Series: “Heroes: Extra-Ordinary Living For Ordinary People”: 2nd Hero - Joseph

Here's the audio from last Sundays talk.

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Joseph - Blessings In Disguise Stream
Joseph - Blessings In Disguise Right-click to download
Talk length (41:48)

Below is the intro to the talk to give you a little teaser of what the talk is about....

Intro:
This story is from Reader's Digest, March, 1993, p. 123….

“A friend of mine awoke one morning to find a puddle of water in the middle of his king-size water bed. In order to fix the puncture, he rolled the heavy mattress outdoors and filled it with more water so he could locate the leak more easily. The enormous bag of water was impossible to control and began rolling on the hilly terrain. He tried to hold it back, but it headed downhill and landed in a clump of bushes which poked it full of holes.

“Disgusted, my friend threw out the water-bed frame and moved a standard bed into his room. The next morning, he awoke to find a puddle of water in the middle of the new bed. The upstairs bathroom had a leaky drain.”

Sometimes problems in life just seem to get worse and worse and make no sense at all. It’d all be funny if it wasn’t you!

· If you’ve ever felt like God has delayed his promises or blessings in your life, then what I’m about to talk about is for you.

· If you’ve ever felt like God’s forgotten you or that he just isn’t coming through for you, then what I’m about to talk about is for you.

Here’s the thought I want to plant in your mind as we start today…

What if the delay and the problems you’ve felt showed God was against you were actually a part of the plan to help you live out your purpose?

Last week, I read to you from John Eldredge’s new book “Epic: The Story God Is Telling”. I want to remind you again of one part of that quote from John. He says, “What if all the great stories that have ever moved you, brought you joy or tears – what if they are telling you something about the true Story into which you were born, the Epic into which you have been cast?

“We won’t begin to understand our lives, or what this so-called Gospel is that Christianity speaks of, until we understand the Story in which we have found ourselves. For when you were born, you were born into an epic that has already been underway now for quite some time. It is a story of beauty and intimacy and adventure, a story of danger and loss and heroism and betrayal.”

We looked last week at the story of David and Goliath and saw that God sends trials to use to prepare and train us so that we can learn to trust him, rely on him, take risks, and learn how to let God use us.

Today, we’re going to learn one final lesson about being used by God to live heroically. It’s something that could change the way you see your problems right now and it could reframe the way you see your whole life.

We’re going to discover this idea by looking at the life of Joseph. He was a guy who had a dream that didn’t get fulfilled in the way he thought it would. It was in harder, but greater and larger way, then he ever could’ve imagined! We’re going to start our story today in Genesis 37...

Listen to the audio to hear the whole talk!