(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Today I wanna talk a little bit about having freedom with God's favor in your life.

Having freedom with your creator's favor in your life.

The Bible tells us in Galatians chapter five verse one, the writer there tells the church at Galatia, he says, so Christ has truly set us free, so now make sure that you stay free.

Everybody say stay free, otherwise live in that favor.

Stay free and don't get tied up again by slavery to the law.

Romans chapter eight verse one, as the writer wrote the church at Rome, he says this in Romans eight one, he says, there is no condemnation.

Everybody say no condemnation.

There's no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

So once the favor of God through Christ Jesus rests on your life, you have freedom, come on, to be all God has designed you to be.

Freedom to be everything he has created you to do here on this planet.

Freedom in all eternity.

When you put your faith, your trust, your belief, it activates God's favor in your life, come on, and you can run with the freedom of God in your heart.

So today I wanna talk a little bit about how this freedom or this favor works in our life, and if you have your Bible with you, I'm gonna invite you to open it up to Genesis 37, Genesis being the first book of the Bible.

Chapter 37 begins a story about a man named Joseph, and Joseph had God's favor on his life, and Joseph is a great example to us today about how to operate with God's favor on our life and how to get underneath God's favor and let God's favor flow into our life, because this is what I know, is every single person underneath the sound of my voice needs God's favor in their life, come on, and every single person, no matter what background you come from, that favor is available to you if you'll respond to what God is offering to you.

Genesis 37 kind of begins this story, and to set it up, I want you to know that Joseph is the son of Jacob.

Jacob is the son of Isaac, and Isaac is the son of Abraham, and so if you've ever heard anything about God's Word or the Bible, understand most people have heard of Father Abraham.

Father Abraham had a couple of sons, Ishmael and Isaac, then Isaac had Esau and Jacob, and now Jacob, in the lineage of Father Abraham, Jacob is the 11th son born, or Joseph is the 11th son born to Jacob, and we're gonna look a little bit about his life today and what his life means to us today, because his life has significance in your life right here, right now.

If you'll grab hold over the next 30 minutes, what I'm putting down, because God's Word has something significant to say.

Bible says in verse three of chapter 37, Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age.

You know, grandparents typically love their grandkids more than, come on.

Old age, old age mellows you, right?

So one day, Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph, a beautiful robe, but his brothers, they hated Joseph because the father loved him more than the rest of them, or they at least leaned into that thought.

They couldn't say a kind word to him, and one night, Joseph, he had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him even more.

Listen to the dream, he said.

We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain, and suddenly, my bundles stood up, and your bundles all gathered around, and they bowed low before mine.

His brothers responded, so you think you will be our king, do you?

So you think you'll be our king, do you?

Do you actually think you will reign over us?

And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way that Joseph, the way he talked about those dreams.

You see, Joseph had God's favor on his life, and Joseph had an assignment from God.

I need you to know today, you have an assignment from God too.

And Joseph begins to share that assignment with those around him, his brothers, but his brothers didn't like the assignment that he had on his life.

His assignment was, you know what, he had the ability to dream, and as he dreamed, he began to see what God saw, and he saw himself in a place of leadership.

And as he begins to share that with his brothers, the brothers began to think lesser about themselves, and they began to think that he was trying to lord over them instead of just be a leader with them and maybe help them become great in life.

And so they basically misinterpret what Joseph's saying, and that misinterpretation begins to lead down a path where Joseph received a lot of suffering, let's call it, a lot of pain, a lot of difficult moments for the next 17 years because he shared his dream.

For about the next, you know, 15 or so years, Joseph goes on a journey, but what we learn from this journey is though Joseph went through difficult times, God's favor never left Joseph.

And maybe you're in this place today, and God gave you an assignment, and as you begin to share that assignment, maybe you've hit some difficult spots in your life, some challenging moments in your lives, and you begin to look at those moments and those challenges and those valleys and those roadblocks, and you begin to maybe think, well, maybe I didn't hear right from God, and maybe God took his favor away from me.

I just want you to know God's word says that the gifts he gives are irrevocable.

In other words, if God puts his favor on your life, he's not coming to take it away from your life.

Come on, he is, he wants you to understand that favor, operate in that favor, but you have an enemy that will always try to stop that favor from flowing through you.

There's freedom in walking in God's favor.

Joseph goes on this journey again.

His brothers don't like his dream, and it says there in Genesis 37, verses 23 and 24, so his brothers go out to work.

Joseph has this beautiful robe his father, Jacob, gave him.

He goes out to be alongside of his brothers, and when he begins to arrive on the scene, the Bible says that the brothers began to basically plot to get rid of Joseph.

They didn't like the favor of God on Joseph's life.

The Bible says in Genesis 37, verse 23 and 24, so when Joseph arrived among them, his brothers ripped off the beautiful robe he was wearing, took it away, and then they grabbed him, and they threw him into a cistern, a pit, an empty pit that wasn't full of water.

They took his robe, they threw him in a pit, and then they begin to have a dialogue.

I don't have time today to read the whole entire story, but they begin to have a dialogue about him being in this cistern, and what their father back at home, Jacob, may think about all this, and as they begin to have this dialogue, they decided, well, you know what?

We don't wanna just leave him here in the pit, and all of a sudden, some traders begin to come by, and they decided, well, shoot, we'll make some money off of him, so they get him out of the pit.

They sell him to these traders that were traveling through the land he was in down to Egypt, and they sell him for 20 pieces of silver, and they go on about their way, and Joseph is taken down to Egypt, and as he was taken down to Egypt, these traders, they trade him and they sell him to an official there, a captain of the palace guard of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and so these brothers, as they made this big mess by stealing this coat and not liking the assignment on Joseph's life, simply, they begin to try to cover up their mess.

See, that's what most of us do.

Is when we make a mess, we keep trying to cover up the mess, and as we keep trying to cover up the mess, it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper, and it was getting deeper and deeper and deeper for these brothers' life as they began to try to cover up their mess with their father, and for all the years that Joseph spent in Egypt apart from them, I want you to imagine the weight of the sin that they were carrying in their hearts.

In other words, they were dysfunctional for all of these years, though they had sold their brother out into slavery.

Here, Joseph is now in Potiphar's house, this Egyptian guard, this Egyptian official, and as he's there, the Bible says that God's favor was still with him.

I wanna read to you what it says here in Genesis 37 about this cover up the brothers tried to make.

Genesis 37, verses 31 through 33.

The Bible says that the brothers, they killed a young goat, they dipped Joseph's robe in the blood, and then they sent the beautiful robe to their father with this message.

Look, look at what we found.

Does this robe belong to your son?

The father recognized it immediately.

Yes, he said, it's my son's robe.

A wild animal must have eaten him.

Joseph has clearly been torn to pieces.

However, the Bible goes on to say in Genesis 39, verse two, as all of them are sitting in this mess and this mourning in this mess they had made, the Bible says, and Joseph had been sold into this slavery.

Now he doesn't have this beautiful coat his father had him, but remember, the favor's still on him, and the Bible says this in Genesis 39, verse two.

It says, the Lord was with Joseph.

Everybody say, with Joseph.

The Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did, and he served in the home of the Egyptian master.

See, I find that fascinating.

And the reason I find that fascinating is though Joseph had been stripped of this beautiful robe his father had given him, this outward robe, this incredible gift that his earthly father had given him, and though he had been mistreated by his brothers, though he had been thrown into a pit, into a cistern, though he had been sold out for 20 shekels of silver, and though he had been taken into slavery in Egypt, Joseph didn't operate by his outside circumstances.

Come on.

Joseph operated by the favor of God that was on his life.

The Bible says, in spite of the outside circumstances, that God was still with Joseph.

He was still with Joseph.

And some of us think that God has changed his mind about us because the outside circumstances have changed around us.

And what I gotta say to you today is this.

It's just because the things on the outside change around you.

You may have been stripped of something.

You may have had some relational hiccups along the journey that you caused or didn't cause.

You may have gone on your journey and you feel like no one is paying attention to you.

I need you to know today, don't you dare operate by what you see on the outside because God's favor is still on the inside and you gotta keep on keeping on because his gifts are irrevocable.

Come on.

Favour.

Joseph had the favour on his life though he was stripped of the coat of many colours out of his life.

Some of us think God's favour is just on us in the good times.

But truly God's favour is on us all the time.

If we'll learn to operate in that favour.

No one can take God's favour from you.

God gave Joseph the ability to interpret dreams.

And Joseph, he didn't operate based on the circumstances around him or the position he had.

He just rested in God's favour and he had freedom wherever he was.

He's in Potiphar's house, an official of the guard underneath the king of another country.

And he's operating as a slave but he still does everything to God's glory in his assignment because God called him to be a leader wherever he was.

Whether he was a slave or whether he was eleventh in a bloodline of brothers or wherever he went in life, God's assignment for Joseph was you're going to be a leader.

And in this leadership, you're going to begin to help people discover something amazing about God.

Joseph didn't quit.

He didn't give up.

Freedom happens when we rest in God's favour.

Now Joseph is set up in Potiphar's house.

However, Potiphar's wife, she began to think that Joseph was a young, good-looking man and Potiphar's wife began to want to dishonour her husband and dishonour God.

And so she simply comes to Joseph and says, Joseph, I need you to sneak into my bedroom and I need you to sleep with me.

I belong to someone else but I need you to come in to my bedroom.

You are awesome looking.

And so the Bible says that Joseph said, no, I'm not going to dishonour my position.

I'm not going to dishonour the man who is over me, Potiphar, and I'm not going to dishonour my great God by falling prey to you trying to lure me in to this space of dishonour.

And actually, the Bible says that she becomes very angry and Joseph is working around her one day and nobody else is around.

So what she decides she's going to do is just set Joseph up for failure anyway.

And Joseph begins to try to flee away from her.

She grabs his cloak, not his coat.

His coat had already been taken from him.

Now she grabs his cloak that he was wearing and begins to falsely accuse him of sleeping with her when he didn't.

Here's the story in Genesis 39 verse 12.

It says, so she came and she grabbed him by the cloak demanding, come on, sleep with me.

Joseph tore himself away but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from her house.

Genesis 39 verses 19 and 20 says, well, Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife's story about how Joseph had treated her.

She made up a story.

She lied about Joseph.

She falsely accused him.

And the Bible says, so he took Joseph and he threw him to a prison where the king's prisoners were and he held him there, where his king's prisoners were held and there he remained.

Then it says in verse 21 of Genesis 39, here it is, but the Lord was with Joseph.

Everybody say, with Joseph.

The favor was still with Joseph, was with Joseph in prison and showed him his faithful love.

And the Lord made Joseph a favor, favorite now with a prison ward.

Wow.

God's gift of favor is irrevocable.

When God's favor is on your life, if you learn to operate in that favor, you will find freedom.

And God has a purpose and a plan for each of our lives underneath the sound of my voice.

In spite of what others have said about you or what others have taken away from you, in spite of the misaccusations, because here are the false accusations here, the false accusations don't stop God's favor.

Though she falsely accused him and Potiphar, the master became mad at him and threw him into prison, the Bible says that God is still with Joseph.

And what some of us need to understand today, we have stopped operating in the favor of God, let's call it, because somebody falsely accused us of something.

And we said, you know what, because I've been falsely accused or accused at any level, all right, I'm just gonna stop doing anything for God.

Because let me tell you something, false accusations, they hurt.

And sometimes they cost you multiple years.

But the Bible says that we can learn from Joseph.

Because though these things were coming against Joseph, the favor of God never left Joseph.

And he continually operated in that favor.

Freedom happens when we rest in God's favor.

Now the Bible says Joseph is in prison, he meets Pharaoh, the king's baker, come on.

His Krispy Kreme cooker, the one that cooked the king's Krispy Kreme donuts, come on.

And it's cupbearer.

In prison.

Because the king had gotten mad at the baker and the cupbearer, he had thrown them in the prison.

Remember, Pharaoh, the palace guard had thrown Joseph in the prison, but the Bible says that Joseph became a favorite of the prison ward and he got to associate with these other prisoners and he was associated with these other prisoners, they began to share some dreams that they had.

And Joseph, remember, God gave him the gift to interpret dreams.

So in Joseph, he interprets the cupbearer's dream and he tells him about how he's going to be released and go back to the king.

And then he shares the baker's dream.

One dream was a good dream.

The other dream was a bad dream.

The baker was going to go back to the king and the king was going to impale him on a sword.

But Joseph told the truth about the dreams because they asked him to interpret the dreams.

And so Joseph shared with them what the dreams meant.

They went to Pharaoh.

They shared the dreams about what their dreams meant.

However, they forgot to share with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who told them what those dreams meant.

Joseph simply asked them when he interpreted their dreams, when you get out of here, he says, don't forget about me.

But they go on about life's business.

The baker gets killed, the cupbearer goes on.

The Bible says for two years, he never thought about Joseph again.

I wonder how many people have forgot about you and never thought about you again.

And because they forgot about you for two years, you stopped in your tracks of doing what God's assignment is for your life.

You see, the story teaches us that even when others forget about you, God hasn't.

Joseph is in the prison.

He asked the ones who he did a favor for to go and do a favor for him.

But they chose to forget about the favor that Joseph did for them.

And they chose to get out and just kind of operate in daily life and they forgot all about Joseph.

Then the story says that Pharaoh himself, the king of Egypt had a dream.

And no one in all of Egypt could interpret the two dreams he had.

So he started asking questions.

Who can tell me what my two dreams mean?

I need to know.

Pharaoh, the king of Egypt was getting anxious about his dreams because he saw some fat cows and some skinny cows.

He saw some dried up stalks of corn and he saw some flourishing stalks of corn.

And Pharaoh was getting anxious about his dreams.

He didn't know what the dreams meant.

He was asking all around top level magicians and all these fortune tellers and all these people, what in the world does my dream mean?

And nobody could tell him.

Then all of a sudden the cupbearer who had his dream interpreted by Joseph said, oh, king, I know one who can interpret dreams.

He's in prison.

His name is Joseph.

King said, well, go get him.

Let's see if he can do it.

Joseph steps up.

He interprets Pharaoh's dreams.

Remember the cupbearer had forgotten all about who Joseph was.

Now Joseph interprets the king's dream.

And all of a sudden as he interprets the king's dream, the king of Egypt, a foreign king, his favor began to be shined towards Joseph.

Remember Joseph had gone through a lot.

The favor of God was always with Joseph, no matter what he went through.

Now he's put in a position to interpret the king's dreams.

He still follows through with his assignment.

And when he follows through with his assignment, the Bible says in Genesis 41, verse 41, 41, 41, 41, 41, says Pharaoh said to Joseph, I hereby put you in charge of the entire land of Egypt.

I advance you to second in command.

Remember Joseph had a dream many, many years ago that he was going to be a leader.

Now he's in the foreign land where he's given authority, authority to lead, to do what's necessary, to speak to villages, to people, to families, to govern.

Joseph is now riding in chariots all over the place.

Joseph would put in a high level of leadership in the king's house, had everything anybody would ever need from an earthly standpoint.

Though I lost my coat a long, long time ago.

I lost my dignity.

I lost my friends.

I lost my family.

I still rested in the favor of God.

And here I am now in a position that God said I would have.

The favor of God never left Joseph.

Though lots of things begin to leave Joseph.

Eventually, as Joseph interprets the dreams, the Bible says, interpret that there will be seven years of prosperity in the land of Egypt.

This was the dream interpretation prosperity.

You buy like prosperity.

Oh yeah.

And then he interpreted there would be seven years of famine after those seven years of prosperity.

And so God gave him the vision to tell the king what was going to happen.

And he said, king, what we need to do is in the seven years of prosperity, we need to put enough back so we can get everybody in every community, in every city through those seven years of hardship, those seven years of famine, and we can get through it and we can supply grain from the storehouses.

We put that grain in for the seven years of famine.

The Bible says that the famine begins and two years into the famine, the famine didn't only strike Egypt, but it began to strike all around the world outside of Egypt.

And the Bible says now people are starving.

Crops aren't producing, the grass is dying.

There ain't no water in the pond to water the grass no more.

Cattle is dying off.

People are losing hope.

Everybody is like, what do we do?

And Joseph is like, you know what?

God's favor was on me.

I put enough back for the poor.

I put enough back for the rich.

I put enough back for everybody in the land and beyond the land.

Stored it up.

And people began to flood to the land to get grain and to get food.

And Joseph would freely give it to them so that they could survive.

You see, the famine, the hardships, the tough times begin to drive people to the favor of God.

Don't miss this.

The favor of God was resting on Joseph.

The favor of God never left Joseph.

The favor of God was resting on Joseph, watch this, and working through Joseph into other people's life.

And Joseph was standing in a position to freely give out of the favor that was shown him and begin to give that favor to those around him.

The Bible says that his brothers in a foreign country and his father get word of this person in Egypt giving away all this grain and the father, Jacob, tells his other sons, here's what you need to do.

You need to go to Egypt and take some money with you and buy some of this grain.

The Bible says they go.

They don't recognize Joseph as being the brother that they sold out early on.

And Joseph begins to fill their bags with grain.

But Joseph recognizes them, the Bible says.

And so Joseph tells his attendants, you know what?

Put their money back in the top of the bags.

I need you to know when God's favor is about to flow into your life, God is not looking for you to pay for that favor.

He's not looking for you to buy that favor.

And the favor was resting on Joseph's life and working through Joseph's life.

And the father and the brothers come and tried to buy that favor and he put the money back in the sack and said, go back to your father.

And as he put the money back in the sacks, the Bible says that they go down to their father, Jacob.

They share all this with their father, Jacob.

And Joseph had given them a command to come back and bring their younger brother that he was missing.

And, you know, this whole story is developed where they come back again and they still haven't recognized Joseph.

And Joseph fills their bags again with grain.

And now their father, they were running out and the father says, don't only go back and get some more grain, you come back with the money he gave you before.

Take that money back and take some more with you.

Because somebody must have put that money in there by mistake.

I need you to know today what God showed me in this passage of Scripture, God's not looking for me to buy anything.

He's not looking for you to buy anything.

And sometimes he'll put your money back in the bag and give it back to you to see if you're still going to trust him for his favor and go back to him.

And the Bible says they go back with twice as much money.

Joseph puts the money back in the bag again and puts his silver cup that he drunk from in one of the bags to set them up.

Remember the famine happened.

Now Joseph, the favor of God is on Joseph.

All of these hardships are hitting the family.

They're back into it, responding to God's favor.

They don't know they're responding to God's favor, but God is continually setting them up to let the favor flow into their lives.

Joseph puts the silver cup in their bag, which brings them back.

They're sitting there begging Joseph, Joseph, don't take our life.

Don't take our brother.

Don't do this.

Don't do that.

They're bowing before Joseph, begging Joseph, because they still don't know who he is.

And they're just thinking, I'm stealing from Joseph, all this kind of stuff.

And in the midst of all of that, the Bible says that Joseph finally reveals who he is to his brothers.

And they're shocked and afraid.

And I want to read to you what it says in the scripture as Joseph reveals who he is to his brothers.

Genesis 45, verses four through eight.

Joseph told them, please come closer, he said to them, so they came closer.

And he said it again.

I'm Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt.

But don't be upset and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place.

They were angry with themselves.

It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.

This famine that has ravaged the land for two years, it will last for five more.

And there will be neither plowing or harvesting, but God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors.

So it was God, Joseph said, God who sent me here, not you.

God sent me here, not you.

And he is the one who made me an advisor to Pharaoh, the manager of the entire palace, and the governor of all Egypt.

In other words, Joseph followed through with his assignment.

Joseph had the favor of God on his life.

Nothing could stop that favor.

And the only way these brothers could get that favor to flow into their life was to step into the presence of the relationship of Joseph again and let that favor flow into his life.

Joseph in this story is what we would say is a type and shadow of the goodness of God and the Christ we know today.

Let me say that again.

This church is about Christ Jesus.

This church is about revealing to you who Christ Jesus is so that you can know who Christ Jesus says that you are.

And until you know that the favor of God rested on Christ Jesus and flows through Christ Jesus, and you humble yourself and you respond to the one that we wickedly with our sin put on that cross.

He was accused of things He didn't even do.

And my sin and your sin put Him on the cross.

He walked through all of that ridicule, all of that pain, all of those misaccusations.

The Bible says He defeated death.

He rose from the grave and the favor of God in the grave still rested on Jesus.

And He came out of that grave.

And if you want the favor of your heavenly Father on your life, I need you to know it flows through our elder brother, Jesus.

The one who came, who was perfect in every way.

He's the firstborn among many brethren.

And I don't know who you've been following all your life, who you've been depending on all your life, but I can tell you right now, there's going to be some times of famine.

And you know what, people may have meant it for harm, but God uses it for good.

Joseph is a type and shadow of who Christ Jesus is.

He shows us how to get through the difficult moments, but more so than getting through the difficult moments, He shows us that He is there for us, even when we can't get through the difficult moments.

Have you surrendered to Christ Jesus or are you still trying to buy His goodness?

Are you still trying to do enough good for His goodness?

Or do you keep coming back and say, let me give you good gifts.

Let me give you more stuff so you'll give me more stuff.

Do you simply recognize that He loves you in spite of your sin?

For while we were yet sinners, He gave His life on a cross and He's ready today.

Not based on what you do, He's ready to start pouring out His favor on your life.

If you'll simply come to Him and trust Him on this 4th of July week, 2024.

Here's what I'm here to tell you today is, you know, and you've seen this before if you've been around for a little bit, but He'll begin to pour out who He is into your life.

And from the inside out, He will begin to change you and fill your cup with all you need to fulfill your assignment.

How will you respond to God's favor?

It's for every one of us here today.

Let me pray for you today.

God, I thank you for this illustration of Joseph in the scripture.

And God, if there is one here today that don't understand that you have an assignment for them, God, I pray today that they would begin to put their focus on who you are and what you want to do in their life.

God, I pray today they would surrender, they would submit, they would take their faith and activate your favor in their life by trusting you, Christ Jesus.

Though you went through all you went through, God, you did it for us.

You died a cruel death, defeated death, rose from a grave so that we can come to you, God, through Christ Jesus and receive your favor.

God, may every person here today leave this place free, free from the bondage of sin, free from the power of sin, free from the penalty of sin, because they trusted Christ Jesus with their life.

Holy Spirit, as they put their faith in you, will you begin to deposit who you are in them so that they can become who you say they can be?

God, may we submit to you all the days of our life because of Christ Jesus.

And it's in his name we pray.

Amen.