Voice of the Nazarene 9-28-25

Voice of the Nazarene 9-28-25

Transcript

Unknown: 0:01

Coming to you from North Central Ohio. We share with you the voice of the Nazarene, a week by week, venture into the Word of God sponsored by the Bucyrus Ohio Church of the Nazarene. We join our pastor, Reverend Ray LaSalle, and the voice of the Nazarene. You.

Pastor Ray LaSalle: 0:23

I started this series several weeks ago about overcoming. I think that overcoming is the name of the game. We get knocked down in life. If you don't learn how to overcome, then you're going to be defeated. And at the very close of life, we want to be an overcomer, receive the crown of life. And so let's continue the series. My first Sunday that we began, we dealt with Joseph and his parents, and last week, we dealt with Joseph and the parallel with John the Baptist. Joseph lived 110 years, and John only lived to be about 30. We're not guaranteed a long life, but God always gets the glory. And today I want to talk to you about Joseph and his predicament, if you ever been around the the study, it's very curious, the study about giraffes and and their birthing and and the relationship between the parent giraffe and the birth of a of a baby calf. Garrett Richmond was happened to be at a zoo at the very right moment when a giraffe was giving birth to its calf. The zookeeper's name was Jack Bedell, standing next to him, he he said to Jack, he said, The the hooves and the head are already protruding When? When is the giraffe going to lay down? And he said it's probably not going to lay down. He said, Then, who's going to that's about 10 feet to fall. He said, Who's going to catch the calf? Well? He said, you can try. But he said, giraffes, when they kick, they can kick your head off. And about that time, the calf burst forth and hit the ground with a thud and lay there breathless and motionless. He thought it nearly killed the calf, and while he's watching this, suddenly, the giraffe kicks that baby calf and flips it head over hooves, and it rolled over and lay there trembling, and it evidently knew it was supposed to get up. And Gary said to Jack, why did he kick it? He said, so it get up. And so it struggled to get to its feet and sank back down, and boom, again, that giraffe kicked that little calf and flipped it over. This time it struggled and struggled it didn't want to be kicked again. And finally got to its God given stilts, and was standing there at about that time the giraffe kicked the feet out from under that baby calf, and down it went again. And before he could even ask the zookeeper, knowing he would be questioned, he said the reason he did that, because in the wild, if they don't remember how to get up and stay with a herd, predators will come and destroy him. And I don't know about you, but I can, I can really identify with that baby calf. I know what it's like to have my feet kicked out from under me. I know what it's like to be kicked while I was down, and I've been kicked by some of those that I trusted the most. Anybody identify with me on that at all? Well, that's what life's all about. All of us have those moments in life when we're trying to find God's path and we're trying to keep our head above the water, and suddenly we get sideswiped by circumstances and we get sidelined by harsh people. This morning, I'm going to drop in on Joseph at his 17th year and age. And as you open Genesis, chapter 37 verse two, Joseph, life seems good, and his future appears bright. But as you begin to watch, you suddenly see him kicked off his feet. Watch again, you'll see him kicked while he's down. And the amazing thing he's kicked by his very own family, somehow, Joseph managed to avoid the very thing that consumed his brothers, the emotional stronghold of bitterness Joseph faced. Trauma and the hijacking of his dreams, and didn't become bitter, but his brothers, the story was quite different. And I believe there's something here deep that we need to understand, because as you go through life, there will be a lot of kicks, be a lot of difficulties. Now I want to take you into Genesis 37 it's the second verse. Joseph, being 17 years of age, that'd be nice again, wouldn't it? Was feeding the flock with his brethren, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and zelpah. He's a teenager, and the Scripture allows us to watch as he begins this overcoming process. Let me say this, you may get up physically from some of the disappointments in life. What I worry about is failing to get up, emotionally, failing to get up, spiritually, learn to get up instead of giving up because you're going down sometimes with the pressures of life. Number one was his overcoming his heritage. He's highly favored by his old dad, who was 91 years of age when Joseph was born. But don't just stop there. Go clear back into his past, and his dad's name was Jacob. His grandpa's name was Isaac. Isaac was kind of a passive sort of a guy, and his wife was very aggressive, and she she favored this young boy named Jacob. This is the dad to Joseph. She favored him so much so that she helped him to swindle the blessing from his old dad, Isaac. And Isaac loved Esau. Now they were twins. Esau and Jacob were twins, and the blessing and the birth right was stolen. This is his grandmother. You talk about a manipulator. Now you go to the other side of the family and his his other side, his mother's side, Rachel, her dad's name was Laban. He was also the granddad of Joseph. And you talk about a schemer and a conniver, he outmaneuvered Jacob, who was quite a quite a chap himself, and he promised him he could have Rachel, but at the very last moment, he passed off Leah on that wedding night. You talk about a dysfunctional family, and sometimes, if we're not careful, it's hard to get out of a rut. If our forefathers and we have this heritage of people just handing down their generational sins and weaknesses and faults to us, if we're not careful, we can fall into the same rut. They say that generally, it's down to four generations, those that live off of the the country and live off of welfare before somebody breaks the chain. And I'm saying, Get out of the rut. Joseph, got out of the rut years ago, when the road from the US up to Canada was pretty well a dirt road. They had a sign up and it said, Pick your rut carefully. You're going to be in it for the next 500 miles. And I'm saying pick very carefully the ruts in your life, because you'll be in them for a long, long time. Find the right rut you might need to break with some of the the heritage things that have been passed on if you're going to be an overcomer. But a second thing, he was an overcomer in his home life. His mother died. He's just a teenager. He's growing up without the benefit of his mom. He's bereft of her love and her protection. It's quite a messed up family. His father had two wives. He had two affairs with household help, and there's offspring from these two women, and they had four illegitimate children. And he's raised with all of this dysfunctionalism. They're trying to blend this family and their swirling strife. And then he learned how to overcome hate. I don't know what you'll deal with. I don't know your biggest struggle, but I'll tell you, if hate ever gets a hold of your heart, it'll bring blood hatred. And he had an aunt, Leah, who hated her sister Rachel, who happened to be Joseph's mother, and there's a rivalry between his mother and and his Aunt Leah, both vying for the attention of his father. One was pretty good to look at, the other wasn't so good to look at. It. One was favored, the other was not favored, and Leah knew she was not favored, but Rachel knew that Jacob had worked 14 years in order to obtain her. Leah was never wanted. Rachel was everything that Jacob had ever dreamed of in a sweetheart. So there's scheming going on between these two conniving sisters, Leah and Rachel. That was Aunt Leah, or Aunt Leah to him. And the result of all of this conniving, they brought in their maidens and got him, got them involved with with the with their husband. And it resulted in these illegitimate sons. And not only the hatred for his Aunt Leah, but there was also the hatred of all of his brothers. Verse four said they they hated him. Now Joseph is being sent by his father to shepherd sheep, and when he arrives, these four brothers that are there are the sons of the of the help mates. And so the Bible doesn't even give their names. It just simply says the lad was with the sons of Billa and with the sons of zelpah. Absolutely no connection those four boys with the rest of the clan overcoming he had to also overcome the handicap of favoritism. The old ad is doting on him. Do you realize that you'll deal with favoritism all through life? Do you remember back in school when you had a teacher that seemed to favor one, and it was never you. I went through 12 years just to get out of high school. I never was the favorite. Hello and you watch the favorite just seem to get all of the extra pats on the back and and the extra help and you didn't get if you're not careful, it can really bother you. You get out in the job sector, and there's a boss that always has his pick his favorites. Get ready for it. You'll deal with favoritism. And the Bible said that Jacob loved Joseph more than all of his children. He was the son of his favorite wife, and he loved her, and so he loved the son. Now, how did Jacob show his favoritism? Well, it was by giving gifts. The Bible said that he made Joseph A robe. The King James Version calls it a coat of many colors. I might mention to you that little word, many did you look at it, it's in italics because the translators had no idea what it meant, so they just said many and italicized it. But in the original Hebrew, that word meant a coat of status and authority, and it had sleeves that went down to the wrist, and it went clear to the bottom, clear down to the ankles. Now, the people that worked in that day had sleeveless guard garments because they were workers, and so when he received this robe, it meant that he was in management. He was over the rest of them, and yet, he's only 17, and boy did it set him off? And did they ever get angry? I mean, it proved what they had already suspected, and allowed them to know that Joseph was heir apparent. And then he listened to the report on the other sons. It was an evil report. Now I don't know what was reported. I'm aware that the sons are very wild rebels, so I'm sure it wasn't a good report, and they hated him for it. The Bible said they couldn't even speak peacefully unto him. Why? It caused hard feelings. It caused resentment, it it caused jealousy, it caused bitterness. And then I want you to notice that he overcame the handling of the dreams. If you're not careful, your dream can become a nightmare. Be sure it's not a nightmare before you tell everybody you have a dream. And when he talked to his brothers, he said, I have dreamed. I have dreamed. That's what it said here in verse five of chapter 37 now years later, when he's older, and Pharaoh had a dream and called him in and said, I understand you can interpret dreams. And his answer was, it's not in me, it's God. And so he's no longer taking any kind of a credit. He's giving God the credit. And incidentally, did you know that God can speak to us? Do you realize that how does God speak to us? Pastor, well, I'd say first of all, God speaks to us through prayer. Diller, get along with God, meditate, pray, and don't be in a hurry to do all the talking. Gotta do some listening. Not only that, God can speak to us through His written Word. We can read the Bible, and suddenly things begin to mean something to us. I would suggest also that God can speak through us, or to us through His Holy Spirit. And then, as we see in this passage, God can speak in dreams, and God can speak in visions. Sometimes God speaks to us through others, people with wisdom, people who care about us. And if you listen, maybe you can catch hold of something, but anytime and anything that God has to say always needs to be filtered through the Scripture. The Bible is never wrong. Our emotions can be wrong, our understanding of things can be wrong, but the Bible itself is never wrong, so all of it needs to be filtered through the Scripture. I want to take you to the sixth thought, overcoming heirship. It's Genesis, 35 verse, 22 and the older son of all the 12. His name was Reuben. Reuben had some good traits, but Reuben had some terrible weaknesses, and one of them was immorality. And he had an affair with a step mom, one of the handmaidens. Her name was bilpa, and if you read the story, you'll find out a little bit about it, and that gross immorality not only cost him the favor of his father, who for 40 years. Never mentioned it. He knew about it, but never dealt with him, but it cost him his birthright as the firstborn son. And as the years passed, instead of handing off the birthright to the eldest son of Leah, he turned and he gave it to the eldest son of his favorite wife, Rachel. There had to be terrible resentment from Reuben over that, and quite a surprise to Joseph. Now, Laman had messed with that, trying to in his conniving offer to Leah first, then you have the conniving wives trying to do their thing. 40 years later, Jacob is dying, and he's speaking to each of his sons. And when Reuben came in, he said that you are as unstable as water. Water always goes to the lowest level. And it seemed like with Reuben, if you looked at his life, he was always moving to a lower level. And then, after 40 years, he said, because that you went in and had a relationship with one of my wives, my concubine, and he was cut off. Then I want to bring this more toward a conclusion, overcoming. He overcame himself, if you don't get victory over self, I can't help you. God has to help us to get victory over ourselves. Now I'm possibly wondering if God wasn't taking Joseph on a journey trying to knock off the rough edges and make him useful and usable in the kingdom. I don't know about you, but God's done a lot of work on me. I've had a lot of rough edges knocked off. Anybody witness to that yourself? God's working on us. We're under construction. He's he's still working on me. And the little song said, trying to make me what I ought to be on the tombstone of Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham. She had these works put end of construction. God working on her. Thank you for your patience. Well, don't put it on my tombstone yet, because he's not through working with me, and he may not be through working with you either. Now I'm not accusing Joseph of pride. I know some pastors do. I just don't want to go down that route and get into deep, deep trouble. But I'll say this, his mother was the favorite wife of his dad. And not only that, he was a miracle child himself, and about of all the 12 kids, his dad doted on him, and he went around wearing this special coat, which really made his brothers angry. And then he was sharing dreams about how one day you're going to bow down to me and I'll be in charge. That didn't help anything. And then when he tattletaled on his brothers and gave that evil report to their dad and got them in really trouble, well I believe the test of times the greatest. Test of all. And here's what I know, if you want to move from pride to dependence, the years Joseph spent as a slave and in prison stripped him of any pride, if he had any 13 long years humiliation and hardship taught him to rely completely on God and not his own talents and his privileged position. Talk about giving credit to God there in Genesis, 4116 when interpreting Pharaoh's dream, he said, it's not in me. In other words, I'm giving God all the credit. Quite a contrast from his boastful youthfulness, talking about forgiveness and perspective. In the end, Joseph's humility allows him to forgive his brothers completely. His words, you plan to harm me, but God made it turn out to good, demonstrating a heart transformed by suffering and a perspective shaped by divine providence, what a powerful lesson in overcoming hurt and vengeful pride. I thought about the warning against self importance. Joseph's early life is a cautionary tale about how favoritism and a sense of superiority can alienate others and lead to painful, humbling. I don't want to go that route. And then there's a reflection on the destructive nature of envy. Look at his brothers. Their journey shows unchecked jealousy can fester and lead to destructive acts and cause long term harm to others and ourselves. Then there's the ultimate lesson of God's providence, and the complete story in the life of Joseph demonstrates that God can use even imperfect actions, even our humanism, and God will still get all of the glory. The apostle Paul, I believe, was at risk. I was reading about him this week. A baby getting proud. Since God had given him divine revelations, he said, I I've been in heaven. I've seen things that I ought not to share with anyone else. So God gave him a thorn in the flesh, and it kept him humble. It kept him from getting proud. And throughout all of the Bible, there's this emphasis on God humbling the proud, and I think it's only legitimate to see God keeping Joseph from becoming proud, Leslie was proud, but broke him down in order to use him later. There's a small little town in Bavaria, a backwater town. In that town, lived the Dressler brothers. One's name was Adolph, the other's name was Rudolph. Those two boys put together one of the world's top sportsmen companies. They made sportswear. Fact the matter, they made shoes, and they they provided shoes for Jesse Owens in the Olympic Games. I don't know if you ever heard of Jesse Owens looking up on your internet, he happened to be an Indian from United States, and he won several different gold events, and nobody could believe it, and had nothing, and he was poor, and they provided shoes for him. But when the Second World War ended, something happened between these two brothers in this small town with a factory in which everybody worked in they had a falling out. Nobody ever knew really, what they fell out over doesn't take much, though, does it? And those two brothers got so divided they couldn't get along, and so they started two separate sportswear companies. One was called Puma, and the other Adidas, or Adidas, and you know a little bit about the shoe wear, that'll ring some bells. The brothers never reconciled, and finally, when they were buried, they were buried in the same graveyard, but as far apart as the property allowed. I'm simply saying that sibling rivalry is not a good thing. It's never good Jacob saw in his family that favoritism that he had had had bred jealousy and resentment and jealousy and resentment always ends up in regrettable actions. The end of the sad chapter, here's a father devastated. A family's broken up, a son that's miles and miles more than 500 miles away. Interesting thing in reading about the. The two brothers, and they never resolved anything that recently, one of the grandsons of Rudolph began to work for the descendants of Adolph at their shoe company. I'm simply saying things can get better. And the good news at the end of the story of Joseph, when you concluded he and his brothers finally found each other and things were made up. And I'm saying to you that things can be become better if we learn how to reconcile and learn how to put apart all the different learn how to be overcomers. I didn't know what area that you might struggle in. It could be hatred, it could be things in the home life. It could be heritage. I really don't know, but whatever it is I'm saying, let's be overcomers by the grace of God and through His Word, let's find how to get on top of the issues of life. John the Revelator was on the island. The island wasn't on him. And we don't have to carry all the problems of the world on our back. God can help us to get on top of our problems and literally, be overcomers, overcome through the blood of the Lamb and by the word of your testimony, Father, bless these few thoughts that we've shared today, help us to know a little bit more about how to be the overcomers that you've called us to be. Life can be tough. Situations can arise, business can backfire. Life can reverse. Things can happen, but we don't have to give up if we can be one that gets up and I pray Lord, that You would give our people that ability to overcome every obstacle they come into contact with, whether it's the background of a broken home or a divorce, health issues, financial issues, whatever it might be, we're going to say, by the grace of God and and by the leadership of your spirit, we will be overcomers in the days ahead. Bless we pray as we leave this your house, lest we pray in our giving, help us to be a real example to others this week, as they look at our lives and they're down and they're wondering how they can get up, may they see something about an overcoming Spirit in us. Use us. We pray Jesus for Your glory in Christ's name. Amen, stand together with me, if you would. As I say to you every week, please find somebody you don't know. Stick out your hand. Tell them your name. Get Acquainted. Make friends. Let's do it. This morning, we're going to be sung out by the Howard. Here we go.

Unknown: 28:04

Thanks for being a part of the voice of the Nazarene. Visit us every Sunday at 9am with BNC pastor Ray LaSalle for more information regarding B and C, visit Bucyrus nazarene.org, you.