MESSAGE SUMMARY
When you look back on your life, what do you see?
- Joy of marriage? Love for your firstborn? Excitement and dreams in career?
- Mistakes and regrets in relationships?
- Devastation from the loss of a loved one, or the news of a sickness?
Our lives are full of ups and downs, and the ups and downs don’t always cancel out.
How do we navigate through the downs of this life?
Looking at Joseph’s story from Genesis can be helpful.
- From being loved by his father to being sold to slavery
- From being successful as a servant to being imprisoned because of a crime he never done
- From being promised to be delivered from prison to forgotten for two years
- When he finally arrived at a resolution, both in his life and also in his relationship with his family, he understood how he was able to walk through the tough moments...
He said, “As for you (his brothers), you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today…” (Gen 50:20)
- He saw how God was able to turn evil into good.
The New Testament writer Paul explains it this way:
For those who love God all things work together for good. (Romans 8:28)
- Even the most horrible evil or tragedy can be overturned for good.
- The good can mean an immediate good, but in the context it means the ultimate good purpose that God has in mind
- The glorification of his children, bringing them to the new heaven and new earth
- No amount of evil can stop God’s good purposes.
Not only that, while we are waiting for the good, God promises to be with us through his Spirit.
He promised to walk with us, to help us, to comfort us.
So while we may never see the good in all things, God works all things together for good. And in all things, He is with you.
MUSIC CREDIT
House of the Lord <Words & Music by Phil Wickham & Jonathan Smith>
Jesus < Words & Music by Chris Tomlin & Ed Cash >
God of Revival <Words & Music by Brian Johnson & Phil Wickham>
There Is A Hope <Words and Music by Stuart Townend & Mark Edwards>
It Is Well <Music by Kristene DiMarco, Philip Paul Bliss; Words by Kristene DiMarco & Horatio Gates Spafford>
