Gospel

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Sunday 8/25/13 sermon of Pastor William of Ohio = Beyond Recognition Genesis 42:8, 35, 36
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Have you ever felt like things are against you? Felt like all things are in a mess around you? This is how Jacob in the text felt. He was at a turning point in his life but he didn’t know it. God delights in working behind the scenes, quietly pulling things together. While this is happening, we feel overwhelmed. This is how God brings us to a turning point in our life. It is not designed to kill us or give us a nervous breakdown. Point turning usually comes thru suffering, pain or loss of something. We must let go of some things and let go of certain people! All this is to move us to a better place.

Jacob had twelve sons and eleven of them sold their brother into slavery. They then lied to their father and said Joseph was killed by an animal. Now twenty years later there is a famine in the land and Jacob has sent his sons to Egypt to buy food. They went to Egypt to get the food but had to leave one brother in Egypt while they returned home to bring the younger brother back to Egypt. On top of all this, they then found the money they had paid for the food in their bags. Behind all this was Joseph, the brother they had sold into slavery twenty years ago. He is now the Governor of Egypt and a very, very rich man.

It may take twenty years but we must not think God will not keep his promises. His process is the vehicle God uses to get us to a particular destination. Don’t fight the process! It is the vehicle to get us there to the promise. Don’t confuse the process with the promise of God. When God makes a promise, until the promise is fulfilled, the person who receives the promise is immortal. We cannot die until we receive the promise. The devil cannot kill us because we are immortal until God’s promise is fulfilled. When God is part of the equation, the promise will come to pass!

For Joseph, now twenty years later, the brothers that did him in are now begging him for food! God has a nasty habit of bringing back the people who refused to help us when we were in times of trouble. They come back to us when we are doing real good and now they need help form us! When God delivers you, you are not the same person you were before. This may be why Joseph’s brothers did not recognize him. Once the promise is fulfilled, you are not the same person you were before the promise. You will not resemble the person you used to be.

All the things that God is going to change, fix and deliver us from will make us a new person and we will look like a new person. Joseph was beyond recognition. Some of us that have been delivered by God, we are beyond recognition! Some people don’t know how to talk to us because we are not the same person as before. It could be an ex-husband, ex-wife, ex-boyfriend or former boss. Now that God has fulfilled his promise, we look different. Promotion gives a different look! Promotion gives a different look! Put your hand on you hip, look at your neighbor and say “I will be beyond recognition” Beyond Recognition! We will receive God’s promise! It is coming! It is coming!

AMEN

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