All right, if you got a Bible,
we're gonna be in Genesis chapter 40.
This morning Sterling always asks me,
okay, what's the title?
Good dream, bad dream?
Anybody ever had a good dream?
I ain't had one in a long time.
I remember as a kid having them and waking up thinking,
well, I didn't want that dream to end.
I tried to go back to sleep so I could keep dreaming it,
but it's kind of interesting.
You don't really have a lot of control over those things.
And depending what you've been doing in your life
sometimes leads to the content of our dreams.
But we're gonna look at Joseph again here
as he interprets these dreams here in chapter 40.
But just a little recap of last time.
He ended up in prison, no fault of his own.
He was truly an example of what a man should be, Joseph.
You know, a man of integrity.
He was, well, I got some things written down here.
First, his witness was incredible.
Second, his attitude was spot on.
Third, his work ethic was great.
Fourth, his integrity seemed to be flawless.
Fifth, his focus was on his God and others.
And then he ends up in prison.
And so suffering for seemingly doing what's right,
the inner sense, suffering for the guilty
or because of the guilty,
and yet he rises to the top even in prison.
And I think that that is truly an incredible example.
And just recently hearing
of some very prominent Christian leaders
having to step down from their ministries
has been unsettling to say the least.
I'm just praying, oh God, please kill me, right?
Don't let me even get close to that.
And people you would know if I mentioned their names.
And so it's a scary time in which we live.
And none of us are insulated
or none of us are immune from committing
these hideous things.
I was just talking to a young man this morning
for service about man's depravity
and when you lose sight of that.
And we've talked about that a lot
going through the book of Genesis.
And so here is Joseph in prison
and just gets lifted to the top.
It kind of says it all there in Genesis 39, verse 23,
when it says, "The keeper of the prison
"did not look into anything
"that was under Joseph's authority
"because the Lord was with him
"and whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper."
Right, he's just this stellar person
who is so aware and so tuned in to God's hand on his life
that all along his life has been in the hands of others,
outside of his control.
You look at that in your life,
the things that are outside of your control.
Now, most of us see the things that we are in control of
when we haven't done so well, right?
But what about those things
that are outside of your control?
So much of his life that we've seen thus far
is outside of his control, right?
Whether it's being in the hands of his brother
or the Ishmaelites or Potiphar or Potiphar's wife
or the keeper of the prison,
his only freedom is how to choose
how he responds to every situation.
And so it is with us.
You choose how you respond to every situation.
I choose how I respond to every situation.
And sometimes it's not that great.
And I think we all would agree
that we probably have work to do.
I would say Joseph has endured a lot up to this point.
And now if at this point,
we invoke inductive Bible study,
many of you know what that is,
observation, interpretation, and application,
the observation would be that Joe has had a rough go.
That rhymes, get it?
Wrote Joe had a, I thought it was clever.
Joe has had a rough go.
The interpretation is what Jesus said, right?
How do you interpret that?
What Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation."
But be of good courage, I've overcome the world.
And he just didn't leave it,
it's sorry, you're gonna have trouble.
But he says, "Be of good courage, I've overcome the world."
So all the more reason to stay connected to Jesus.
And the application would be we too need to endure, amen?
It takes patience, we need endurance.
Hebrews 10:36 says, "For you have need of endurance
"so that after you have done the will of God,
"you may receive the promises."
Do you ever focus on the promises?
Sometimes that's the only good news in our life, right?
Are the promises of God to us, word, are yes and amen.
And I didn't pray, we better pray.
Lord, we love you, we thank you for your word,
we thank you Jesus that you expose our need to us
every time we open the pure word of God.
And so I just pray that you would remind us, Lord,
of our needs, that we do need to endure,
that we do need to stay close and draw near to you,
especially in these days in which we live, Lord.
And that your word in this passage here in Genesis 40,
Lord, would speak to all of our hearts, Lord,
that we would realize that our time is short,
whether it's just life and those three score and 10
or four score years that we get,
it's like a vapor, your word tells us.
And so Lord, that we would find ourself in a place of,
Lord, enjoying our life, but mainly preparing for eternity,
because it's coming so fast.
And I know for some, it's coming even faster.
And even some in this room.
And so Lord, would you keep us just in that mindset, Lord,
of embracing all those things that come, Lord,
that we would truly play on that one string that we have,
Lord, is our attitude towards everything
that happens to us, Lord.
Help us to be full of joy and the love of God
would rule and reign in our hearts, Lord.
And we pray that today in the mighty
and powerful name of Jesus, amen.
James 1, verses two through four says,
"My brethren, count it all joy
"when you fall into various trials,
"knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
"But let patience have its perfect work,
"that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
So it's almost like, if God's really gonna use you,
hang onto your hat, Fred, right?
Because you're about to go through some things.
And God puts us through the refining processes for reasons.
And he's gonna use that together for good
for those who love the Lord.
So this endurance is absolutely necessary.
We have to learn how to pace ourself.
And when we see trouble coming, we need to prepare for that.
And because truly this life, we've talked about it before,
it is truly a marathon.
And God is gonna use all this stuff to produce in us
with what he sees lacking.
And he knows exactly what's lacking.
Right, Romans 5, verses three through five, it says,
"And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations,
"knowing that tribulations produces perseverance
"and perseverance character and character hope.
"Hope now does not disappoint because the love of God
"has been poured out in our hearts
"by the Holy Spirit who was given to us."
And so come what may, we have all the tools we need
to have this endurance that the Bible's talking about here.
Do you have it?
Right?
The love of God, how powerful is that?
That it totally changes our life.
It's the thing that every single person
is looking for in their lives.
And so the apostles, those who have gone before us,
those who we read and study all the time,
we're very familiar with this.
I love Acts 14, verse 22, Paul and Barnabas, right?
We're making a trek through encouraging the churches
where they had established and encouraged the believers
in those certain areas.
And it says in verse 22, "String clinging,
"they were going about strengthening
"the souls of the disciples,
"exhorting them to continue in the faith,
"saying, 'We must through many tribulations
"'enter the kingdom of God.'"
Some people come to Christ and they just think,
"Oh, this is a cakewalk.
"This walking with Jesus is so cool."
Well, it is so cool, but it's not always easy, right?
Through many trials and tribulations,
he says we'll enter the kingdom of heaven.
Why?
Simply because of this life.
And it's like, we all have to take a turn
with the troublesome parts of this life.
Joseph has been doing this and navigating this,
some have called it this tragic life,
this tragic life of his, he's been navigating it
and he's doing it with flying colors.
He seemed to be passing quite well.
How are you doing?
Right?
We think sometimes, the littlest things,
my wife and I were talking about this,
the littlest things that upset us,
I'm just like, "Really?
"Seriously?"
And then you see somebody that's really going through it
and you're going, "Wow."
It's like Joseph is the fulfillment
of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, right?
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
"lean not on your own understanding,
"acknowledge him in all your ways
"and he will direct your path."
Have you ever had the sense,
just think about this for a second,
have you ever had the sense
that God has a plan for your life?
Right?
And he's got this certain track, he's got you on.
And sometimes you may not like it.
That's okay, maybe not to like it,
but you should embrace it
'cause that's where he's got you, right?
Now, Joseph is the main guy in the prison.
So I'm gonna take this in some chunks,
we'll get through it, I think.
And he starts off here.
It says, "Now it came to pass," verse one,
"after these things that the butler and the baker
"of the king of Egypt offended their Lord.
"And the king of Egypt," excuse me,
"offended their Lord, the king of Egypt.
"And Pharaoh was angry with the two officers,
"the chief butler and the chief baker.
"But he put them in custody in the house
"of the captain of the guard in the prison,
"the place where Joseph was confined,
"and the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them,
"and he served them so they were in custody for a while."
So Joseph isn't the only one going through it.
He's not the only one incarcerated.
The chief butler and the baker, they get arrested too.
And here they are in the prison.
The butler and the baker
probably were more like test pilots, right?
They would be the first one to sip out of the cup
to make sure somebody wasn't gonna poison the pharaoh
or the food.
They were probably the food taster,
the butler and the baker.
And it says that he was offended.
He was offended by them.
Now you wonder why we talked about it.
It was pretty brutal back then.
If you offended them too bad,
they'd just take your head off.
But maybe there was an attempt on his life.
We don't know the details.
The word offended there is in the Hebrew chada.
It means sin or to bear blame.
So maybe he was just gonna put them in and say,
"All right, we're gonna investigate this,
"see who's guilty and who's not."
And so maybe Pharaoh was suspicious.
So there's an investigation.
How this account will develop,
it is probable there was a plot to murder him,
perhaps poisoning, and these two were suspects.
They were probably there on suspicion of murder,
but they were really there
because God wanted them to meet Joseph, right?
Those divine appointments, you've had those, haven't you?
When you just start talking to people sometimes
and how the Lord just morphs it into this,
sometimes people getting saved
and being able to bear witness to the person of Jesus
and to share that truth.
And obviously these guys were gonna get introduced
to a person who knew God.
And isn't it cool when you meet somebody
that knows the Lord and it's like,
you start talking and you're just going,
"Wow, it's like we've known each other forever.
"Why is that?"
It's really the familiar spirit of the Holy Spirit, right?
That His spirit bears witness with our spirit.
And then He brings that oneness
that Jesus prayed about there in John 17 to us.
We get to taste how cool and how good that is.
And so while these guys are incarcerated,
Joseph serves them.
He has his high place.
He's the, there's no one higher in the prison
except for the chief dude there.
And what, he's a servant.
He has the heart of a servant.
Just what is a servant?
Servant's somebody who's just willing to show up.
Just show up and do whatever.
And Joseph is in this place and he has genuine concern
and genuine care for others.
It's kind of like Jesus, right?
Joseph, a great type of Jesus here.
Matthew 20, 28, it says,
"And just," Jesus talking about Himself,
"just as the Son of Man did not come to be served,
"but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many."
That's our example, you and me.
God calls us to serve.
And Joseph took this very seriously.
In verse five, it says,
"Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt
"who were confined in the prison had a dream.
"Both of them, each man's dream,
"and one night in each man's dream
"with its own interpretation.
"And Joseph came in to them in the morning
"and looked at them and saw that they were sad.
"And so he asked Pharaoh's officers
"who were with him in the custody of his lord's house,
"saying, 'Why do you look so sad today?'
"And they said to him, 'We each have had a dream
"'and there is no interpreter of it.'
"So Joseph said to them,
"'Do not interpretations belong to God?
"'Tell them to me, please.'"
Now, I have seen people get pretty wigged out about dreams.
And I think you have to be very careful.
These guys are upset about their dreams, right?
They wanted, we see in the book of Daniel,
we see all throughout scripture,
mainly it's more so than believers,
it's pagans that have dreams.
Now, we also know about Joel 2, right?
Where it says in the last days
that old men will dream dreams,
young men will have visions.
So if you've been having some dreams,
you're probably a little longer in the tooth than some.
Does everybody know what that means?
But, (laughs)
somebody just said the old ones do.
But Joseph knows right off the bat,
and he talks to, he says, "Wait a minute,
"don't interpretations come from God?"
And we know he seemed to be,
he seemed to be a little bit gloaty
when he shared his dreams with these brothers
that didn't go over so well with him.
But,
because these guys were unsettled about their dreams,
he's concerned with them, he has care for them.
And God has, for a reason, put them in front of him.
And so he goes, "Tell me your dream.
"Tell me your dream."
David Guzik has a good take on this.
He said, "This is a window into the heart of Joseph.
"Men who are consumed with anger and bitterness
"do not often take a concern for the personal problems
"of others like this.
"It would be easy, perhaps technically true,
"for Joseph to think that because of all the wrong
"done against him, everything should center
"on his own feelings and hurts.
"Instead, he cared that the butler and baker
"looked so bad one day."
Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Christian Okoye.
I don't know any football fans,
but Christian Okoye was a running back
for the Kansas City Chiefs.
He's from Nigeria.
And Christian had his whole family slaughtered by the LRA.
And I remember talking to him
about, you know, and what a joy he had.
I'm thinking, man, if anybody should be bitter,
it should be this guy.
He watched his family get slaughtered.
And Christian was big.
He's probably about 6'3", about 260,
and could run like a gazelle.
They called him the Nigerian Nightmare
because you did not wanna be in his path
when he was running the football.
And he was just the most gentle, kind,
I'm just thinking, what is it?
What is it that puts that in somebody
that has been through what he's been through?
And so I said, "Christian, you gotta write me down
"your favorite Bible verse."
And it was Joshua 1:9, right?
"Fear not, for the Lord thy God is with you."
And he just knew that.
Christian just knew that the Lord was with him,
the Lord had brought him to the States.
He went back, he shared the gospel with tribal members,
and was just an incredible witness for the Lord.
And here we are again at that same idea
is what you do with what you go through,
either good or bad.
And here's Joseph with a genuine concern.
So in his care, Joseph shows us Jesus,
an innocent man came into our prison
and lived our hardship and temptations,
suffering worse than all,
yet he never looks for our pity.
He asked us, "Why do you look so sad today?"
And as Jesus lives his life through us,
we will also care about the needs of others,
even when our needs are apparent.
Like Paul said this,
"Esteem others more highly than yourself."
And checking this out this week,
I heard more than one pastor shared with me
that people who are going through hard times,
they would encourage them,
"You need to go start ministering to somebody.
You need to find somebody who's going through it
and just go be there for them and pray with them
and try to encourage them
and get you out of this funk you're in."
And both the guys I listened to
that had instructed some of their parishioners to do that,
they said, "The people came back and said, 'You were right.
You were right.
As soon as I began to minister to these people
who are going through it,
it's like my problems just sloughed away.'"
So beautiful.
So he has care.
He's interested in what's going on in their lives personally.
He has them tell him their dreams.
And then the chief butler spoke to Pharaoh,
or then the chief butler spoke to Pharaoh saying,
"I remember my faults this day
when Pharaoh was angry with his servants
and put me in custody in the house
of the captain of the guard."
Oh, sorry.
I was in the wrong chapter.
I just saw nine and went right to it.
"Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph
and said to him, 'Behold, my dream, a vine was before me
and in the vine were three branches.
And it was as though it budded,
its blossom shot forth
and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes.
Then Pharaoh's cup was in my hand
and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup
and placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.
And Joseph said to him, 'This is the interpretation of it.
The three branches are three days.
Now within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head
and restore you to your place.
And you will put Pharaoh's cup in his hand
according to the former manner when you were his butler.
But remember me when it is well with you
and please show kindness to me,
make mention of me to Pharaoh
and get me out of this house.
For indeed, I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews.
And also I have done nothing here
that they should put me into the dungeon.'"
And so he gives the interpretation
and then Warren Wiersbe says,
"This is the first sign that Joseph shows doubt."
And so he tells the butler what's gonna happen.
And hey, he says, "This is the interpretation.
By the grace of the Lord,
he was able to interpret his dream
and tell him what was gonna happen.
And the three branches are three days
and you're gonna be set free
and you're gonna be serving,
you're gonna be right back.
You're gonna have your old job back."
And I'm sure a smile was on his face, right?
And the butler was probably in good spirits,
had a spring in his step.
And some would say, "Well, see there,
dreams can talk to you, dreams can bless you."
Yeah, they can.
I'm not saying they can't,
but what happens so often
is sometimes people put so much emphasis on them.
They'll emphasize the dream above what God's word says.
You can't do that.
You've got to sift it right through God's word.
There's a comment from one commentator that said,
"In the Bible, God spoke to unbelievers or pagans in dreams
almost twice as many times
as he spoke to his people in dreams."
We hear many stories today
about how God speaks to people in the Muslim world
with dreams about Jesus.
And I've heard a lot of those stories, pretty incredible.
But if you are letting dreams direct your life,
you might just be a pagan.
No pun intended.
(congregation laughing)
It's always important to remember
that every dream is a revelation,
every dream is not a revelation of God.
Dreams can come just because our minds are busy, right?
A dream comes through much activity
for in the multitude of dreams and many words,
there is also vanity.
Verse three of Ecclesiastes five says,
"A dream comes when there are many cares."
Many cares.
When you're going through stuff, sometimes a dream will come.
I remember one of my buddies got killed riding bulls
and I remember like a month later having this dream,
you know, really struggling with it
'cause we were in our 20s.
He was, in fact, the last words we said to each other
was two weeks before he got killed,
we were at church together,
him and his wife were expecting their first baby
and we looked at each other and gave each other a hug
and I said, "Jeff, I love you."
And he goes, "I love you too."
And those were the last words we said to each other.
And as I look back on that, I thought,
"Only Jesus could do that
"with a couple of raunchy bull riders."
Right?
And the Lord was just getting ahold of our lives
and I was struggling with it, his death.
It was, you know, four months before his baby girl was born
and here he is, he's 24 years old
and God, how can anything good come out of this?
And yet, as we look back,
it was almost 200 people raised their hand
to receive Christ at his funeral.
He touched more people in his death
than he did in his life.
And so,
and I had a dream about him.
I mean, I pulled over, I was getting gas,
I run into this convenience store
and there's Jeff buying some snacks.
What are you doing?
I'm buying snacks.
Does Kelly know you're here?
That was his wife's name.
And it was just, it was freaky.
It was a weird dream.
But it was just a dream, right?
Why?
I'd probably been thinking about it a lot,
struggling with his death
and, you know, I don't know if that brought comfort
to my heart or not.
I didn't share it with too many people.
But sometimes dreams just come
and the strangest ones, right?
You can't put a lot of stock in them, folks,
is what I'm saying, okay?
Does that mean that God won't speak to us in dreams?
That doesn't mean that.
God can do anything he wants to do, right?
He can speak to you in a dream.
I promise you that.
And maybe just encourage you in a dream.
I love the dream in the "Faith Like Potatoes."
Who saw that movie?
Who saw "Faith Like Potatoes?"
"Faith Like Potatoes."
If you've ever been to Africa,
you gotta see "Faith Like Potatoes."
Anyway, there was a cool dream there
where it just brought comfort to a heart
of one of the people when they had lost a little guy.
And the guy had a dream and he says,
"I saw Angus."
The kid's name was Angus.
He says, "What did he say?"
He said, "I asked him if he wanted to come back."
And he said, "And what did he say?"
He said, "No, I don't.
"I wanna stay with Jesus."
So that brought comfort to that family's heart.
But again, we have to sift everything, right?
The Bible warns that false prophets might use dreams
to give weight to their message.
Deuteronomy 13, one through five,
Jeremiah 23, 25 through 28.
Somebody said, "Scottie, you say that too fast."
I'll slow down.
Deuteronomy 13, one through five,
and Jeremiah 23, 25 through 28.
And so we need to pray and seek the Lord on these things
if it is in fact a message we sifted through the Bible.
So because God primarily speaks to us through His word,
always has, always will,
as long as we're on this earth, He's gonna speak to us.
He and He will never, listen,
God is never gonna speak against His word,
that which is contrary to what His word says.
He won't do it.
God does not contradict Himself.
And some of you might think, "Oh, I think He does."
Well, come talk to me.
But the Bible is our guide, right?
Nothing, no dream would ever be equal
to the written word that God has given us.
So everything that we allow into our lives
need to be sifted through the word of God, right?
And that's sad because so many people
allow things into their life
and they don't sift it through the word.
They don't even give it a second thought.
They just, "Oh, this is cool."
It may not be cool.
So, and He displays this little bit of doubt here.
And He tells the butler, "Hey, you know,
I'm in here, you know, innocently
and I was stolen away."
He didn't throw his brothers under the bus,
but I was in, and He said, "You know,
I shared some good news with you for the dream,
so remember me."
And guess what happens?
He don't remember him.
He doesn't remember him at all.
He forgets Joseph.
And this shows that we can't put our faith
and hope in people.
We can't put our faith in people.
You just can't.
It's comforting to me to have people around me
that I know that would pick me up
if I really made a mess and that would be in my corner.
I hope that's comforting to you.
That's why we have community and it's glorious.
But nobody can take the place
of what God can do in our lives.
And that part of us that needs touch sometimes,
no person can do it.
No one can do it.
Psalm 146, verse three says,
"Do not put your trust in princes nor in a son of man
in whom there is no help.
His spirit departs, he returns to the earth.
That very day his plans perish.
Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the Lord, his God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them,
who keeps truth forever."
That's who you put your faith and hope and trust in.
And then we share the life that gives us,
that God gives us with each other as a body of Christ.
Well, verse 16 here, we'll wrap this up.
I'll try to be in the right chapter.
"When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good,
he said to Joseph, 'I was also in my dream,
and there were three white baskets on my head,
and the uppermost basket were all kinds
of baked goods for Pharaoh.
And the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.'
And Joseph answered and said to him,
'This is the interpretation of it.
The three baskets are three days,
and within three days,
Pharaoh will lift off your head from you
and hang you on a tree,
and the birds will eat your flesh from you.'
Now it came to pass on the third day,
which was Pharaoh's birthday,
that he made a feast for all his servants,
and he lifted up the head of the chief butler
and of the chief baker among his servants.
Then he restored the chief butler to his butlership again,
and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand,
but he hanged the chief baker
as Joseph had interpreted to them.
Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph,
but forgot him."
So just because it's good news for someone else
don't mean it's necessarily good news for you.
And that was the case here with the poor baker.
I'm sure he didn't wanna hear that,
but hey, listen,
there is a silver lining
in this dream interpretation for the baker.
He had three days to get his house in order.
Right, he had three days to get his house in order.
I think that's pretty merciful.
That's pretty gracious.
I think of Isaiah when he tells Hezekiah,
King Hezekiah, you remember that?
When he says, "This is what the Lord says,
'Put your house in order because you're going to die.'"
That's what he tells him.
Put your house in order.
I'm wondering if there was a conversation
that's not recorded in God's word,
and this baker inquires of this God
that Joseph was talking about,
this one who interprets dreams.
What an opportunity.
I had a brother share with me just this week.
He says, "I'm convinced that the Lord would have us
as the body of Christ
to aggressively evangelize those around us."
I thought, wow, that's a pretty good call, right?
Aren't we called to that?
Go into the world and preach the gospel
to every living creature,
especially now that time seems to be so short.
So we don't know.
We don't know.
We know that he died and that, does it seem fair?
Who are we to judge that?
You realize we all have to take a number, right?
Yeah, I just news this last week
where a friend, he's picking a number.
Doesn't got much time left.
Doesn't seem right.
He's young.
Doesn't seem right.
What should he do?
Just make sure his house is in order, right?
'Cause it's no big deal
for those who are walking by faith,
those who are trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ
and have received him as their Lord and Savior.
It's not a big deal.
In fact, the old time gospel singer sang a song,
"Death Ain't No Big Deal."
(congregation laughing)
Not for the believer, it's not.
And you know what?
You and I don't even know if we have three days.
We don't know if we even get the end of this day.
You really don't.
And I don't.
So my wife has chickens.
There could be some kind of vicious chicken virus
that kills me tonight.
(congregation laughing)
I have eight some questionable eggs
that might just have, you know.
I mean, but we can laugh about it, right?
We can laugh about it.
I mean, 'cause I love that passage in John 5,
I believe it's verse 24.
Jesus said, "He who hears these words of mine
"and does them has passed from death to life."
Have you done the words of Jesus, right?
So many people that come and sit in pews,
they don't even know the words of Jesus, right?
That is horrific in these days in which we live
because you know what's gonna lead you?
A dream.
A bad dream's gonna lead you.
That's what's gonna lead you
instead of having the word of God lead you.
So how much more emphasis do we need to be putting on
reading God's word and putting it in our hearts?
This morning I read in Deuteronomy
where it talks about the blessings and the cursings, right?
Today I sat before you, life and death.
In this story presented to us is life and death.
The baker and the butler.
Wade mentioned to me,
the Lord was speaking to his heart last week,
looking ahead to chapter 40.
He says, "Aren't the elements right there
"in those two men's lives?
"The wine, the bread and the cup?"
Yeah.
What happened to the body?
It was broken for us.
The bread was.
And the blood washes and cleanses our sins away.
The pictures and the type,
the whole inductive system is powerful,
but maybe what's even more powerful
is finding Jesus in all the scripture that we read.
Chuck Missler used to say,
"Christ is on every single page of the Bible
"from Genesis to the Revelation."
Today I sat before you, life and death.
Choose life.
And Jesus is life.
I am the way, the truth and the life, he tells us, right?
Jesus, he's in this picture.
Jesus is like Joseph to us.
An innocent man came into our prison
and shared our condition of likeful, sinful flesh,
though he didn't have a sin nature.
He lived in the flesh without sin.
An innocent man came into our prison
and shared our condition.
This innocent prisoner revealed God's message to us.
It was probably like a prison for Jesus to leave glory
and come to be like you and me and to identify with us.
And, might I add, take all of our excuses away.
Christ coming in the flesh takes all of,
you have no excuse.
You have no excuse to not believe in him and trust in him.
Every man's without excuse.
It tells us that in Romans, right?
Romans 1, you are without excuse.
Simply by just looking out the window
and seeing the sun and the moon and the trees
and the grass and the life that God gives,
the things that are created are evidence to him.
Therefore, you're without excuse.
This innocent prisoner was proved true in three days.
Three days he rose from the dead.
What Joseph said came true in three days.
What's different about Jesus than Joseph was,
Jesus is able to save the guilty baker, right?
Joseph was only able to point out
what was gonna happen to him,
but Jesus came to save sinners, you and me.
That's why he came.
I don't know about you, but I just get giddy
when I think about that,
simply because I'm the biggest sinner in this room,
that I know, and so are you.
When you look in the mirror,
there's no greater sinner that you know
than the one that's in the mirror.
And so, a beautiful story, good dream, bad dream,
life, death, and the choice is always ours, right?
We choose to do with what God gives us,
and I hope and pray that your choice is life,
that you would choose to take this man's example
of goodness and grace and mercy and love,
and let God live his life through you.
The very purpose I believe why we're here,
if somebody asked me, "Scotty, what's your purpose?"
My purpose is to allow the God of heaven, right?
The creator of heaven and earth
to live his life through me, right?
And so, it's not about me.
It's about God, and it's about others.
And Joseph just displayed that so powerfully
when he says, "Doesn't God give interpretations?"
When he says that, the word God, he uses the word Elohim.
It's the one in Genesis chapter one,
the creator of the heavens and the earth,
the one true God that has all the power,
the one that has no rivals, right?
And the one that longs for us to humble ourself
and come to him.
I pray that you would do that today if you haven't done that
and that you would realize that God,
no matter where you're at, right?
Whether you're in the house of a raunchy woman
or you're in the prison, doesn't matter.
God will use your life right where you're at.
Let's pray.
Lord, thank you.
Thank you that you spoke life through this man, Joseph,
to the butler.
And Lord Jesus, that you speak life to all of us.
And yet our sin condemns us.
And so then we would be like the baker,
deserving of that punishment.
And yet today you have saw fit to give us time.
Lord, you've given us today.
You're allowing us to draw breath.
And you're telling us by your word, Lord,
to get our houses in order.
And so I pray that we would do that.
Lord, that we would examine ourselves
as Paul encouraged us, but also as the Psalmist said, Lord,
that we would have you examine us.
Search our hearts, O God.
See if there be any wicked way in us
that you might lead us in the way everlasting.
Lord, as you put the people in front of us
who need to, they need to hear the good news,
that there's hope, that there's life.
There's one who can forgive.
There's one who gives new beginnings
and whose mercies and joys are new every morning.
Lord, that if there's anyone here today, Lord,
that doesn't know that,
that doesn't know the God who gives that,
Lord, I pray that they would cry out to you.
Lord, that they would be inspired to come forward
and to be prayed with, with the prayer team.
Lord, to cry out to you and humble themselves.
And you tell us that when we humble ourselves,
you'll lift us up.
And I know there's some that need lifted up.
There's some that just need encouraged today.
Lord, I pray that we would be encouraged,
that you're for us.
Lord, you're not against us, you're for us.
Even if we're filthy and we've done so much wrong,
you've come to make us clean.
So I just pray that we'd be willing to come to you
and be cleaned up.
And we pray it in Jesus' mighty name, amen.
Let's all stand.