It's not your life or your circumstances or how someone treated you, or what's going on. It's how you are responding to what life is dishing up to you. Come on, think about this. So the first thing you notice is his grace towards his brothers. The second thing he said, guys, it wasn't you who sent me here. God sent me here, because he had a destiny of saving the whole of Israel and the family of Israel, so he had a strong grip that all the pain he'd gone through was a preparation for a bigger kingdom purpose of advancing God's purpose and cause and kingdom. How about that? He saw the big picture, not the little one. He said guys, don't blame yourself. Look, God set this whole thing up. He's just allowed all this to happen. He said listen, God has put me here.
Here's the last thing he said. He said God has promoted me. God has promoted me. Now you see you can either let God promote you, or you promote yourself. If you promote yourself, you're full of pride. Pride always promotes yourself. Why? Because it doesn't trust God to do it. I have to promote myself, I have to speak about myself, talk about myself, project myself, make an image, have to do all these things. Why? Because I have no faith that God can get me where He wants to get me. See? He said God promoted me, God got me here. He said what got me to where I am now, you know what he says, I'm ruler next to the pharaoh over this nation, I have influence over the financial destiny of the nation. God's given me wisdom to be able to handle and manage a financial catastrophe. The Bible says money failed, they had a financial collapse in that part of the world, total. And Joseph manoeuvred and found wisdom to find a way through it, and benefited from the financial recession. He ended up with all of the money. Think about it. Where did he get that from? He had to get some wisdom from somewhere. He'd learned to get wisdom from God on how to handle life and the little stuff. He said God has made a spiritual father to the pharaoh. How can a 17 year old boy be a spiritual father to the greatest nation in the earth? Simply he held the dream, he held onto God and he let his character grow through the adversity by forgiving his enemies, blessing them, praying for them, and allowing himself to extend grace when what he could have extended was judgement. You know when he got next to the pharaoh he could have dealt to Potiphar and his wife, he could have dealt to his brothers, he could have punished everyone who'd hurt him on the way, but there wasn't an ounce of anger and resentment or bitterness in him. He was full of grace, and that's just the kind of man you need to lead a nation, someone with character, someone with no selfish agenda. See, look at America's financial situation. Everyone's got selfish agendas. They can't reach something good for the nation. It needs a great godly man.
So God has a plan for your life. You all know that. Maybe you haven't got it clear what it is, but I can tell you one thing is, whatever you're facing now, is preparing you to be the person to fulfil that. Stop complaining. Stop moaning and groaning, stop looking and allowing negative emotions and heaviness and depression get on. Learn to rise up and rejoice, your life is in God's hands. Hold His word. Hold His promises, hold onto Him and keep your heart sweet, and what you'll find is God will get you where He needs to get you. He can do it. Joseph went from prison the palace in one day. Don't you think God can promote you? Don't you think God can get you there? The problem is are you big enough to be in a palace and no one can choose that but you.
Today I know many here are facing challenges. I don't know how you're handling them. I don't always handle mine too good. Sometimes I shut down in the pain and try and distract myself from the pain, and watch television or something like that, try to cope with the pain. Then eventually I come to my senses, come before God and just pour the heart out and let God give grace to stand up and to move into the next level. You could do that, it's just a choice.