The Turning Point"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result..." - Genesis 50:20
The Turning Point
I. One of the greatest moments in life is the turning point.
The turning point is the point at which things began to get better!
Just the other day, my wife Sandra and I experienced the turning point. Our son Titus accidentally fell backwards on the concrete floor, and bumped his little head so hard that it began to swell and bleed. We were worried about his condition, so we rushed him to the hospital.
While on our way, I was praying, and suddenly Titus started to feel better. His recovery was so fast and so sudden, that we could hardly believe it. His condition had turned from severe to mild so fast, we hardly had time to comprehend what happened.
We had experienced a turning point!
The turning point, is when your troubles come to a sudden and abrupt end!
A. The word of God assures us that we will all experience turning points.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Ps 30:5They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings as an eagle. Isaiah 40:31 Job said all my appointed days, I’m going to wait until my change comes.. Job 14:14
God guarantees us a turning point is coming!
II. Joseph experienced the turning point.
The story is told in Genesis 50:20... That Joseph was loved by his father, but hated by his brothers. So his brothers betrayed him and sold him into slavery, and for 22 years, Joseph suffered in slavery and prison, yet after all of that, God had a plan… And at the turning point, God turned the life of Joseph around, and put him in charged of the same country in which he was oppressed…
Isn’t that like we are sometimes?We know that our heavenly father loves us, yet our problems sometimes seem as if they are never going to have a turning point.
Hall of Fame Baseball player and manager Yogi Berra, once stated that “Its Not Over Till Its Over.” What he should have said was that: ITS NOT OVER UNTIL GOD SAYS ITS OVER…
Meaning that I don’t care what Odds are against you… If God is in it, there‘s got to be a turning point…
Now the question on everybody's mind is WHY?
1. Why does God allow us to go through set back after set back… When his plan is to turn things around anyway… The answer can be found in the word God…
1. Look at what Joseph said in Gen. 50:20: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for my good."
a. God meant it for Good.
- In other words, this text is saying that God uses every evil situation in our life of a faithful believer for their good.
- For the believer, evil is like fuel in the tank of their car…
- Its like gasoline. Gas is combustible… Its explosive… If you drink it, it will kill you… But when it is put into the tank of a car, it sends the car forward.
- Often times God uses trouble to send us forward.
Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery… And for 22 years of his life, he endured slavery, being lied on by his owners wife, put into prison, abandoned by people… For 22 years, yet God was taking Joseph some place that was for his good…
Look at: 2 Cor. 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory…
God is working something out that is better for us than what we are going through now.- Illustration: A few of you were here during my mother’s appreciation program… She’s now 79 years old. But you needed to hear my father testimonial who is 83, about his life in the early years of his marriage to my mother. My mother and father often fought in their early years of marriage. As a child, I would lay in bed and just listen to them fight all night long… Yet today, God turned it around…
2. God uses our struggles to bless others.
Genesis 50:20... " to save much people alive. "
- God is using your challenges to save much people alive! God is using your heartache to to bring people into a Saving knowlegde of the Lord Jesus.
- Look at 1 Peter 2:19 For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God.
- God is using your trouble to save people through your godly example of Christ.
Isaiah 55 says that he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquity.
But we used to sing a song when I was a child… Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free, no there’s a cross for everyone, and there a cross for me…
- Sometimes your cross is just stuff that irritates you…
- That husband who won’t get saved.
- Those children who bring you disappointment.
- Those people at your job, who make your life miserable.
- That situation in your life that just doesn’t seem to be getting any better…
3. God is using our setbacks as a setup to get the glory.
- If you think about it… If you could get yourself out of your trouble, God would never get the glory. We’d go around praising ourselves…
- ISAIAH 42:8 - I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
God will make it so that the only one who we can turn to is Him… God took Joseph to a foreign country by himself… Just so that he would be totally dependent upon Him.
Sometimes God has to remove stuff in our lives that we depend on, so that we would depend on Him.
Illustration: I remember when God started to doing this in my life. Early on in our ministry, we had so people who were big tithers, and I was afraid for them to leave the church… Because they gave so much…
But God taught me that He can build a ministry whether certain people stay our not…
We still have three buildings. We still have 4 buses. We still have run over 500,000 budget a year. Without big numbers…
And ... It’s the Lord that gets the glory, not the people!
Praise God!
ReplyDeleteThis is so good. I felt the presence of God just reading it!
I've been thinking so much about Joseph and how his story is relating to a place I am finding myself now. I am looking for the turning point!
God bless!