Fulfilling Your Purpose

The final part of peacemaking involves making peace with who we really are and who God made us to be. At some point in our lives, our perspective shifts. We realize that we aren’t the hero of our story in the way we thought we’d be. We make mistakes, poor choices, and few of us experience life exactly the way we thought we would. And yet, God can still redeem the lowest parts of our story. In fact, the most influential people in the biblical story all experience dramatic low points. At the end of Genesis, Joseph seems to be at his lowest point. But through his work of forgiving his past, forging new patterns, and framing his pain, God is able to fulfill Joseph’s purpose. Making peace with our purpose means making peace with disappointment, failure, and regret. But it also means making peace with who we actually are today. We look back at our lives, and ahead to our future, in order to fulfill the purpose God has for us.

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 Hey, if you guys have a Bible, and I hope you do, I’m so thrilled for today’s message as we finish off the peacemaking series, not the practice. We’re hoping this becomes a way of life for us, but if you have a Bible, open it to Genesis chapter 37.

We’re going to be reading a lot of scripture today, and that’s something I’ll never apologize for. Jesus said in the New Testament, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Amen. And so all month long, we’ve been learning from Genesis, actually, what it means to become a peacemaker, also what it means to be a peace faker and a peace breaker.

We’ve looked at Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and we’ve been looking at the working definition of peacemaking. It should be on the screen.   📍 The practice of peacemaking is doing the hard work of forgiving our past. Forging new patterns and framing our pain in order to fulfill our purpose of loving God and others.

 And today is all about purpose. Now, hopefully if you’ve been around church any length of time, you know, the, the answer to the purpose of the Christian life. It is to love God, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Jesus says, also love your neighbor as yourself. Now today it’s going to be a little heavy.

It’s going to be kind of hard hitting because we’re going to argue. You cannot fulfill your purpose in life. If you aren’t committed to the hard work of peacemaking. This is really hard for us to accept because it’s not something we hear very often. And typically, I think it’s because we’re drastically, especially in America, in the Western society, we’re influenced by thinkers like Freud.

Freud would argue the purpose of life is just to seek pleasure. And so it’s really how we’ve defined a lot of our, you know, Journeys, how we make decisions, how we decide if our life has been good or not. We decide, does it feel good? If it feels good, it must be right. We’ve now decided morality should be based off of taste and not on truth.

That’s why we keep changing the rules, because our taste keeps changing. So the pleasure principle is not all it’s cracked to be, cracked up to be, and it isn’t. brings a lot of heartache. Others, like Alfred Adler, and I think, uh, Nietzsche, to an extent, would teach the purpose of life is about gaining more power.

So it’s not about pleasure, it’s about power. Oppress the oppressor. Somebody’s going to be the oppressor, it might as well be you. You need to win every argument, you need to beat every competitor. Hopefully by the end you get out on top and you’re the best there is. The problem is, well, there’s a lot of problems there.

Other people get hurt along the way and somebody will always be more powerful than you. Genesis is a story of people. Who should have pursued peace as their purpose, but instead chose pleasure and or power. And we learn just how detrimental it is for their life and for their families. Cain kills his brother Abel.

Why? He chose power over choosing peace. God floods the earth in Genesis chapter 6 because they chose pleasure. They ran after every desire and God saw that it was leading to all sorts of ruin and decay. Genesis 11, they build a tower of Babel because they think we’re going to be just as powerful. We’re going to be more powerful than God.

And we see how that ended. Genesis 12 and on, zeroes in on the family of Abraham. And now Genesis 12 gives the promise. This family will bring peace to all the nations. But is this family peaceful? It’s quite dysfunctional. That’s what we’ve learned this last month. It’s just like our families, right?

Abraham has a lying problem and he loves to play favorites. Isaac is also a liar who also plays favorites. And yet Abraham has faith in God. Isaac remembers the covenant. Jacob deceives, runs away from conflict. And yet we do see him wrestle with God. And so the family of Abraham is a mixed bag of good and bad.

Right? But their family, clearly up to this point in Genesis 37, is not at peace. In fact, as we’re going to look at Genesis 37, it is still not at peace. But we’re going to learn about a new person in the family line, and his name is Joseph. Joseph clearly is a product of his past. But, the narrator wants us to ask, will he perpetuate it?

He’s shaped by his past, but will he be shackled to it? I think we have a lot to learn from Joseph, and let’s begin by praying, asking God for his favor. Let’s pray. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, thank you so much for the opportunity yet again just to preach your word. God, I pray that we wouldn’t just be hearers only deceiving ourselves, but may we be doers of the word.

God, thank you for the life of Joseph. Thank you, God. In many ways, his story can maybe become like ours. Breaking off generational sin. Making peace with those around us. But God, we cannot do that without your grace. We just ask you for it today. May you give it to us in abundance. In Jesus name I pray.

Everybody says, Amen. Amen. Genesis chapter 37. Again, we’re reading a lot of scripture today. So let’s just dive in. Verse 2. We’re going to, the Joseph stories from, uh, Genesis 37 all the way to Genesis 50. We’re not gonna read all of that, but we’re going to cover a lot of ground. Let’s begin. Verse 2. These are the family records of Jacob.

At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brother. So Joseph, 17 year, Uh, year old man. Okay. The young man was working with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought a bad report about them to their father. So what is Joseph being? A tattletale. Do people like tattletales? Where I come from, snitches get stitches.

Okay. Verse three. I grew up here. So that’s probably not true, but verse three. Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons. So there’s favoritism again. Because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a long sleeved robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him.

Are we having peace so far, not very peaceful, and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him? Then Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, listen to this dream I had. I want you to read this. It’s so tempting for us to think Joseph is perfect.

Read this story. He is an arrogant young man just like most of us are when we’re young. Verse seven. There we were. He’s talking to his brothers. Binding sheaves of the grain in the field, suddenly my sheave stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheave. Are you really going to reign over us?

His brother asked him. Are you really going to rule us? So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream and told it to his brothers. Look, I had another dream, and this time the sun, moon, and eleven stars. Stars were bowing down to me. He told his father and brothers and his father rebuked him.

What kind of dream is this that you have had? He said, am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Again, Joseph here is like every boy. He’s arrogant, he’s reckless, and he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Like many though in the Bible, Joseph is a dreamer. Dreams play an important role throughout the Bible, and they play important roles throughout our lives. For some, the dream is quite literal, or it’s like a vision. I know for me, after a year of praying and saturating myself in the Word of God when I was 13 years old, I believe I had a dream, or a vision, of one day doing exactly what I’m doing here today, preaching the Word of God.

But for others, they’re subconscious images. It’s just little pictures. Seeds along the way breadcrumbs that we follow and we begin to dream who we can become and dreams are really Important for us to have because dreams are the stories we tell ourselves It’s how we make sense of the world. It’s how we understand pain.

It’s how we understand our place in a narrative. We are storytelling people and it helps us live another day. It helps us enjoy the good times and endure the bad times. So Joseph having a dream is a very God honoring thing to do. The problem is he probably wasn’t interpreting it the correct way, at least not yet.

Robert Moore, he has this really great book talking about how we’re all storytellers, and he argues we all are kind of, we imagine ourselves into four different types of the language he would use as archetypes. So in other words, every young man, especially, dreams of becoming these types of four archetypes.

They should be on the screen. The first, is a king. Some of us dream of one day becoming a king. Now in our democratic society, it’s not a king literally, but in our minds, we want to become men and or women, right? With the symbol of creativity. Secure in your own being. Secure enough to recognize and affirm other people.

We’re not threatened by people’s success. In fact, we root for them. This beautiful image of us becoming kings. Other people, we imagine ourselves becoming warriors. A warrior is a symbol of courage. He doubles his efforts when he’s exhausted. He’s persistent. He’s passionate. He has a goal in mind and he’s not going to stop until he gets there.

Beautiful things, if in the right direction. Some of us dream of one day becoming prophets. This is the symbol of clarity. It’s the prophet’s job to keep the king honest. He speaks the truth to power. He’s the elder. He’s the spiritual director. He’s the mentor. He’s Yoda, right? He gives people the right words in the right season.

And others of us, especially when we’re young, we can’t imagine, we, we fall in love with this idea of becoming a lover. It’s the symbol of contentment. We want to be men and women who delight in our surroundings, who fall in love. Right? And inspire other people with beauty, maybe through the form of art or through our words.

We all have dreams and you could kind of summarize them through the lens of becoming kings, warriors, prophets, and lovers. But here’s the problem. These can be beautiful things to live into as long as your purpose is to love God and love others, is to live a life of peace. But if your aim, if your interpretation of this dream is that of having more power, And asserting it over people.

If your interpretation of the dream is to become a person of pleasure, and to enjoy anything, pursue every desire you have, it can lead to a lot of pain, both for you and the people around. This is actually a threat Joseph has, and it’s a threat you and I have as well. When we pursue anything outside of loving God and others, here’s what we become.

Instead of kings, we become tyrants. Tyrant is a symbol of control. Have you probably met those people? They’re insecure. Despite all the power they have, they’re constantly threatened by other people’s success. They bring sycophants around them, just yes men, and they cannot stand anybody who calls them out.

They keep everybody around them inferior. The warrior, this beautiful image of men and women fighting for a cause, can just become madmen. Which is the symbol of cruelty, no longer guided by morality, you’re just simply violent and you hurt everybody in your path. The prophet can easily be perverted into a charlatan, which is the symbol of a crowd pleaser.

Lies for dishonest gain, manipulates the poor, takes advantage of the weak. And the lovers, I think we see this everywhere today, easily can become addicts, which is just the symbol of consumption, chasing artificial enjoyment and instant gratification in the form of drugs, dopamine, any of those things. Now what I want us to see, Joseph is at a tip, tipping point in his story.

This is a key inflection point. What we do know is his dream so far in Genesis 37 is from God, but the interpretation at this moment is from an arrogant boy. In other words, just at looking at chapter 37, who is Joseph more likely to become? A king or a tyrant? A warrior or a madman? A prophet or a charlatan?

A lover or an addict? Well, let’s keep reading because in a weird way, Joseph is given the gift of pain. Which we talked about last week that helps maybe transform him if he does the right thing with it. Let’s jump down to verse 16 of chapter 37. Again, we have a lot to read today. Let’s see what happens next.

Verse 16. I’m looking for my brothers, Joseph said. Can you tell me where they are pasturing their flocks? They’ve moved on from here, the man said. I heard them say, let’s go to Dothan. So Joseph set out after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him in the distance and before he had reached them, they plotted to kill him.

Is this peacemaking? Not at all. They want to kill their own brother, which is just like Cain and Abel. They said to one another, Oh, look, here comes that dream expert. Notice the sarcasm. This is his identity now. So now come on, let’s kill him. And throw him into one of those pits, we can say that a vicious animal ate him, then we’ll see what becomes of his dreams.

When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from them. He said, let’s not take his life. Reuben also said to them, don’t shed blood, throw him into the pit in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him, intending to rescue him, uh, so he said that, intending to rescue him from them and return him to his father.

So Reuben has a backup plan. He wants to not see this go through. Reuben. But he’s still cowardly enough to allow this thing to kind of happen. Verse 23. When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped off Joseph’s robe, the robe of many colors that he had had on. Just imagine how violent this scene is.

Then they took him and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty without water, so he was going to be left to die there. They sat down to eat a meal. Can you imagine just like how insane these brothers are? They’re eating a meal while hearing their little brother screaming for help. And when they looked up, there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.

Their camels were carrying, uh, uh, a ro aromatic gum, a balsam, and a resin going down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, What do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come on, let’s sell him. So they’re greedy now. Let’s at least get money out of this guy. Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.

And his brothers agreed. When, uh, many a night, traders passed by. His brothers pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him for 20 pieces of silver. This is important for later on in this story. Go ahead and highlight that 20 pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites who took Joseph to Egypt. Okay. Notice right away the exact opposite of Joseph’s dreams are happening.

What is Joseph’s vision? His brothers bow down to him. What now happens? He’s not their king. He’s a slave. So the rest of the story goes, we’re going to skip just a couple chapters because chapter 38 is actually not about Joseph. Joseph goes to Egypt as a slave. Eventually, he is, he does a good job. And so he’s trusted by Potiphar to run the whole household.

Potiphar’s wife sees Joseph as a good looking man with tons of strength, right? And so he says, Hey, she says, come commit adultery with me. And he refuses. Which we see, Joseph is growing here. He’s not so much this arrogant boy anymore. We see holy acts from him. She’s embarrassed by the rejection and then frames him.

He, she grabs his coat of many colors, right? Well, it’s not the coat of many colors, but he grabs his, because that, that thing got blood and moved on, but he grabs what he had on and now goes to Potiphar, her husband, and says, look, Joseph tried to rape me. And so now Potiphar gets really angry, sends him to prison.

Notice how he handles the hurt in chapter 39 verse 20. So that’s all that’s happened. He got framed. Okay? This wasn’t good. And so verse 20, and had him thrown into prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. So Joseph was there in prison, but the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him. He granted him favor with the prison warden.

The warden put all the prisoners who were in the prison under Joseph’s authority, and he was responsible for everything that was done there. The warden did not bother with anything under Joseph’s authority because again, the Lord was with him and the Lord made everything.

We’re starting to see the transformation in Joseph’s life. If you were here last week we mentioned the three ways God transforms us. Quick word on that. Number one we said is the Holy Spirit. Which clearly we see here God was with him. He had success and favor because he had the presence of God with him.

Number two we mentioned habitual practice. Doing the right things repeatedly over time. We don’t see that explicitly in this text, but we can assume the Lord is with him. He’s growing. He’s probably doing things like meditating on the Lord and praying to him. But number three, we clearly see the other element of transformation in Joseph’s life, which we said last week was humiliating pain.

Joseph had a ton of it. He was sold by his brothers, went into slavery and was framed. Now he’s stuck in prison. And like we said last week, I love the story of Joseph because it kind of combines everything we’ve learned the last three weeks into one message. All of this pain was going to drive him deeper.

It was either deeper into revenge, anger, hatred, or deeper into love, compassion, understanding. We’re starting to see glimmers. Maybe Joseph is surrendering to God. He’s being humbled. He’s not this arrogant boy anymore. And he’s taking this pain, instead of transmitting it to others, he’s beginning to transform it.

Look at Genesis chapter 40. We go back to Joseph being a dream interpreter. Verse 8, we’re just going to kind of highlight a few here to know what’s going on. Verse 8, We had dreams, they said to him, these two prisoners, but there’s no one to interpret them. Then Joseph said to them, Don’t interpretations belong to God?

Tell me your dreams. He winds up interpreting the dreams for them that one is going to die, the other person’s going to be at the right hand of the king. Uh, verse 14, after he gives the, uh, summary of the interpretation of the dream, verse 14, But when all goes well for you, remember that I was with you. So please show kindness to be my mentioning me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison.

So two prisoners with them, they both have dreams. He interprets them that he knows they’re about to get out. One of them though is going to be next to Pharaoh. Remember me, get me out of prison. I was framed, but I just helped you. So don’t forget that verse 23. What happens yet? The chief cup bearer did not remember Joseph.

He forgot him more pain for Joseph, right? More misery. Because he should have been remembered. But now he’s still just stuck in obscurity in prison. But then the cup bearer down the road remembers Joseph because Pharaoh is struggling with the dream of his own and nobody can seem to interpret it. And he goes, wait a minute.

I’m only here because Joseph, a prisoner. Interpreted my dream. I bet you he can interpret yours. And that’s exactly what he does. He interprets the dream and tells him actually your vision is that you’re about to go through seven years of famine and then, uh, sorry, seven years of a feast, abundance, gather, store, save, because in the next seven years are going to be famine and you will all die unless you save.

Are you guys with me so far? We are just flying through Genesis. I love it. Now Pharaoh likes what he hears. He thinks the interpretation is correct. So now chapter 41 verse 39 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has made all this known to you, there is no one as discerning as wise as you are. You will be over my house and all my people will obey your commands.

Only I as king will be greater than you. Have you noticed that pattern? He did that for Potiphar. He did that for the prison guard. Now he’s doing it for Pharaoh. What you’re doing in your life right now will have glimmers of how God is going to use you in the future. So be faithful with the little so you can be faithful with much.

That’s just a, that was free. Not even part of the sermon. All right, but let’s keep going. Uh, verse 41, Pharaoh also said to Joseph, see, I am placing you over all the land of Egypt. Wow. Over all the land of Egypt. So what are we seeing here? We’re starting to see maybe Joseph’s dream might be coming true, but we see the transformation happening.

Joseph is wise, discerning. Humble. When people ask for a vision, he says, interpretation is not mine. God is the one who interprets dreams. Again, he’s considering other people ahead of his own. There has been a huge humility process happening, okay? But like we’ve said the past few weeks, you don’t really know how much you’ve healed, how much God has restored your soul, until you go back to your family of origin.

You go back to those who have hurt you, and you meet them with compassion and forgiveness and reconciliation, not revenge and hatred and anger. And so now Joseph gets that opportunity. Genesis 42, his family comes to him because the famine is going crazy, right? It has now been 22 years since Joseph has seen his brothers.

The brothers don’t remember, remember Joseph, like doesn’t look like Joseph. Joseph speaks like the Egyptians now, looks like the Egyptians by how he dresses. And so they come to him. What’s pretty fascinating. A lot of people, 42 through 44, Joseph kind of looks like he messes with his brothers for a while, but I think it’s to test him, it’s to see how much these brothers have repented, and to see maybe if there’s reconciliation is possible.

So he sends him to go back home to his father, frames him just for fun. It’s a fun story, read it, it’s great. For our time, uh, we have to kind of skip through that. Now Genesis 45 is this big moment. Joseph’s going to reveal himself. Will he be a tyrant to his murderous brothers? Will he be a madman to the ones who tried to kill him?

Or will he be generous? Will he be a peacemaker? Chapter 45. Joseph could no longer keep his composure in front of all of his attendants, so he called out, send everyone away from me. No one was with him when he revealed his identity to his brothers, but he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it and also Pharaoh’s household heard it.

Remember last week we said emotions matter. It’s okay to be emotional. They just can’t be your master. Verse three. Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still living? But they could not answer him because they were terrified in his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me.

And they came near. I am Joseph, your brother, he said, the one you sold into Egypt. And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here because God sent me ahead of you to preserve his life. He’s reframing the pain. Verse six, for the famine has been in the land these two years and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting.

God sent me ahead of you. To establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God. Does he seem vengeful and angry? No. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, Lord of his entire household, and rule over all the land of Egypt.

Return quickly to my father and say to him, This is what your son Joseph says. God has made me Lord over all Egypt. Come down to me without delay. You can settle in the land of Goshen and be near me. You, your children, and your grandchildren, your flocks, your herds, and all you have. There I will sustain you.

For there will be five more years of famine. Otherwise, you, your household and everything you have will become destitute. An incredible moment of mercy and forgiveness. But the brothers don’t believe him. Would you? The guy you tried to kill and then decided to sell into slavery, he has all this power and says, I want to help you.

They’re thinking as long as Jacob’s alive, we have a shot. But when dad dies. Brother’s coming for us. And that’s exactly what they think. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 50. We see this play out. Verse, uh, 15. When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, If Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the suffering we caused him.

Notice that guilt. And they’re used to a family perpetuating, uh, not peace, right? They don’t have peacemakers in the family. So they sent this message to Joseph. Before he died, your father gave a command. Say this to Joseph. Please forgive your brother’s transgressions and their sin, the suffering they caused you.

Therefore, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. Joseph wept when their message came to him. Most commentators believe this was a lie. Jacob probably trusted Joseph. He wasn’t worried about Joseph actually turning on his brother. So the brothers came up with this to say, okay, if we say this is from the father, you’re not going to hurt us.

So why would Joseph weep? He’s weeping because he’s like, you don’t believe me? I have fully forgiven you. I’ve reconciled you. It’s okay. I’m not holding this against you. But that’s, that kind of peacemaking is rare. Verse 18, his brothers also came to him, bowed down before him. How’s that vision going? It’s happening now, right?

And said, we are your slaves. But now Joseph has a different understanding of the dream. He doesn’t use it to lord over them. Look at verse 19. But Joseph said to them, don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You planned evil against me. So he’s not brushing it over, not acting like it was fine. No, it was sin, but God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people.

Therefore, don’t be afraid. I will take care of you and your children. And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. Notice the practice of peacemaking in both chapter 45 and chapter 50. Number one, Joseph forgives the past. Verse 4 and 5 of chapter 45, don’t be grieved. Don’t be stressed out. Don’t be mad at yourself.

I’m not holding this against you. And I love that line in verse 19, am I in the place of God? I think one of the biggest ways you and I can assume that we are God is we think we have the right to hold a grudge. The gospels, Jesus says constantly, who are we to not forgive others? If you have been forgiven, of course you’re going to forgive others.

If we are sinners. Of course, we have to forgive other sinners. We are not God. We are not blameless. So Joseph is saying, we are all level. Uh, what we would say in the New Testament, at the feet of the cross. Who am I? I’m not in the place of God. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. That’s not my job. I’m not holding any of this against you.

Please, no. I have forgiven you. And this is so important because if Jesus, uh, if Joseph didn’t forgive the past, he was bound to relive it and re give it. And what led to the detriment of Jacob’s family. But instead he doesn’t transmit that pain. He transforms it by forgiving and you and I can totally forgive because we have been forgiven by God through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Okay. Point number two, Joseph forges new patterns. This was the second week in our peacemaking practice. He comes from a long line of peace fakers and peace breakers. It would have been so easy for Joseph just to continue this. But look at the transformation. What does Joseph do? Verse 8 through 11, chapter 45.

He says, come stay in Egypt. I’m going to provide for you. I don’t just forgive you. I am making a new relationship here. We are starting a new pattern of love and reconciliation and trust. 21, the very end that we just read here in chapter 50. He comforted them, spoke kindly to them. He’s starting a new relational pattern.

This is what we do. We honor each other. We take care of each other. Okay, and number three, Joseph framed his pain. He says multiple times in both of those chapters, you didn’t send me to Egypt. That’s how I felt in the beginning, but now I realize I’m framing my pain to realize God is sovereign. God’s in control.

He did this. It is in his providence I went through this pain. I had to go through it in order to save you and everybody else. I had to go through this pain. You planned evil against me, but God planned it for good. So he partners with God to restore his family and not bring revenge on it. Friends, what is Joseph doing?

The practice of peacemaking.   📍 Joseph did the hard work of forgiving his past, forging new patterns, and framing his pain in order to fulfill his purpose of loving God and others.  As we close, I just have a few key ideas and a final practice for us to wrap up this peacemaking practice, but hopefully we’re not wrapping it up in our lives just as a series. First of all, I just encourage you, raise your imagination from power hoarding or pleasure seeking to peacemaking. Many of us have pain because we think the purpose in life is either pleasure or power, but friends, it’s to bring about peace.

I would argue in chapter 37, Joseph misinterpreted his dream, but 22 years later, after being separated from his family, suffering, betrayed, forgotten, he reinterpreted his dream and knew his purpose. If Joseph’s purpose was about pleasure or power, those 22 years of suffering would mean nothing, pointless, a waste of time.

But if his purpose is to make peace, there’s no way he could have done it without those 22 years of suffering. Notice how peace just gives us purpose no matter what we go through. How does it help? Joseph is now more loving, more compassionate. He understands that he is not God. His arrogance was beat out of him.

All of this was for a purpose so he can be in the place to help make peace for others. And so I just want to encourage you just even in our day to day life, even in the life of this church, we have to realize one of our primary purposes in life is to make peace with others. And that takes a lot of humility.

That takes a lot of sacrifice. I was reading James 3 this week and sometimes I consult Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase. So he kind of just like puts it in words. It’s not scripture, but sometimes it’s like a helpful summary. I just do it kind of for fun. He’s had this line in James 3, 17 through 18. He paraphrased it this way.

I thought it was beautiful. He said, real wisdom, God’s wisdom begins with the holy life and is characterized by getting along with each other. It’s gentle and reasonable. It’s full of mercy and blessings. It’s not hot one day and cold the next. It’s not to face. And this next line got me. You can develop a healthy, genuine community that lives right with God and enjoy its results.

Only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. That needs to be our call. And if I can be so bold as to say that is not a normal Christian stance here in the West. We come to be, to have pleasure, to gain more power. But what if the way of Christ is the way of peace, which often manifests itself in a lot of suffering and a lot of sacrifice.

But in the end, It’s a life filled with purpose. The second thing I want to point out from this story is Joseph’s story points to Jesus’s story. It’s beautiful. In some ways, friends, Joseph is not you. It’s not me. It’s pointing to Christ and his work. Let me show you a few examples of how they’re similar.

Joseph’s brothers conspired to kill him in Genesis 27. Jesus’s own people conspired to kill him in Matthew 26. Joseph was betrayed for how many silver coins? I told you to remember. 20. 20. 20. Jesus was betrayed for how many silver coins? 30. Okay, we see that in Matthew 26 as well. Joseph was accused, although he did no wrong to Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39.

Jesus was accused, although he never did any wrong, we see that in Mark 14. Joseph had two prisoners with him. One was going to live, one was going to die. Jesus died between two thieves. One was going to be in paradise with him forever, and the other was going to die. Look, Joseph, he saves his people by becoming a suffering servant, but then was eventually raised to the right hand of Pharaoh.

In Genesis 40, Jesus came and was the suffering servant for you and me taking on our sin. But then he was raised again and he’s exalted at the right hand of God. You could see that in many places, including Philippians 2. So if Joseph’s story points to Jesus’s story, that means for you and me, we are more like his brothers.

Without Joseph, we just perpetuate injustice. We seek revenge. We die with a bitter heart. But we have peace because a greater Joseph has come and ushered us into this new kingdom. And on our own power, we die in famine. But because of Jesus, you and I can live in a kingdom. Kingdom that’s filled with abundance.

Also, I thought this was so cool. Like the brothers in Genesis chapter 50, they’re terrified. They’re, they’re already in the kingdom and they’re thinking, God, but I’m not, I mean, Joseph, I don’t think you’ve forgiven us. I don’t know if you love us. And what does Joseph do? He weeps and reminds them, you’re already here.

I love you. I have forgiven you. And friends, when you and I look to God and say, I don’t know if I’m saved. I don’t know if you love me. I don’t know if I’ve done enough good works. Jesus weeps and reassures us and says, I’ve already forgiven you. Well, you have received me. You are in the kingdom. It’s not about earning your salvation.

It’s about turning to his love. You are here. We have, you are forgiven and you are fully reconciled. You are a child of God. We, friends, are like the brothers. But with such good news is we have a greater Joseph who has forgiven us and given us peace. And also though, Joseph’s story can become your story.

Not in the Jesus narrative sense, but you can take the hand you’re dealt with and all the suffering and still glorify God. You can break the generational chains and start brand new family legacies. You can do the hard work of transforming your pain so that you don’t do the easy work of transmitting your pain.

This is what we can do through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the good news of the gospel, because the greater Joseph has already come. And so in your groups this week, or you can just go to formedbyjesus. com slash peacemaking if you’re not in a group, we want to take you on your own Joseph journey.

Okay, we’re gonna ask you to do two things this week. Uh, we still have, oh, I don’t know where I put it. Oh, there it is. We still have these in the back. We have two things we’d love for you to chart out, and then we will be done. First of all, is to map out your story. What we’re gonna have you do, It’s something that me and Pastor Caleb love to do all the time with our people.

We used to do spiritual formation retreats, which I kind of want to do one again. Let us know COVID made a stop for a while, but we’ll pick it back up. What we would do, and it was just a for sure thing, we would make everybody cry on Friday night. First night, I mean, there was tears and here’s how we did it.

We admittedly put on some music to help people focus. So maybe that had a part to play in the tears and it was like that kind of music where it just like makes you cry. But also the more important part, we gave everybody a poster. And the poster had five different sticky notes and they represented five different things and we said, okay, spend time 30 minutes with God.

We want you to map out the story of your life. And here’s the five categories and it’s in this, uh, this guide that we have for you. The first one, we want you to mark out all of your successes in life. So Joseph has quite a lot of successes to point out and so do you. Most of us just don’t think about them.

Things that you’re proud of, things that you’ve done, mark those out. The second thing we’re asking you to do is to mark your failures. So things you tried to do and it failed. Guys, none of us are batting a thousand. We all have failures in our life. Mark those. Acknowledge those. The third one is a little bit harder.

It’s a different color sticky note if you were at our formation retreat. It’s disappointments. This is what we mentioned last week, pain from others. Maybe even we would consider pain from God and you mark them down from the beginning your life to today. And then the fourth, you’d be amazed how we don’t think about this.

We want you to think about all your mentors, mark those people down and what they did in your life. Many mentors come and go in different seasons, but kind of begin to thank God for what they’ve done. And the last one is all the God moments. Now, again, what’s amazing about the Joseph story is it’s already written down.

So of course we see how God is moving, but most of us never take time to actually write out our story and see how God is orchestrating something beautiful. So we encourage you, take time to write this down. We actually would say, allow yourself to feel all the feels, if it’s going to be grief, feel that sadness, disappointment, sit in it.

But we dare to believe when you begin to chart your story and look to the personal work of Jesus, you too will be able to say, though they meant for evil, God meant for good. And when we make that shift in our perspective, it’s amazing how our identity becomes those who make peace with others. And that’s my second encouragement at the end is to end with gratitude.

And I mean that in two ways. First of all, right away, when you’re done mapping the story, I want you to go back and thank God for all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, and even if it feels weird, say, thank you, God. But also, I mean, I think our vision in life should be that all of us. should desire to die with a grateful heart.

That’s kind of become my chief aim. It’s not about pleasure or power. My goal in life is to live at peace with everyone as far as it’s possible on me, but to die with a grateful heart. Grateful heart. One of the best gifts my grandfather gave me. I have two amazing grandpas. Uh, one of them, uh, was a preacher, so he’s always been my spiritual giant, my hero.

But the other one is like just a construction worker, real faithful, and, um, just showed up to church every Sunday. So in my mind, spiritual giant on one side, like hard worker on the other. And tell one of my last conversations with him. It was two months before he passed, uh, the way God ordained it. It was just me and him on a drive home for four hours.

And so I knew I was buckling up. It’s story time because you know, any good grandfather, they got stories. And so I was ready literally the full four hours. This is what he was doing. He mapped out his story. I learned ex girlfriend’s names that I don’t think I even needed to know, but it’s fine. I learned about him losing a house.

I learned about his bad business partner. I learned about betrayal, even within the family. I never knew nothing about. I learned about some of his marriage problems. That sounds weird when it’s your grandma, but it’s like, Whoa, what happened? And all these things. And yet what just so blessed my soul. And I’m honest with you change the way I viewed life.

At the end of every part of the story, he would say, I’m just so blessed. He’d say, I’m the most blessed man you’ve ever met. And I’m thinking, well, you just, that was rough. What do you mean? You’re just the most blessed person ever, man. I’m just blessed, man. I just so much favor on my life. And it was such a beautiful gift as, as, as we’re thinking about becoming peacemakers.

Man, doesn’t it begin with us having at peace with what God is doing with us and at peace with our life story and all the ups and downs. We just give it to God. And I was so blessed because my grandfather was able to look at all of his life and say, God is so good. I didn’t deserve any of this. And, and what I know now is it so empowered him to not hold grudges.

It’s so empowered him to love the people who betrayed him. He even gave me a line. I just, it’s one of my favorites. He said, Trey, I had to learn finally, if you don’t like my gate, don’t swing on it. You know, just don’t swing on it. We’re fine. He just had no bitterness. And two months after when he passed, I was at peace cause I knew he was at peace.

And friends, I really believe this is the call for our life to die with a warm heart. To be people who can be summarized as those who truly loved God and we loved others and we made a lot of sacrifices along the way, but we died at peace because of our Prince of Peace who makes forgiveness, reconciliation possible, who’s able to redefine our pain and our tragedies into something that’s beautiful and gives glory to God.

Let’s pray.