The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Genesis 37Main teaching passage, the story of Joseph and his brothers
1 Jacob lived in the land of his father’s travels, in the land of Canaan.
2 This is the history of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. Joseph brought an evil report of them to their father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a coat of many colors.
4 His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him, and couldn’t speak peaceably to him.
5 Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him all the more.
6 He said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed:
7 for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves came around, and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?” They hated him all the more for his dreams and for his words.
9 He dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, “Behold, I have dreamed yet another dream: and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.”
10 He told it to his father and to his brothers. His father rebuked him, and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves down to you to the earth?”
11 His brothers envied him, but his father kept this saying in mind.
12 His brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.
13 Israel said to Joseph, “Aren’t your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.” He said to him, “Here I am.”
14 He said to him, “Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again.” So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
15 A certain man found him, and behold, he was wandering in the field. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?”
16 He said, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, please, where they are feeding the flock.”
17 The man said, “They have left here, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” Joseph went after his brothers, and found them in Dothan.
18 They saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.
19 They said to one another, “Behold, this dreamer comes.
20 Come now therefore, and let’s kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, ‘An evil animal has devoured him.’ We will see what will become of his dreams.”
21 Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, “Let’s not take his life.”
22 Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.
23 When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colors that was on him;
24 and they took him, and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.
25 They sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
26 Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?
27 Come, and let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, and not let our hand be on him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” His brothers listened to him.
28 Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. They brought Joseph into Egypt.
29 Reuben returned to the pit; and saw that Joseph wasn’t in the pit; and he tore his clothes.
30 He returned to his brothers, and said, “The child is no more; and I, where will I go?”
31 They took Joseph’s coat, and killed a male goat, and dipped the coat in the blood.
32 They took the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, “We have found this. Examine it, now, whether it is your son’s coat or not.”
33 He recognized it, and said, “It is my son’s coat. An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.”
34 Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.
35 All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. He said, “For I will go down to Sheol to my son mourning.” His father wept for him.
36 The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Brian worked through the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, using it to talk about how God is always at work in circumstances that look, from the outside, like disaster. The thread running through the whole message was a single word from Genesis 39: "meanwhile." Whatever the people around Joseph were experiencing or concluding, God was quietly moving the story forward.
What was said
Brian opened by pointing out that the same event in Genesis 37 looks completely different depending on whose eyes you are seeing it through. The brothers, Jacob, and Joseph are all inside the same moment, but each one is living out a different reality. He used the idea of a multiverse, and then string theory, not as theology but as a way to picture how one set of events can produce wildly different experiences for the people inside it.
The brothers get the first look. Their envy of Joseph, his coat, and his dreams had been eating at them for a long time. When the moment came, the best plan their own wisdom could produce was to kill him, then revise that to throwing him in a cistern, then revise it again to selling him for a profit. Brian noted that every step of the brothers' plan was them trying to solve their own problem with their own resources, and it kept getting worse.
Jacob gets the next thread. He receives the blood-soaked robe and jumps immediately to the conclusion that a wild animal killed Joseph. Brian paused here and opened it to the congregation, asking what a sharper observer might have noticed. Several people pushed back, suggesting the scene looked staged, or that Jacob might have known his sons were capable of violence. Someone suggested Jacob may have unconsciously chosen the wild-animal conclusion because the alternative, that his sons killed their brother partly because of Jacob's own favoritism, was too painful to sit with. Brian let that land. Whatever the reason, Jacob doubled down, mourned as though the matter were settled, and refused comfort.
Then comes the word that the whole message turns on. Verse 36 opens with "meanwhile," and Brian said that is the character of the God the Bible describes. While Jacob was certain his son was dead and the brothers were busy covering their tracks, God was moving Joseph toward Egypt and toward everything that would come next. Brian read from Psalm 139 in the Passion Translation, the passage about God going into your future to prepare the way and following behind to spare you from the harm of your past.
Brian was careful to say that the God of the meanwhile does not protect people from hard circumstances. Joseph was in a pit. Joseph was sold as a slave. The point is not that God removes the difficulty but that he is present and active inside it. Brian read from Genesis 39:21, where the Lord is described as being with Joseph in prison and showing him faithful love, using the Hebrew word "chesed." He connected that to an earlier teaching by Chris Bates on the same word, noting that no other god in any other religious tradition is described as having love that is faithful by nature.
Brian closed by asking the congregation to honestly consider which character they most resemble right now. Are you working the problem with your own strength and making it worse? Are you looking at the evidence in front of you and concluding the worst, the way Jacob concluded from the robe? Or can you hold on to the fact that the same God who was moving Joseph through a pit and a prison toward something none of them could see is also moving in your circumstances right now, whether those circumstances involve finances, a doctor's report, or addiction? The invitation was not to pretend the difficulty is not real, but to remember that the story is not over.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
When you catch yourself spiraling into worst-case thinking this week, pause and say out loud: 'Meanwhile, God is at work in this situation.'
Think of one circumstance where you have been relying entirely on your own effort and wisdom to fix it, and bring it to God in prayer instead.
If you need someone to agree with you in prayer over something hard, reach out to Lanisha or Lee and Colleen this week.
Sign up on the clipboard at the table to join Tribe on the Wind River Reservation trip October 10 through 12, even if you are not sure yet and just put a question mark next to your name.
Go to the Teton County Library tonight at 6 p.m. to hear from the parents of an Israeli hostage, as a tangible way to show support to the local Jewish community.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Brian talked about the brothers trying to solve their problem through their own wisdom and effort, and their best idea turning out to be 'let's kill him.' When have you tried to sort out a hard situation entirely on your own, and how did that go?
Jacob looked at the bloodied robe and jumped straight to the conclusion that Joseph was dead, when that was not what had actually happened. Can you think of a time when the evidence in front of you pointed strongly to one thing, but the reality turned out to be something different?
Brian abrió el sermón con una observación sencilla: la iglesia no es un edificio sino una comunidad, como lo demuestra el hecho de que ese domingo se reunieron en el parque. A partir de Génesis 37, exploró la historia de José y sus hermanos como si fueran hilos paralelos de una misma realidad. Tres grupos vivían el mismo momento de maneras completamente distintas: los hermanos, que actuaron por envidia y con su propia sabiduría llegaron a la peor solución posible; Jacob, que al ver la túnica ensangrentada sacó conclusiones razonables pero equivocadas y se hundió en un duelo que no correspondía a la verdad; y José, que aunque estaba en el pozo y luego vendido como esclavo, no estaba abandonado.
La palabra clave del sermón fue "mientras tanto." Mientras los hermanos conspiraban y Jacob lloraba a un hijo que creía muerto, Dios estaba trabajando en silencio. Brian señaló que así funciona Dios en nuestras propias circunstancias: cuando todo parece perdido, cuando el informe médico es difícil, cuando la presión financiera parece insuperable, cuando uno está atrapado en alguna adicción, Dios sigue activo detrás de escena. No siempre nos protege del pozo, pero nunca nos abandona en él. Génesis 39:21 lo resume con la palabra hebrea hesed, el amor fiel de Dios, un atributo que, según Brian, ningún otro dios de ninguna religión reclama como parte de su carácter.
La congregación participó activamente, aportando observaciones sobre Rubén, sobre los motivos de Jacob para no querer sospechar de sus hijos, y sobre el paralelo con la historia de Eliseo y su siervo en el Antiguo Testamento. El mensaje final fue directo: quizás estés mirando evidencia que parece confirmar lo peor, como Jacob mirando la túnica rota y manchada de sangre. Pero esa no es la historia completa. El Dios del mientras tanto ya está en tu futuro preparando el camino.
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Pasajes bíblicos mencionados:
Génesis 37 (la historia de José, la túnica y el pozo)
Génesis 39:21 (el Señor estaba con José en la prisión y le mostró su amor fiel)
Salmos 139:5-6 (traducción The Passion Translation)
Santiago (sobre considerar gozo las pruebas, sin versículo específico)
Read the full transcript7,175 words
Good morning. I love you.
It's not possible.
Hillary.
Okay. Now we're ready.
Good morning.
Let's sing together. Let's lift up our praise in his place and honor him this morning. You were the word.
Hidden glory. A beautiful name it is the name of Jesus just think about these words he didn't want heaven without us he didn't want heaven without us name of Jesus. Fill the park with this truth. Death could not. Death could not hold you.
He silenced the lepers. I've seen it. The heavens You have you have no rival. You have no equal. And for the god you were yours is yours is The name of Jesus.
A powerful name it Oh, your name is powerful. Yes. It is.
Anyone out here today experienced the power of Jesus breaking through in their life? Amen. Where would we be without him? We declare it. Oh, you.
Joy. Sing amazing love. Love. How can it be? What can it be?
Be my king I do. You know, I do. I'll honor you. And all I do. You know, I'll do.
I'll honor you.
Let's just sit on that for a minute. I always struggle with that line because the words are actually written in all I do, I honor you. And I feel
this
conviction of like, no, you don't. No, you actually don't. But my spirit longs to. My spirit longs to honor him in all that I do, but my flesh sometimes rises up. So let's just take a minute and let's just ask that the Holy Spirit would just come and crucify our flesh again and again because that is our desire.
That is our spirit's cry to honor him.
Connor, check one two. I need to I need to step in and just say one thing and you know that I love you.
Yes.
And 99.999% of the words that always come out of your mouth and into this mic are so good, but the Holy Spirit will not crucify our flesh. He won't. We have to crucify our flesh. There you go. We have to crucify our flesh.
That's right.
A volitional act of our will. I've been in rebellion. I've been in doubt. I've been in disbelief. Holy...
The Holy Spirit will convict us and then empower us, but we get to. Yes. So I don't mean to correct you, but I know you know that.
Well, to be correct, I think I said, Holy Spirit, help us to crucify our flesh.
Help us. Help us. Help us.
But that's good. Always. Always. Always check. Always check.
That's good. So let's pray that. Holy Spirit, we need your help. We need your help. We know that it is up to us to act in obedience to you.
That is volitional will. We do though. Our spirit longs to honor you. Longs to honor you. So let's just just be the cry of our heart today.
See amazing love and then when we get to that part, if there's something that you need to repent of, maybe it's just complacency or maybe compromise in your life. That you know right away as the holy spirit just calls it to mind that it's up to you to crucify. Let's just take care of some business before the lord today. Something about this amazing love.
You know I do, I'll honor you because you're my king. Because you are mine. Means you surrender everything to him. Oh, you, every area. Oh, my...
All your selfishness. Oh, you, not what we
want but his will. I'm my king.
Because there's nothing better than you and obedience to you.
And oh, there's nothing better than you, oh, there's nothing. Sing it out. Better than you, lord, there's nothing. Nothing is better than you. Is better than you.
Oh, we just declare that today in this park, in this place. There's nothing better than your presence. And it's always such a quick immediate reminder of why did I stray? Where was I? Just run right back into his presence.
Lord, thank you today that you are here. You're here to eat meat each and every one of us in this place. I just pray right now that you would search each of our hearts. Don't let us just la la la la la la la Try to not hear the voice of your spirit and what you're in today. Maybe it's not conviction necessarily that you're trying to, I don't wanna deal with that.
Maybe it's the deep deep love of the father today that you're having a hard time receiving. Maybe you feel unworthy, maybe you're going through a list in your mind of the things you've done or where you've been and he's just like, just let me love you. So Lord, we give you permission today. Come have your way in this place, in this park. We just pray for every single person gathered here.
This is a unique gathering today of people like has never happened before. Come in a unique way like you never have before. Our expectation is high for what you're gonna do today because there is no depth and no height greater than you. We tell you we love you today. In Jesus name and everybody said, amen.
Give the Lord praise in this park today. Amen. You know it's a good worship set when you've broken every side of your pick. You can usually get at least three times out of it, but not today. If anyone has a pick they wanna share with me after your ashes.
Turn around, greet somebody, say good morning. It's a good day to be in the park worshiping the Lord together. No. You can take it
with me. That's at the end. Yes. It's okay. It's okay.
I'm here to remind you. Don't worry.
Alright. This is fantastic. I love it. Here we are in September. All of the good husbands and fathers are here.
The others are out hunting. Providing. Providing. That's a good wife right there, covering for her husband while she doesn't see him all month in September. What is it?
We got bow season right now and rifle opens next month? The real the real hunters are out right now. The true sportsman. If you have a bible with you this morning, would you turn to Genesis chapter 37 As we... As a collection of people, we are the church, not where we meet as evidenced by once again, here we are in the park.
As long as the sun holds out and the temperature holds out, it's alright. Even despite the aerating of the grass. Yeah. No. Not something else.
I got a little tickle in my chest this morning, so please forgive me if I have a cough or two. Genesis chapter 37. We're going to read a story that's probably very familiar to most of you, maybe brand new to some of you, that would be awesome. And then we're going to... We're gonna talk about a...
You. And Nancy would say to Clay, there's only one you, baby. Lord, help us. Lord, help us. That in the in the multiverse, there's all kinds of parallel tracks in each decision that we make, in each thought that we have, in every word that we say, in everything that happens to us, there is an alternative, like we get to a trail junction.
We could turn left or we could turn right. We, this version of us in this universe, turns right. But as soon as we turn right, there's a splinter in the multiverse where there is some version of you that turned left and all of those things that result in your left hand turn down the trail play out. And at each choice and intersection and word, there's this splintering of multiple realities. My brain.
Or string theory. String theory says that instead of atomic attraction of particles, there's actually some type of subatomic connection that's not particular. It's not connection of particles and electric... Electronic... Electric connection, but there's this big thing called this this force, if you will, that connects all matter in all of the universe and that one change or one thought or one decision or one action is like plucking a string that causes ripples and vibrations throughout the entire universe.
And we are plucking these strings and and we are feeling the ripples of other strings being blocked that affect us. And so you have this idea of of string theory in the multiverse for whatever it's worth. But in this verses that we just read, we can kind of see a version of, let's just call it, the multiverse at play here. There are three different main characters and three very different things are playing out with these three characters in this story. And that's what we're going to look at today for the few minutes that we have together.
So let me ask you, as you look at the story that we just read, could you tell me one of the main characters that has their thread of events playing out in their life? Who do you see? Just tell me one. The low hanging fruit, Joseph. Very good.
Very good. Who else? Okay. So you have the brothers, and then, you know, Laura, you're actually right. They're like like...
Ruben does kind of have, like, specifically have a part to play. So if we wanna say four characters, then you get full credit because Ruben is involved. But we'll consolidate it down to what group? The brothers. So we have Joseph, the brothers, and then who's that third one?
Not the Ishmaelite traders. Jacob. Jacob. So we have three and a half main characters. And we're going to we're going to look at the same story through each of their lenses.
It's in the same place, the same time, the same events are unfolding, but each of these characters has very different unique perspectives and experiences. So let's just really quickly, let's look at look at the brothers. So if you know the backstory of Joseph and the coat of many colors. His father, Jacob, loved him a lot. He was about 17 years old, and his his father made a special robe for him, and he got to wear it.
And his brothers are like, dude. He had 11 other brothers. Right? They couldn't stand it. Only one younger.
One younger than him. Benjamin. Yep. So not only did Joseph have the favor of his father, but now all of a sudden... And this is the first time in the story of the Bible that we see God introducing what we could later call prophetic ministry because God began to speak to Joseph in dreams.
And we see later that Joseph interprets dreams for Pharaoh. So Joseph has two different dreams. One of the dreams is about stars and suns and moon. The other dream is about... What is it about?
Cattle, wheat, and the basic takeaway from these dreams is, oh, you older brothers, you're gonna be bowing down to me, your younger brother. They couldn't stand it. It ate them up with pride, bitterness, envy, jealousy. And so one track, we have the brothers who, being hotheads, decide to take matters into their own hands. Oh, really?
You've had these dreams. We're gonna bow down to you. Like, I don't think that's gonna happen. How about we just eliminate you? Brothers being good brothers always have a obligation to hammer their younger brothers.
Right, Hucks? Yep. And so how many of you are the younger brother? How many of you got hammered by your older sibling? Yeah.
See? Yeah. That... That's just kind of the way it goes. May a Joseph blessing be on you.
But be careful if you receive it. Read the story. So on one hand, we have we have the brothers. They think that they can solve their own problem. They use their own effort, their own energy, their own resources.
They they they think long and hard about what is the best... This particular problem. And out of their own wisdom comes, I don't know, let's kill him. Okay. Fine.
We won't kill him, but we'll let him die a slow agonizing death, starving to death in an empty cistern. That was their best idea. Rather drastic, but it was the best that they could come up with. Simultaneously, who else do we have? We have Jacob.
Now Jacob is going about his business. He sends his his, older brothers are out tending the flocks, and then he sends Joseph to check on them. Joseph, in his mind, is thinking, yep. Or excuse me, Jacob, in his mind, is thinking, yep. I've sent Joseph out.
He's going to run this errand for his best to papa, and then he'll come back and have a good report. He has no idea what's unfolding out in the wilderness with his sons. We know what his sons do. They decide they they want to kill him. They decide, okay, fine.
We won't kill him. We'll throw him into this pit. While he's in the pit, the Ishmaelite traders come along. And then Judah, who's got that business mindset, is like, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. We might be able to make some money here off of this. Kill him? Yeah. That's no good.
And what are we gonna do with the evidence? Here's an idea. Let's sell him. So they're like, okay. All of this is unfolding.
Jacob has no idea what's happening. And then in verse... Look at verse 29, sometime later, Reuben returned to get Joseph out of the cistern. When he discovered that Joseph was missing, he tore his clothes in grief. Then he went back to his brothers and lamented, the boy is gone.
What will I do now? And this is where Laura's picking up. Well, maybe there is a fourth character of Reuben and that's probably worth coming back around to when you get to preach and you can tell us more about, like, what you're seeing in the the Reuben story. Verse 31, then they killed the young goat. So their idea was to kill Jacob, and they're like, oh, we'll make it look like an accident.
And so now here they are trying to, like, cover up their tracks. Have you ever have you ever tried to employ your own wisdom to get yourself out of a hole only to dig it deeper? Daily. Then the brothers killed a young goat, dipped Joseph's robe in the blood. They sent a beautiful robe to their father with this message.
It's weird. Look what we found. Doesn't this row belong to your son? Oh, those guys. Right.
Okay. Don't know where Ruben was. We'll find out from Laura.
Yeah.
He would say, their father recognized it immediately. Now notice we're looking at Joseph... Excuse me. We're looking at Jacob in the... This multiverse.
So Jacob receives the robe covered in dried blood, torn to ribbons. And what does Jacob do? We can see here. Verse 33. He says, he makes...
He jumps to two conclusions. What's... What what do you see? It's in the text. He jumps to two conclusions.
Yes. A wild animal must have eaten him. And what's the other thing? And he has been torn to pieces. A wild animal killed him, and he has been torn to pieces.
Now is it a is it a big stretch to make that conclusion? No. No. Is it what happened? No.
Now this is this is super this is super important because we encounter things every day, and part of the amazingness of being human is that we can take evidence and clues around us and put a picture together using logic and reason and imagination to put together events that we didn't personally witness, but can later be proven to be true. Now in this particular instance, put yourself in Jacob's shoes. Here's the evidence, the robe, the blood. No Joseph. What would you conclude?
He's dead. That's reasonable to conclude that. Was it accurate? No. I feel like somebody like Sherlock Holmes, you know, with that brilliant analytical mind would instantly say, well, here's what we do know.
A DNA test. Swab it for COVID. Okay. So so now let's not be let's not be Jacob, but let's be Sherlock Holmes when the robe that is ripped to shreds and covered in dried blood comes before us. What would Sherlock Holmes think or say about the robe in front of him?
You can just say it, and then I'll repeat it in the mic for all of our families that watch the livestream. Okay. So you would say it's staged. That's a big jump.
Well, if he's
Observate... Using the tools of observations. I... I'm sorry. I cut you off.
No. It's okay. Like, if he's like, okay. Let's observe what happened here. It could be a setup.
Okay. For Sherlock
Holmes, like, your your goal is to figure out who set who up or who did what.
So motive is something. Yeah. Motive is something that could... To a conclusion that perhaps it's staged, but we first use the powers of observation. The...
A good question. Where's the body?
What I would do...
Where's the body?
I would wanna see if it was ripped to shreds by an animal, it would rip and tear. There'd be teeth marks. There'd there'd be some implication.
But if his brothers if his brothers, they probably couldn't rip it apart with their hands. They probably had to cut it or slice it. So that's what I would do. End of the story. Amen.
Certainly, Jacob knew that there was envy in his
tribe. Absolutely.
He should have thought a little deeper about what... I mean, the brothers showed evidence of their envy often.
Oh, they despised him in their heart. Even Jacob himself Yes. As the the patriarch and the father when Joseph shared his dreams was like, boy, you're asking for a whooping.
Anyone who has children, the first thing you'd say is like, uh-uh uh-uh. Like, walk me through exactly what happened. Like,
did you see how
did the coat come off? How do
you know? Let's like... And then I'd watch for
discrepancies Where's in the the body? Oh, that's a good question. Do you think that Jacob thought that his sons would kill their own brother? Well, we've seen some savagery from the other from the other brothers. Remember, because there are 12 brothers and then one sister, I think the sister got violated, and not only did they kill the...
I think they killed the entire town. Savagery brutality is in the family. Jealousy motivated murder. Look at this message we're crafting here together, I
have a question. So this presupposes that Joseph walked around and paraded around in this ornate robe.
Oh, yeah.
So is that, like, what he did? Would he go out in the middle of nowhere in his ornate robe and hang out with his brothers in his ornate robe and shove it in their face basically? Yeah. Like, look at me. I'm so special.
I think so. Yeah. Like Jimmy Fallon in his tight pants. I got my tight pants on. Here.
I'll take it back there.
I think there's something worth thinking about here, like, to Alyssa's point of like wanting to instantly be questioning it. But also if he were to question it, like what would that mean? Oh. Like what if he automatically was just like, I'm just gonna go straight for the wild animals because the alternative means that my sons have killed arguably my favorite son. And to the point of him parading around this coat, like that was Jacob's gift to him.
Like, Jacob... It wasn't just Joseph singling himself out. Like, Jacob also singled him out. And so that could mean that it was his fault too if the brothers did kill him. And so maybe he's just like, alright.
I'm gonna jump straight to the one conclusion that has no like huge moral implications. Oh. Like not even wanting to entertain the idea that it could have possibly been his fault for singling out Jacob. I mean, Joseph.
Yeah. I I like where you're going with this. And if anything, he doubles or triples down on that because look at verse 34. Look at verse 34. I count one, two, three, four, five, six things that Jacob does in this particular stream of reality.
Can you see them? He tore his clothes. He dressed in burlap. He mourned deeply for a long time. We'll count that.
He refused to be comforted. And then he said, I will go to my grave mourning for my son. Number six, he would weep. We've talked about the brothers. We've talked about Jacob.
Let's talk about Joseph. What's the title of our conversation? God of God of... Meanwhile. Verse 36.
Meanwhile, the Midianite traders arrived in Egypt where they sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Potiphar was captain of the palace guard. Meanwhile, Joseph was not abandoned in a pit. Meanwhile, Joseph was not murdered by his brothers. Meanwhile, Joseph did not die at the hands of a vicious wild animal.
Meanwhile, God was up to something. His brothers thought one thing. His dad thought something completely else. Meanwhile, God was up to something. Now think about for just a moment the parallel track of Joseph and Jacob.
Jacob is either believing or jump to conclusions or doubling down. I I can't go there with this reality like you were pointing out, Connor. I'm gonna double down on the shredded by wild animals. If your wild animal's with you, give them a scratch behind the ear this morning. There you go.
Good. Jacob, is grieving the loss of his son, who he thinks is dead, but is Joseph really dead? Joseph ain't dead. That may not be so great for Joseph right now. I don't know if you've ever been thrown in a cistern in a dry well and then sold as a slave.
It's not great for Joseph, but he ain't dead and he ain't been shredded by wild animals. This reality is happening while at the same time the reality of Jacob believing that his son was dead is playing out. I don't know about you, but I love and serve and follow the God of the meanwhile. In my reality, in my world, I walk through circumstances with question, and hardship, and heartbreak, and uncertainty. Meanwhile, my God is always at work behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, my God is busy orchestrating circumstances for his glory and my benefit. Look at this verse. Psalms one thirty nine verse five and six. I love to read it from the passion translation. Don't let him plug his ears, Gretchen.
You've gone into my future to prepare the way, and in kindness, you follow behind me to spare me from the harm of my past. You have laid your hand on me. This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible. Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength. The god of the meanwhile is always diligently at work working out his plan according to his goodwill and pleasure.
And somehow, someway, he works into his plan your free will. How he do that? I don't know. But everything works out according to his goodwill and to his pleasure. Now consider the circumstances that you may find yourself in here this morning.
You may be walking down, walking out a one thread of reality. And the things that you may be experiencing, now there's a chance that they could be perceived. Jacob, just like you said, Jacob had jumped to this conclusion that his son had been killed. Was that the truth of the situation? Nope.
But Jacob was walking down this this path of reality that his son was gone and killed and the world was over. Oh. And let's let's give a little bit of credit to Jacob. I mean, how else would we have thought if we had experienced those same things? It would be hard not to come to that same conclusion.
Our emotions just run wild. But there was a different reality that was playing out. Whatever circumstance you may find yourself in this morning, there's a chance that it could be perceived and you are just blowing it up, making it bigger than it really is, and you need to, like, calm down... Breath for a second. Maybe there's a chance that things really are exactly playing out as you think and feel that they are.
But you've got to remember the God of the Bible which is unlike any other God in the universe. Could you say this about the Buddha? Could you say this about Mohammed? Could you say this about Krishna? Could you say this about Vishnu?
Could you say this about Joseph Smith? No other god has described as the god of the meanwhile. Meanwhile, God is working in your circumstances for something for you to encounter in the future. Psalms one thirty nine, God has gone into your future to prepare good things. When you think about...
When you lay your head on the pillow and you think about worst case scenarios and stress and and trouble and impending events that are coming and they stress you out. Do you ever put God in there and how he's gonna come through or do you just like dwell in the stress? First wellness rest Five minutes. In thirty five minutes. And then we help each other and think, meanwhile, God is at work in this situation.
Yeah. On those same lines, I'm... I always think of the invisible world. It's so easy as a human, obviously, to just look at what we can experience with our five senses, but there's a supernatural reality that exists at the same time that's the one that created this physical world. But I think of the story in the Old Testament of Elijah and his servant and how his servant started freaking.
Battery?
You
say it, and I'll repeat it. Yes. So Elisha and his servant are in a city surrounded. They're like in Minas Tirith surrounded by a vicious army. The servant frets and he's experiencing one reality.
Elisha's like, he's in this transcendent reality. Hey, how was church today? I don't know. The pastor was talking about a transcendent reality. Yes.
You're in the right place. Nice to see. And here's what... What's playing out. The servant is experiencing doubt and fear and confusion.
Meanwhile, the angel armies have surrounded the the enemy and are about to undo them. Do not ever neglect the power of the meanwhile. You were lost as a ball in tall weeds. Meanwhile, God was at work engineering circumstances for you to come to the Lord. Right?
Isaac, say it out loud and I'll repeat it. Use your outdoor voice. Yeah. Yeah. They've gone over there.
I couldn't find him. So the point that what Isaac just said was if you rewind the story a little bit, Joseph goes to look for his brothers where they should be, doesn't find them. And then a mysterious character says, oh, I know where they are. They've gone to Dothan. So Joseph continues on.
God is always at work in the circumstances even though we might not be able to see it. Here's the last thing that that I wanna share with you. Look in Genesis 39 verse 21. This is the essence and the beauty of the God of the meanwhile. Whatever circumstances you may find yourself in, crappy as they may be, hold on to the fact that you serve the God of the meanwhile.
And in the midst of your difficult, uncomfortable, painful, heartbreaking situation, know that meanwhile, God is working. And how can you know that? Genesis thirty nine twenty nine... Thirty nine twenty one. But the Lord was with Joseph in prison and showed him his what?
Faithful love. The Hebrew word there is chased and whenever you see that phrase in English, faithful love. I don't know about you but it reminds me of like when we were doing quarantine church church and Chris Bates talked about Hasid, God's faithful love. No other God in the pantheon of little g gods claims that as an attribute of his character that his love is faithful. It has endurance and it will last way longer than you will.
So today, if you find yourself in some circumstances that seem difficult, troubling, maybe even you've been like the other brothers that have tried to like figure out your own way out of this in the best... Is I don't know. Let's murder him and blame it on a wild animal. Like that's really the best that your ideas can come up within your own wisdom, your own effort, your own energy, your own strength. I mean, just be honest with yourself for a moment.
Have you done sorting out problems all on your own? But the God of the meanwhile is consistently at work. And if you will but turn to him, he longs to show you and demonstrate to you. Oh, I feel so unprepared for what's about to unfold in my life. Meanwhile, God is at work preparing your heart, preparing your finances.
Yes. Is the work now?
I was just gonna add that this picture of, like, the world against you, brothers after you, like, everybody against you, people who should be for you, just reminded me that we need to remind ourselves that God is the one person that we can lean on who's not gonna do that to us. The world is going to feel like it is coming for us with everything it has. And he's not. And we forget that because we don't see him. He's not sitting right next to us, but he is the one who is fighting for us when we can't see it.
Yeah. And I just think it's such a good picture to remember, like, he is for you, and we can assume the best about him. We assume the worst about people and things and life and circumstances and news. Yeah. And we can assume the best about God.
There's no one else we can really do that with, even our family.
Yeah. True.
But we can assume the best about him Yeah. And what he's doing. Thank you, mom.
Help us. Help us. Just help us. Help us. Help us, Lord.
He's never failing.
Bless Lord, help us. You may be looking at the evidence, shredded coat, tattered blood stained, and you'd be... You may be thinking that this merit is dead, done and over. Meanwhile, God is working. You may think, the mountain of financial pressures that I'm facing is insurmountable.
Meanwhile, God is working. If you would open your eyes, he has for you not a mailbox full of cash. Wouldn't it be great if he works that way? But the bible says that wisdom is worth more than gold. So waiting to drop into your heart are creative ideas in ways to open up the financial channels so that his blessing can flow through.
But yep, that's gonna look like a lot of hard work for you. But God is orchestrating these things. You may be looking at particular evidence from a doctor's report. Meanwhile, God is working. Right Clay?
Right. Tell me your new friend, my new friend. Nick. Nick. Right Nick?
Right. There's Clay. Right? You may think it's all over, never gonna climb out of this pit of bondage and addiction. Meanwhile, God is working.
Right? Meanwhile, God is working. Thank you, Lord. Meanwhile, God is working.
The verse that came to my mind was just in James. It's not real easy to swallow, but just consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds. It's not that God protects us from the trials. Right? He lets us go through them so that we can grow, mature, and develop our character and and faith.
And on the other side, you will see the victory and praise the Lord
when that happens. We all want to see his his faithful love demonstrate to us. Few of us are willing to endure the pit or the prison where it is most magnified. Can I get the robe and be the favorite and have his faithful love to me? Oh, wouldn't that be great?
That's for another time. I feel like there's... I feel like maybe I'm in the multiverse. I'm preaching one sermon and the Holy Spirit's busy preaching this to you and to you and to you and to you and there's so many threads that we could pull. I'm gonna pray for us and we'll into the last part of the service together.
One more way that we'll worship the Lord. And I know that so many of you like, I got I got something to share and I know that you do. You just preach it to your neighbor as soon as we're done. I didn't hear a word that Brian said, but the Lord was talking to me all about this and this. That's a good sermon.
Lord, help us. Help us. Help us. Help us. Whatever circumstance we find ourselves in right now, we we know and we trust that you are the God of the meanwhile.
Meanwhile, you are working. You are working. You are working to help us let go of of bitterness. You are working to bring us a friend and an ally that can help us stay strong in the midst of temptation. In the meanwhile, you are working, engineering circumstances for your glory and our benefit.
So while we find ourselves in the midst of this situation, Lord, we ask that you would release a practical demonstration of your faithful love to us. We thank you for these things. In Jesus' name.
As we wrap our time up here this morning, just... We're gonna bring our tithe and our offering to the Lord. This is something we do every time because it's an act of surrender, and it's a way to say, God, I love you and trust you so much. I give up something that I worked hard for. We work hard, blood, sweat, and tears, right, at our jobs, and this is just a way to say, God, you are worthy.
It's all yours anyway. So this is an act of surrender, and this is the way that I, to my local church, provide a way not only to do the work of the ministry, that's what your tithes and offerings go to, to do the local work of the ministry, not only here in Jackson as you hear us say, but to the uttermost bounds of the earth, but it also is an act of surrender to you. It's between you and the Lord. You ask him what it is that he would have you give. Let me tell you a few ways to give here today.
Always on the website, tribejh.com. There's a giving link. We don't pass buckets or anything. I mean, we're meeting in a park, so we do things differently. We're either at a saloon or a park or TBD down the road.
But we have a little over here by the coffee and the donuts. There's a little box. If you have cash or check, then you're able to put that in there. And also, the easiest way is on your smartphone at any time from anywhere on the globe. You can just type a new number like it's a new friend to 84321, and then you just type an amount to give.
And it has quick instructions if you've never done that. So let's pray over the tithe and off... Offering. Then I just have quick announcements. We'll get you guys out of here for this gorgeous day.
Heavenly father, thank you so much for who you are and how you're faithful. Thank you that you provide for us in ways that we recognize and in ways that we don't even recognize all the time. You're just such a good dad. You provide for us. You love us.
You're so faithful. So, Lord, like we talked about today, even if circumstances don't feel that way, that's okay because, like Lindsay said, we know who you are. You are good. You are faithful. You've never failed.
And the bible says, you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. While methods and ways may change over time, God, your character and your nature, they never change. What an anchor we have in you. So, I just ask today that as we bring tithe and offering to you, father, you will just comfort the hearts of every person giving and just speak to them individually and let them know how much you love them. We thank you for the opportunity to partner with you and be your hands and feet through this local ministry called Tribe.
What an honor it is to to partner with you in that way. So we love you in Jesus name. Amen. Few quick things. If you were here last week, you saw our good friend Marco from Israel, and he was here talking about the IDF and his take on October 7, and it was so good.
And if you've been around Tribe at all, you know that we love to partner with our Jewish community here and just show love and support because that's what we see in the Bible, God doing. We're not on one human side. We're on God's side. And he... The God of the Bible, Jesus, we serve...
Our Messiah is Jewish, and that's who we serve, and that's who he is. And so we have an an opportunity today and next week to show that love to our Jewish community in a tangible way. I'm gonna leave these flyers over there, like I said, by the the coffee and donuts, but there's an event tonight. These are parents of a young man who is currently still a hostage. They're gonna be at the Teton Library.
And so I'll just leave this over here. You can get the information. That is at 06:00 tonight, Teton County Library, free of charge. And then next week, oh, man, this lady here was a hostage, and she's free. She's gonna be in Jackson next Sunday.
This one's at the ward and there is a small charge, but my goodness. I'm gonna leave these over here. You guys check them out, take a picture of it, and let's support in that way. Another thing is this. Soak in the beautiful vitamin d that we're getting right now cause next week, we're gonna be back at the Virginian.
So you can come to the park, and you can pray, and you can worship, but we won't be here. We're gonna be back at the Virginian Saloon like we have been, and so meet us there same time, 10:00. And then finally, if you've been around Tribe at all, you know that we love to partner with our friends over at Wind River Reservation. It literally feels like a third world country, and it's just like an hour and a away. It's a great opportunity to tangibly love on people, and we have an opportunity for you to do that on October tenth, eleventh, and twelfth.
They have like a harvest festival that they're doing, and so we're gonna help pass out clothes to the community there that in need and do some food stuff. And honestly, when you do any kind of mission, you don't think about the planner. What are we doing? Or they said it was gonna be seven and it's 07:30. You just go with open hands and heart, and you do whatever whatever they say.
That's the best way to flow. So Sarah has a clipboard and we are gonna pass it around now or should we leave
it at the... Let's leave it at the table.
Okay. Then you won't miss it. You won't miss it. So we would love for you to sign up. And if you're not positive, like, if you can get off work, just sign up anyway and maybe just put a maybe or a question mark because we just wanna have as many people as we can.
We're gonna meet it in October, meet at the TMC. We're gonna load up on the tri bus. And I always feel like when we get on the tri bus, we're like that scene in the Muppets, you know, they're like, move right along.
I read your mind. Yes. This is
who we are. So we're gonna load up on October 10, not today. We're gonna load up on the go down there and just be
a
tangible representation of Jesus. Sound good? Pastor Brian, would you come up and pray for us, please?
Thanks, Amanda. Here we are. We've been meeting in the park for a few Sundays. Next week, we'll be at the saloon. We don't know where tribes like next home will be.
Meanwhile, God is working engineering circumstances for us to have our next home. Would you stand with me? I'll pray for you. Just before I bid you a good week, I'm gonna invite Lanisha and the Martins to step over here by the horseshoe. And if there's anything that you need prayer for, as soon as we're done with service here, just find Lee and Colleen, Lanisha, they would love to agree with you in prayer like, help me to see your faithful love in this situation.
Lord Jesus, thank you so much for today. Thank you for giving us one more day in Jackson Hole, Idaho Falls, or Blackfoot, or Star Valley, or wherever it is that you've come from today. Lord, thank you that you are the God that is always working in the meanwhile. You are the God of your faithful enduring love. We ask for an encounter of that love this week as we go throughout our week.
I command a blessing blessing over each and every person that is here today. Reveal your love to them because we love you so much, dad. We pray these things in Jesus name, the strong son of God. Everybody said, amen. I love you so much.
I want you to have a great week and as always, Lindsay and Aaron, remember, you got this.
