. They may come in a social setting.
They may come in a very personal one related to our health, our family, someone in our family, someone we love deeply. But God is at work in all of that. Remember, we're dealing with an unconditional promise. We know that God causes, now we're ready for the big word, right here in the verse, He causes everything to work together.
The plan is total, not partial. This is the part that's difficult to get our heads around. Some things we have no problem saying God was in that start to finish. But this says everything. Now, please observe, it doesn't say everything is good. It doesn't say everything that happens is a good thing.
It says it works together for good. You see, His plan, His purposes that I mentioned earlier are often convoluted and deep or woven together, reshaping things. One poet put it, Not till the loom is silent and the shuttle ceased to fly will God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why the dark threads are as needful in the weaver's skillful hands as the threads of gold and scarlet in the pattern He has planned. He has planned. Everything working together as He has planned it. When you grasp that as the year unrolls, you will not miss the treasure. Matter of fact, I'll make a statement that you haven't heard me say that often. Your life will be completely different by the end of the year if you live this year embracing this treasure.
It's amazing what it will do to you. The reason is, right here in the passage, He causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Why does He do it? Look, because God knows His people and He knew us in advance and He chose us to become like His Son. That's the pattern He has in mind.
As John R.W. Stott put it, In the simplest possible terms, God's eternal purposes for His people is that we should become like Jesus. You become more like Jesus than you have ever been before if you heed this warning and if you claim this treasure and live it out.
It begins in the mind, moves to the heart, and becomes a part of the driving force of your life. I pause here and lift from this Romans letter and go back to Genesis for a story to remind you of the classic example of it, of this wonderful treasure. I'm going back to a 17-year-old teenager mentioned in Genesis 37.
His name? Joseph. A favored son of his father, Jacob. He loved him because he was a son of the father's old age and the other brothers and there were so many of them. All of them were envious of the special treatment that Jacob gave Joseph. So they resented Joseph. Now, Joseph didn't handle everything well. He's a 17-year-old.
What 17-year-old ever handles everything well anyway, then or now? And they resented him. They didn't like the favoritism shown. But they didn't stop with resentment.
They turned that to hatred. And when they were alone with him, away from the father, they abused him. They abandoned him. As a matter of fact, get this, they sold him to a caravan on its way to Egypt.
They didn't know those men in the caravan. A few pieces of silver and they sold their brother. They faked his death by taking his garment and showing the father later the blood on it. That was the blood of an animal, but the father thought it was the blood of Joseph. Thinking Joseph is dead, they left the father believing that lie.
So there are lies involved in this. Back to Joseph, he is taken to Egypt. He's placed on a slave block and he's bought as a common slave in a land he's never been in before.
Doesn't know the culture, has to learn the language. And he's bought by a man named Potiphar, who brings him into his home and makes him one of his house servants. Joseph's integrity emerges and Potiphar notices it. And here's Joseph, still in his late teens or maybe by now early 20s, emerging as a reliable workman in the home of Potiphar. And Potiphar's wife notices Joseph.
You remember the story. When you get to Genesis 39, she eyes him and begins to seduce him and he never once falls for it. He turns against her.
He in fact runs from her when she grabs him, tears a part of the garment, and later she screams rape. He's not guilty of any of this. But as a result, he is unfairly thrown into prison.
I've got a list on the side of my notes here. He was resented, hated, abused, abandoned. He was enslaved. He was accused unfairly. And Potiphar, the husband, threw him into an Egyptian dungeon and left him. He didn't deserve that. Now wait, wait.
You're thinking, what a terrible, terrible set of circumstances. But you never find Joseph bitter. You never find him blaming anyone.
Certainly not God. While he's in prison, he meets a couple of men who have dreams and Joseph interprets the dreams and it leads to their being released. One of them is killed and the other one is back into his old job as the cook for the king. And he forgets Joseph even though he promised to remember him. So Joseph is now, back on my list, forgotten.
When he's 30 years old, 17, 30, nothing but bad news year after year, year after year, year after year, enough to make even a saint bitter. Joseph isn't bitter. Through a set of circumstances, many of you will remember Joseph is called into Pharaoh who's had a dream or dreams and Joseph interprets the dreams and Pharaoh is so impressed with him. He says a man who can do this deserves to be second in command.
When you read Genesis, you will find that Joseph is placed as the prime minister at age 30, second in command over all of Egypt. He's given the robes of royalty. He's given a chariot, a magnificent chariot that is his own. A man goes before him everywhere Joseph rides in the chariot. Bow the knee. Bow down before. This is the prime minister. This is second in command. And he calls his Egyptian name.
We would call him Joseph. Now, all this happens while the brothers are back in Canaan and the famine has happened and they're starving. They need food.
There's grain in Egypt. They know nothing of what's happened to their brother. They couldn't care less. Out of sight, out of mind. Joseph is there, looks up one day and in front of him, as he's sitting in this very special seat of authority, appears his brothers.
Hot dog. Now's the moment, huh? No.
Joseph didn't miss the treasure. There's no moment. There's no blame. There's no retaliation and revenge. He says, don't be afraid of me. Listen to these words. Am I God that I can punish you?
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. And there's much more application Chuck Swindoll wants to draw from this fascinating story of Joseph. Chuck titled his message, A Treasure You Must Not Miss.
This is Insight for Living. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Before we hear Chuck's closing comments today, I want to remind you about the video conversation he prepared for you. Just recently, Chuck sat down for a personal discussion about the challenges of this year, and in particular, how our study in the Gospel of Matthew will give you renewed strength and direction for what lies ahead. And we invite you to take a seat at the table with Chuck for this 30-minute conversation online. You'll be inspired to hear Chuck's grace-filled comments and especially to be reminded that God will be with you at your side through this year and beyond. To see and hear Chuck's conversation, look for the link at insight.org slash conversation.
Chuck, from the first day this program aired back in 1979, the recurring theme is one of grace. You've often helped us understand that the gift of grace isn't an isolated event between us and God. That's only the vertical transfer. That's only the vertical transfer of God's grace.
You're absolutely right, Dave. It's not enough to claim a vertical relationship with God. Yes, God's grace comes to us vertically. That is, we receive his grace from above. But grace doesn't stop with that vertical transaction. Grace is meant to be shared liberally across the board horizontally in all of our relationships and even with those we may never meet. Remember what Jesus told his disciples that night before he was crucified?
I'm reading from John 13, verse 34 out of The Message where Jesus said, Let me give you a new command. Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. Now, that's our mission here at Insight for Living Ministries. It's our mission to send a fragrance of God's love and God's grace to our community, our country, and even around the world, which includes your country. And now, as December 31 approaches, please ask the Lord to guide you in standing with us by giving a very generous year-end gift. Without exaggeration, I can tell you that your support is urgently needed. Your gift can make all the difference. So together, let's be lavish with our love by responding generously with our resources. Please get in touch with us right now. Jesus said one more thing to his disciples that evening before his ultimate sacrifice.
He added this statement. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples, when they see the love you have for each other. As you give, others will see the love you and I have for them. Let's do it together. Now, let me give our contact information.
First, you can become a fragrance of God's grace by giving your contribution at insight.org slash donate. Then, if you prefer, you can also call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. Again, call 1-800-772-8888. I'm Dave Spiker, inviting you to join us again tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll describes a treasure you must not miss. That's Wednesday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, A Treasure You Must Not Miss, and the sound recording were copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
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