Wednesday 1/21/15
Topic: Where is our Hope?
Series – Faith of our Fathers III.mp3
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:22:03 — 113.4MB)
Scriptures:
Heb. 11:5, 6
OVERVIEW on Patriarchal faith…
- They walked with God
- They came to know Him
- AS A RESULT they trusted Him
Joseph – power mingled with love & respect for God.
Joseph was given a dream by God revealing that one day his father an brothers would bow down to him.
Joseph was sold into slavery at the tender age of 17 according to Gen. 37:2.
He served Potiphar for 11yrs. and managed much of his estate until Potiphar’s wife made advancements towards him. When he denied her, she sought to ruin him by slander.
He was in prison for 2 years due to her lies. – Gen. 41:1
He was then promoted by Pharaoh to head regent. He was second in power only to Pharaoh himself. – Gen. 41:46
From man’s perspective this all took 13+ years for the full measure of God’s promised blessing to be accomplished in Joseph’s life. For us, these years seem wasted and if we had been the ones living them, we might have given up. Nevertheless, ALL of the years were accomplishing God’s ends – even t hose spent in prison.
Consider Moses who was reared as an Egyptian elite until 40.
Raised another man’s sheep from 40 to 80.
God calls him at 80 years of age, and Moses begins his life of faith with God and shortly after his wife leaves him.
Moses wanders around in a wilderness with stiff-necked people for the last 40 years of his life and dies, never having gone into the promised land.
Sounds like a miserable existence!
Lazarus is deathly ill. Jesus knows about it and deliberately lets him die so that He can raise him 4 days after his death. ~ Jn 11:1-46
What do all of these have in common? Even if they end well – they fail to live up to our expectations.
If God is the lover of our souls and we are to be married to Him, what kind of groom is He and how can we ever safely place our hope in Him?
This is what I cover in this teaching. I hope it will challenge you and encourage you to discover genuine hope in Christ that transcends your previous expectations.
If you have been spiritually fed by this ministry and wish to give to its ministry, you may do so here.
Blessings!