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Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Part 2

Leading the Way / Michael Youssef
The Truth Network Radio
January 21, 2025 12:00 am

Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Part 2

Leading the Way / Michael Youssef

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January 21, 2025 12:00 am

In this 9-part series, Joseph: Portrait of a Winner, Michael Youssef shows you how God defines a winner through the turbulent life of Joseph. Using nine character qualities, Dr. Youssef leads you to the truth that will help you live a life of a true winner -- God's type of winner!

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Welcome to Leading the Way, featuring the worldwide Bible teaching of pastor and the author of more than 50 life-changing books, Dr. Michael Yusef.

Now, you can probably think of someone who most everybody agrees their life goals kind of outpace their real-life abilities, right? Well, today, Dr. Michael Yusef, for his classic series, Portrait of a Winner, is looking into the pages of the life of Joseph, a man who experienced a life filled with tragedies, and yet he rose to prominence, to power, and was used by God to do great and amazing things. So if you feel that sense of being directionless or discouraged, this message from Dr. Yusef may be exactly what you need to hear today.

Join me now for Leading the Way. In truth, the people who I have admired, the heroes of my life, the deeply spiritually committed people to the Lord Jesus, are people who have wrestled with some of the toughest problems that life could ever dish to them or to anyone. Well, as we continue in this series of sermons from the life of Joseph, we're going to see how sometimes God's winners don't look like winners, but they are. And Joseph now comes to Dothan after looking for his brothers. After 60 miles, he goes around looking for them another 12 miles and he finds them in Dothan. He goes there in obedience to his father's directive. He goes there after too much trouble and effort and energy.

He goes there after a great deal of personal sacrifice and he probably thought, oh, we've been separated for so long. I'm sure my brothers would be glad to see me. I am sure they will welcome me. If nothing else, they would like the food that I'm bringing them. But then he comes in and that was not the case.

Why? The bitterness in their heart has never been dealt with. Have you ever been in a situation when you made peace with somebody and you thought that everything is fine and you thought they have forgiven you and it's all great? And then a little while later you discover that that was not the case at all. You discover that they are going around still carrying all grievances, still carrying all bitterness, still carrying all resentment. Have you ever been in that experience?

I want to tell you the reason for that. The reason for that is that they have never really dealt decisively with the root of their bitterness. Do you know why some people walking around this earth with a 20-pound chip on their shoulders? Have you seen some of them?

Oh, I have. They're going around telling you how does everybody else's problem, how is everybody against them. They're telling you how it's everybody else's fault.

They tell you how everybody else's shortcoming and nothing of their own, of course. And the reason for that is because they have really never taken the time to analyze and deal with the poisonous roots of bitterness in their life. They dealt with the surface but never dug into the roots. I'm not a great gardener and I think those who know me would testify to that fact. But I know enough to know this, that I mow the weed in my yard. You trim it and you cut it, the weed grows up so fast. And you try to spray it, some of those weeds they just will knuckle on, they will spray. And the reason for that is that the weed will not be dead until you pull it out by the roots. And I've learned that the hard way. And it's the same with bitterness in our lives. Unless they are dug by the roots, they will continue to spread that root, poisonous root system well below the surface in your life and in mine. And as long as you keep getting rid of the cobweb, the spider is going to build again until you kill the spider and you deal with it. And these folks run around from relationship to relationship, from job to job, from church to church, from pastor to pastor, from counselor to counselor. And they're thinking that every new situation is going to help solve the problem. And it doesn't.

They go through the same process with meticulous preciseness and with details that happen over and over and over again. Why? Because the root system of their bitterness remains intact below the surface. And the bitterness in the heart of Joseph's brother toward their brother was not going away. It was not going away by separation. It was not going away by distance. It is not going away by act of kindness that Joseph bringing them the provision.

It was not going away. And as soon as they saw him coming, they formed an unholy huddle. And they said, let's kill him. Or Reuben, of course, look at scripture verses 21 of Genesis 37. Reuben being a typical firstborn always takes the responsibility of the whole family on his shoulders. Yeah, some of you firstborn understand what I'm talking about. I mean, you don't only carry the problems of your next siblings.

You take and carry the problems of the whole world on your shoulders. Now Reuben hears about this plot to kill Joseph and he tries to rescue him from their hands. He said, let us not take his life. Don't shed any blood. Throw him into the cistern here in the wilderness.

But don't lay hand on him. Reuben says this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So they strip him out of his favorite robe. They strip him out of that princely robe.

Strip him out of the robe that resembles or symbolizes the love of his daddy. You see, they did not only hate the dreamer. But they despised the robe which represented Jacob's love for his son Joseph. And because they could not do anything about his father's affection toward Joseph.

Because they could not do anything about their dreams themselves, they sought to do something about their dreamer. So they seized Joseph violently and they throw him into a nearby dry cistern or a well. Now these cisterns were plentiful in the wilderness areas because they are dug by the shepherds. And the shepherds would dig them in order to store water during the rainy season for provision for the flock. And these cisterns were shaped like a bottle.

They narrow at the mouth but they get wider as you get down. Why? So that you can have a flat rock that will cover them and save the water inside from being contaminated. But down below it's a wider subterranean room.

But it was absolutely horrible. It was detestable to throw anyone in one of these underground cisterns. Why? Because there is no escape and there's somebody from the top will pick you up. You can't climb up. And you only can imagine how terrified that little boy, 17 years of age, when he's thrown into the pit. But you know what?

Through it all, God was not sitting in heaven wringing his hand. Oh, Jacob's boys are thwarting my plan. Oh my goodness, the brothers of Joseph, they are defying my will.

I can't do anything about that. Oh, the dreams that I gave Joseph, now they're going down the drain. God was not sitting in heaven saying, oh, the very plan for the future survival now is in jeopardy.

What am I going to do? Not on your life. Try as they may, God's plan always on schedule. Always on schedule.

Not a minute early and not a minute late. I know and you know that we don't always understand God's plan. We don't always comprehend His plan. We don't always even see the reasons behind His plans. We don't know why He does what He does the way He does it instead of the way we want it to be done. I don't understand that.

But He always is in control of His plan. And these miserable brothers sat down to eat, most likely it was the food and the provision that Joseph had brought them. And they sat down and they were eating. And there in the middle of their meal, by sheer luck, by utter coincidence, amen? I am glad, God bless you.

Some people are alert here. Listen to me. There is no such thing as luck in the Christian life. There is no such thing as coincidence in the Christian life. There is no such thing for those who love the Lord.

Absolutely nothing like it. The Scripture tells us that God coordinates all things. And listen, the bad things that you see them bad.

The good things that you see them good. All things, all things, God takes them together and He brings them into His mix, into His economy and He brings good out of them. That's our God.

Right on schedule. God sent the descendant of Ishmael. There were Joseph's cousins twice removed. And now there were traders and they came to pick him up, buy him from his brothers and sell him in Egypt.

Listen, here's what happened. Look at verse 27. Judah decided that we better make some money out of this deal. You know, the guy was all heart. His heart was the shape of a cash register. He said, come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let us not lay hand upon him for he's our brother, our flesh.

Isn't that sweet? So they dragged the boy out of the cistern. He was terrified not knowing what they're going to do to him. Not knowing what's going to happen to him.

Well, put yourself in his place. Don't think, this is a 17-year-old boy who probably never been away from home. This is probably the first time ever that he's gone as far away from home as he did. The Lord has given him great dreams of grandeur. The Lord has given him dreams of success and winning. He trusted the Lord and he looked forward to the day when the Lord fulfills his dream.

Only he finds himself half naked in the bottom of a pit and then pulled out ready to be sold to these traders. How unfair this must have felt. Oh, how undeserving this must have felt for Joseph. For you know, Genesis 42 tells us that he cried and he pleaded for mercy from his brothers. He wept and he begged them to return him to his father. He agonized as he besought his brothers to release him.

But for 20 pieces of silver, which is the price of a male slave at that time, they sold him to those traveling merchants. Reuben was away at the time of the bargaining and the buying and the selling and he comes in, he missed it all and he found out what happened. With the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, his biggest concern now became not how can I rescue my brother, but how can I tell my father? What kind of story will I sell to him?

What am I going to say to my father? And that becomes his first concern. Now listen to me please, hear me right. Deception breeds deception. Deception breeds deception. The boys to protect themselves, what did they do? They dipped Joseph's coat in a goat's blood and took it home, carried it as a false evidence to their father and they said, can you identify this robe?

Of course, there's nothing like it. Verse 33 literally says, Jacob wailed. It is my son's robe. And now Jacob's fall victim to the false assumption of the death of Joseph. Deception breeds deception. Jacob was a man who deceived his own father years ago, years ago. And now he is being deceived by his own sons. Galatians 6, 7, do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked, the man reaps that which he sows.

Whatever you put in the ground is going to come up. When Jacob tricked his father to steal the birthright of his brother, Esau, is now coming back to haunt him. Because he wanted to steal his brother's birthright. Deception breeds deception. A dear friend of mine asked me, he said, what did you mean some time ago when you said sin pays wages?

And you said that pays wages in kind. Here's what the Bible means by that. If you sow deception, you will reap deception. If you sow discord, you will reap discord. If you sow arrogance on your way to the top, you will reap humiliation on your way down. Our sins will always find us out, make no mistake about it. My father used to say to us when I was little, he used to say, just remember, he said lying has legs and will always catch up with you. I'm still looking around.

See anybody catching up with me? This is what is happening in our society. We are seeing that biblical principle worked out in a society.

Why? In the 60s, our nation saw the sin of sexual permissiveness. They saw the sin of drugs and breaking of all moral restraints. We have thrown away prayer out of school.

We threw God out of the school. We pulled down the Ten Commandments out of public buildings. And even the liberal institutions running around now saying, what is wrong with our society? Why are we in moral decline?

What is happening in our society? It's there in Galatians 6. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. What you sow is what you reap. We need to intercede for our nation. Unless the blood of Jesus Christ washes away our sin, it will always find us out.

Unless you bring them into the blood of Jesus Christ and cover them with his blood and bring us for forgiveness, our sins will find us out. And because Jacob looks at the immediate circumstances. And not the large picture. He can't see the large picture.

He can only see what's in front of him. That's what you do and that's what I do. That's all we can do. He weeps and he wails. And he lives the next few years of his life in sorrow, in pain, in grief, and in agony. Inner agony. Someone said once, he said, when you are in the cellar of affliction, you should start looking for the wine of God's purpose.

Well said. Joseph gets to Egypt and he is sold to the director of the Egyptian FBI. But why Egypt? Have you ever asked yourself, why Egypt? There are a lot of other nations, all the eights, you know, the Bible talks about.

The mosquito bites and all the eights. There were a lot of other nations around. Canaanites were a big, powerful nation.

Why Egypt? You see, God wanted the family of Israel in Egypt for 400 years. Just as he told Abraham he would. He told him earlier that and now he's fulfilling it.

Well, you might rightly ask, well, you know, here's how you and I would think. Canaan is a promised land, right? It is a promised land.

Canaan is a promised land. Now, it would not be a shortcut. Wouldn't it be a much more economical way? Wouldn't it be a much easier way if Joseph was sold to the Canaanites? And God would have served this plan that way. Would he not?

No. You see, God is going to produce from his people Israel prophets, writers, they want to prepare him to receive the law, teachers, singers and ultimately the Messiah himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has to prepare them for that. So, where they would go? Well, Canaan would not work.

Why? Had they gone to Canaan with the size they are, well, within a couple of hundred people, two things would have happened. Either they would have been absolutely eliminated and killed or in that permissive kind of society they would have been absorbed into the society and lost their identity in God as the people of God, especially chosen by God to fulfill God's promises. They would have been absorbed into that society. God wants to preserve a large nation, so he sends them to Egypt. It's the only place on the face of the earth at that time that they can become a large nation. It's the only place.

Why? Egyptian society were proud people. Nose up in the air, don't look at me. They were so proud that they would not associate with the Hebrews. To begin with, they shaved their beards and the Hebrews didn't and that to them was repulsive. It was an exclusive society and therefore God sent them there to preserve them in their exclusivity. The Egyptian society, not only proud, look at, in fact, I'm not making that up by the way. If you look at chapter 43 of the book of Genesis, chapter 43 verse 32, it spells it out to you.

It's right there, second part of the verse. It says the Egyptians did not eat bread with the Hebrews for that is an abomination to the Egyptians. Now I got news for you, this Egyptian eats with anybody. But that was the kind of society it was, but that's not the only reason. Israel's family would be severely segregated there and kept from being melted into the Egyptian society. But the other reason is this, the Canaanites were barbaric. The Canaanites were crude people, no learning, no education. Egypt, on the other hand, was the seat of the world civilization at the time.

The pyramids had already been built, there were libraries, there were universities across the land, arts and culture. And there God wanted to prepare the man who ultimately would deliver them, Moses, in the highest form of education and society that was known to mankind at that time. Remember, when you are in the cellar of affliction, start looking for the wine of God's purpose. Seventeen-year-old young man, he gets carried in anguish from the pit to slavery.

What can that be good to anybody? Seventeen-year-old man sees his dreams going down in the drains, but he did not know he was serving God's purpose. The Bedouin traders who were plodding across the desert carrying Joseph, thinking of how much profit they can make on him, they did not know they were serving God's purpose. The brothers, cruel, hateful, happily busy dividing their 20 pieces of silver between them, they did not know they were serving God's purpose.

Jacob weeps and he sobs his eyes out, and he determines to live his life in sorrow and in pain and in grief. Does not understand that he's being part of God's purpose. But God knew all along, as he knows all along what is happening in your life.

He knows all along what's going on and what's going to happen before it happens. But you know what our problem is in American Christianity? Is that we want God to think our way.

We want God to do things our way, instead of us submitting in humility to the will of the Father. When you get into the rough roads of life, when you get into the tough corners of life, when you and I feel it difficult to see beyond the immediate present, when you and I see our dreams perhaps in the dumps, it is vitally important to know that God has the big picture in mind. He has the big picture for you. He has the big picture for your family. He has all the big picture in mind. And the big picture said that you will ultimately be blessed.

That you and I, if we are in Jesus Christ, will ultimately be glorified with Him. And the big picture said that we are ultimately going to succeed. And the big picture said that we are ultimately going to be winners, even if we don't look like a winner. For God's winners sometimes don't look like winners. But they are. The world judges by outward appearance.

But God judges by different set of rules than the ones with which we judge. Thank you for joining listeners worldwide for Leading the Way with pastor and Bible teacher, Dr. Michael Yusef. He is the author of 50 plus books, including his most recent, My Refuge, My Strength. Now, learn more about My Refuge, My Strength, and other books and resources when you go to ltw.org.

Also, when you get in touch, please make sure to tell Dr. Yusef that you listen right here. You know, in Western culture, it's often assumed that most people have access to similar technologies. Radio, television, going online.

Westerners probably understand that phones may be different brands with different apps in some countries, but many don't really realize that radio, television, and other media are not always available in all parts of the world. So that's why the Leading the Way Navigator Ministry has been so popular. Navigators are little solar-powered portable MP3 players, not only containing an audio copy of Dr. Yusef's most engaging messages, most recently in 28 different languages, but also an audio Bible.

Oftentimes, the first time users have ever heard God's word in their own native language. Leading the Way Navigators, or also called Pocket Missionaries because of their efficiency in sharing Jesus, are being used by ministry field teams and missionaries to reach the lost with the gospel. And when you support Leading the Way with your prayers and with your financial gifts, know that you are making it possible for these little navigators, these little pocket missionaries, to be given to even more people.

Learn more about navigators. Learn about other ministry outreaches of Leading the Way also. Just visit ltw.org or call us at 866-626-4356. That's 866-626-4356 and ltw.org. Or you can write to us at Leading the Way, post office, Box 201100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325.

Again, that's post office, Box 201100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef is listener supported. There are several ways you can stand with Dr. Yusef and support Leading the Way's gospel impact around the world. One, consider a generous one-time gift. Two, become a frontline mission partner, those who give monthly. Or three, join the community of cornerstone partners who give in and through their estate. Learn more at ltw.org. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-21 12:59:16 / 2025-01-21 13:08:31 / 9

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