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Get Back Up Call - Minister Max Lucado · Max Lucado Daily Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Hello, friends. I'm Max Locato, and welcome to Fresh Hope.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you joined me. We continue our series entitled,
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  Speaker 1: You'll Get Through This. It's an encouraging statement, but it's
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  Speaker 1: also a promise from God. Joseph's story is proof that
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  Speaker 1: we can flourish even in this broken world. Despite many
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  Speaker 1: dark and challenging days, Joseph persevered and God came through,
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  Speaker 1: and he will do the same for you. When I
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  Speaker 1: was about eight years old, I attended a friend's birthday party.
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  Speaker 1: I don't remember the games we played or who else
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  Speaker 1: was there, but I do remember the bounce-back clown. He
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  Speaker 1: was pear-shaped, narrower at the top, then the bottom, inflated
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  Speaker 1: and bozo-like. His one trick, bouncing back. Knock him down,
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  Speaker 1: he popped right up. Pop him in the nose, he
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  Speaker 1: would fall down, but not for long. We did our
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  Speaker 1: best to level the clown, one punch after the other.
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  Speaker 1: None of us succeeded. He wasn't strong, he was full
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  Speaker 1: of air. He couldn't defend himself. He was an inflatable clown,
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  Speaker 1: for goodness sake. Yet there was something about him or
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  Speaker 1: within him that kept him on his feet. We'd do
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  Speaker 1: well to learn his secret. Life comes at us with
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  Speaker 1: a fury of flying fists, right hook of rejection, sucker
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  Speaker 1: punch of loss. Some people, once knocked down, never get
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  Speaker 1: back up. Others have more bounce back than Bozo. Joseph did.
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  Speaker 1: The guy was a walking piñata. the angry jealousy of
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  Speaker 1: his brothers that sold him into slavery, the below-the-belt deceit
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  Speaker 1: by Potiphar's wife, the butler's broken promise that kept him
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  Speaker 1: in prison. Joseph staggered but recovered. By God's strength, he
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  Speaker 1: pulled himself to his feet and stood, stronger than ever,
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  Speaker 1: in Pharaoh's court. Pharaoh was the unrivaled ruler of the land.
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  Speaker 1: He issued a command and it was law. He entered
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  Speaker 1: a room and he was worshipped. But on this particular day,
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  Speaker 1: Pharaoh did not feel worship worthy. Dreams kept him up
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  Speaker 1: half the night. In dream number one, cows grazed on
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  Speaker 1: the riverbank. Seven were healthy, but while they weren't looking,
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  Speaker 1: seven skinny cows sneaked up from behind and devoured them.
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  Speaker 1: His second dream followed a similar pattern. A stalk of
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  Speaker 1: grain with seven healthy heads was consumed by a stalk
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  Speaker 1: of grain with seven withered heads. Pharaoh assembled his council
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  Speaker 1: and demanded an interpretation, but his council had no clue.
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  Speaker 1: His butler then remembered Joseph from prison and told Pharaoh
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  Speaker 1: about the Hebrew's skill at dream interpretation. The king snapped
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  Speaker 1: his finger and Joseph was escorted into Pharaoh's throne room. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: the contrast. Pharaoh the king, Joseph the ex-shepherd, Pharaoh urban,
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  Speaker 1: Joseph rural, Pharaoh from the palace, Joseph from the prison.
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  Speaker 1: The prisoner, however, was unfazed. He heard the dreams and
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  Speaker 1: went straight to work. No need to consult advisors or
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  Speaker 1: tea leaves. Expect seven years of plenty and seven years
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  Speaker 1: of famine, he said. No one knew how to respond.
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  Speaker 1: Famine was a foul word in the Egyptian dictionary. Crops
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  Speaker 1: made Egypt the jewel of the Nile. Agriculture made Pharaoh
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  Speaker 1: the most powerful man in the world. A month-long drought
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  Speaker 1: would hurt the economy, but a seven-year famine? That was
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  Speaker 1: equivalent to the apocalypse. Joseph offered a solution. Create a
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  Speaker 1: department of agriculture and commission a smart person to gather
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  Speaker 1: grain in the good years and distribute it in the
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  Speaker 1: lean years. You know, it was one thing to give
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  Speaker 1: bad news to Pharaoh. It was something else entirely to
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  Speaker 1: offer unsolicited advice. Yet Joseph hadn't shown a hint of
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  Speaker 1: fear since he entered the palace. Again, the contrast. The
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  Speaker 1: most powerful person in the room, Pharaoh, was in dire
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  Speaker 1: need of a scotch. The lowest person in the pecking order, Joseph,
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  Speaker 1: was cooler than the other side of the pillow. What
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  Speaker 1: made the difference? Ballast. Bozo had it. The clown at
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  Speaker 1: the birthday party, I came to learn, was braced by
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  Speaker 1: a lead weight. A three-pound plate hidden at his base
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  Speaker 1: was a counterbalance against the punches. Joseph had a similar anchor,
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  Speaker 1: not a piece of iron, but a deep-seated, stabilizing belief
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  Speaker 1: in God's sovereignty. We sense it in his first sentence
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  Speaker 1: in Genesis 41, 16. It is not in me. God
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  Speaker 1: will give Pharaoh a favorable answer. The second time Joseph
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  Speaker 1: spoke in verse 28, he explained, God has shown Pharaoh
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  Speaker 1: what he is about to do. Joseph proceeded to interpret
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  Speaker 1: the dreams and then tell Pharaoh in verse 32 that
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  Speaker 1: the dreams were established by God. Multiple times in three verses,
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  Speaker 1: Joseph made reference to God. When Potiphar's wife attempted to
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  Speaker 1: seduce him, Joseph refused, saying back in chapter 39 and
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  Speaker 1: verse 9, How then could I do such a wicked
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  Speaker 1: thing and sin against God? And when fellow prisoners asked
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  Speaker 1: for an interpretation of their dreams, Joseph said in chapter
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  Speaker 1: 40 and verse 8, Joseph lived with the awareness that
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  Speaker 1: God was active And Joseph was correct. In chapter 41,
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  Speaker 1: verse 38, Pharaoh asked, Can we find such a one
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  Speaker 1: as this? A man in whom is the Spirit of God?
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  Speaker 1: Then he turned the kingdom over to Joseph. And by
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  Speaker 1: the end of the day, the boy from Canaan was
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  Speaker 1: riding in a royal chariot, second only to Pharaoh in authority.
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  Speaker 1: What an unexpected rebound. In the chaos called Joseph's life,
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  Speaker 1: I count one broken promise, two betrayals, several bursts of hatred,
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  Speaker 1: two abductions, more than one attempted seduction, ten jealous brothers,
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  Speaker 1: and one case of poor parenting. Mix it all together,
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  Speaker 1: let it sit for 13 years, and what do you get?
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  Speaker 1: The grandest bounce back in the Bible. Jacob's forgotten boy
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  Speaker 1: became the second most powerful man in the world. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the path to the palace wasn't quick and it wasn't painless.
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  Speaker 1: But wouldn't you say that God took this mess and
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  Speaker 1: made it into something good? And wouldn't you think he
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  Speaker 1: can do the same with yours? Tally up the pain
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  Speaker 1: of your past, betrayals plus anger plus tragedies, and then
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  Speaker 1: consider this question. Is the God of Joseph still in control?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Can he do for you what he did for Joseph?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Could the evil intended to harm you actually help you
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  Speaker 1: become the person God wants you to be?
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Someday, perhaps in this life, certainly in the next, you
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  Speaker 1: will tally up the crud of your life and write
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  Speaker 1: this sum.
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  Speaker 3: All good.
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Sam Brown did. On his first tour in Afghanistan,
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  Speaker 1: an explosion turned his Humvee into a Molotov cocktail. He
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  Speaker 1: doesn't remember how he got out of the truck. He
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  Speaker 1: does remember rolling in the sand, running in circles, and
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  Speaker 1: finally dropping to his knees, lifting flaming arms to the
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  Speaker 1: air and crying, Jesus, save me. Sam was calling on
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  Speaker 1: his Savior to take him home. He assumed he would die,
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  Speaker 1: but death did not come. His gunner did. He helped
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  Speaker 1: Sam reach cover. Crouching behind a wall, Sam realized that
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  Speaker 1: bits of his clothing were fusing to his skin. He
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  Speaker 1: ordered the private to rip his gloves off the burning flesh.
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  Speaker 1: With the gloves came pieces of his hands. When vehicles
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  Speaker 1: from another platoon reached him, they loaded the wounded soldier
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  Speaker 1: into a truck. And before Sam passed out, he caught
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  Speaker 1: a glimpse of his singed face in the mirror. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't recognize himself. By the time I met him three
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  Speaker 1: years later, he had undergone dozens of skin graft surgeries.
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  Speaker 1: The pain chart didn't have a number high enough to
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  Speaker 1: register the agony he felt. Yet, in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: the horror, Beauty walked in. Dietitian Amy Larson. Since Sam's
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  Speaker 1: mouth had been reduced to the size of a coin,
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  Speaker 1: Amy monitored his nutrition intake. He remembers the first time
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  Speaker 1: he saw her. Dark hair, brown eyes. More important, she
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  Speaker 1: didn't flinch at the sight of him. After several weeks,
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  Speaker 1: he gathered the courage to ask her out. They went
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  Speaker 1: to a rodeo The following weekend, they went to a
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  Speaker 1: friend's wedding. The two continued to see each other. Early
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  Speaker 1: in their relationship, Sam brought up the name Jesus. Amy
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  Speaker 1: was not a believer, but Sam's story stirred her heart
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  Speaker 1: for God and led her to Christ. Soon they were
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  Speaker 1: married and became parents, and today Sam directs a program
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  Speaker 1: to aid wounded soldiers. The emotional stress has taken its
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  Speaker 1: toll on their marriage at times, yet Sam and Amy
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  Speaker 1: have come to believe this. God's math works differently than ours.
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  Speaker 1: War plus near death plus agonizing rehab equals wonderful family
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  Speaker 1: and hope for a bright future. In God's hand, intended
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  Speaker 1: evil is eventual good. With God's help, you can bounce back.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows, your rebound may happen today. You know, in
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  Speaker 1: the morning of his promotion, Joseph had no reason to
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  Speaker 1: think the day would be different from the 700 prior ones.
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  Speaker 1: He began the day in prison and ended it in
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  Speaker 1: a palace. And as he dozed off to sleep, he
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  Speaker 1: has reported to a smile to himself and whispered, just
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  Speaker 1: as Max said, I have more bounce back than Bozo.
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  Speaker 1: You know, God has a plan and a path forward
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  Speaker 1: designed just for you, my friend. And you will get
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  Speaker 1: through this.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have to stay close. As long as you're
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  Speaker 2: somewhere out there, that's enough for me.
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  Speaker 3: I don't need to hold you near me.
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  Speaker 4: Don't need promises to keep. Just the thought that you
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  Speaker 4: are breathing somewhere in this world I see. Even if
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  Speaker 4: I'm not beside you Even if you never know.
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  Speaker 5: There's a quiet kind of comfort.
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  Speaker 2: Just in knowing you still glow I don't need forever
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  Speaker 2: I just need you to exist.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have to stay with me You don't have
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  Speaker 3: to feel the same Just as long as you're still
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  Speaker 3: out there Calling softly through my days You don't have
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  Speaker 3: to look my way You don't have to be my
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  Speaker 3: home It's.
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  Speaker 2: Enough to know you're living In a world I'm not
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  Speaker 2: alone I won't chase you through the distance.
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  Speaker 6: Won't disturb your chosen life. I'll just keep you in
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  Speaker 6: my silence like a star that shines at night. Through
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  Speaker 6: the dark and through the blue. I still think of you.
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  Speaker 6: You don't have to be my home It's enough to.
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  Speaker 3: Know you're living In a world I'm not.
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  Speaker 5: Alone I don't need to be your light I don't
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  Speaker 5: need to cross your mind All I need is just
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  Speaker 5: the truth That you're somewhere Still alive.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have to stay with me You don't have
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  Speaker 3: to feel the same.
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  Speaker 6: Just as long as you're still out there Calling softly through.
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  Speaker 3: My days You don't have to look my way.
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  Speaker 6: You don't have to be my home It's enough to
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  Speaker 6: know you're living
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  Speaker 5: In a world I'm not alone