What To Do When Life Sucks | Pastor Levi Lusko

uh this is today the inaugural message propelling us into this conversation about hope that we've called look up and we're praying that god would help to anchor our hearts in hard times and in difficult times um spoiler alert if you are at church today invited by a friend we just told everybody in our church community the last few weeks who do you know who's going through hard times invite him to come and so it's like oh wow yeah welcome to all of us like who's going through hard times like well congratulations on being a human being uh so today's a chance in these weeks of series of this series is a chance for us all to say what do we do when we don't know what to do what do we do and life's hard and in those times what we're going to say and say and say and you will not want to miss next week because if we're talking about looking up i i got to thinking who do i know who knows a lot about looking up and so we're going to hear a little bit next week from my friend who's an astronaut who works for nasa and who better to know about how to look up than an astronaut and so that's going to be amazing but we're going to be looking through lots of different parts of the scripture next week we'll talk some about david and this is a cool series where you'll know exactly where i'm going each week because you can just peek ahead in the free pdf you can get at freshlife.church look up or by looking up the word lookup on youversion and following along if you're watching this on on television or on the archive after the fact but but today we start by looking at the old testament character of joseph joseph one of the most just unique amazing individuals in scripture when we first meet him he's 17 years old and he is figuring stuff out and so if you feel like oh man all the people in the bible probably have halos and they'd know so much and they probably have like advanced phds in spirituality this dude was like fresh out of puberty okay and just figuring out life like all of us are trying to and he uh had some amazing promises from god to anchor his heart to and i want to talk to you today uh about what joseph had to figure out and that's this here's the title of my message what to do when life sucks does that help you anybody else feel like okay i'm in the right place here today at all what to do when life just sucks because sometimes friends it does sometimes friends in your journey it will what we're going to learn about joseph is that his brothers when he was 17 threw him into a pit and what i want to say to you today what i feel like my assignment is to let you know that sometimes when you follow the dreams that god has for your life that pit happens pit happens so what do you do when you find yourself in a pit what i'm going to say here's spoiler here's all these weeks we're going to come at it from different angles and it's going to be amazing we believe god will use them all stitch them all together to do something great but but pit does happen so what do you do when life sucks you keep your head in the clouds keep your head in the clouds psalm 105 verses 9 through 11 says the covenant which god he is the capital he made with abraham and his oath to isaac and confirmed it to jacob for a statute to israel as an everlasting covenant saying to you i will give the land of canaan as the allotment of your inheritance moreover verse 16 he called for a famine in the land he destroyed all the provision of bread who's who's he god so in this story god destroys the provision of bread but before he did that verse 17 he sent a man before them joseph who was sold as a slave they hurt his feet with fetters he was laid in irons until the time that his word came to pass the word of the lord tested him the king sent and released him the ruler of the people let him go free he made him lord of his house this is pharaoh and ruler of all his possessions to bind his princes at his pleasure and teach his elders wisdom so father we thank you for these words we thank you for your word we pray as we choose in this moment to clip into you to anchor ourselves into you we do so knowing that we have every reason to believe you are going to work and be faithful in our lives no matter what we see because of how we see that you have been faithful and kept your promise to those who have gone before us and so even as we now have our turn at the wheel it's our moment in time we have the baton in our hands and all the people who have ever lived it's our generation now this generation that's alive on the face of the earth so i pray we would not falter but we would trust in you and abound in the kind of hope that you want us to abound in so we can be the light shining to the dark places in this world that we're meant to be and we pray this in jesus name amen now it's interesting to read joseph's story from psalms because if you're familiar with the story of the bible you know that joseph's story actually takes place biographically biographically in the book of genesis this is a retelling of the story from the mouth of david and it's not the only time that this happens in fact if you jot down in your notes acts chapter 7 in the new testament book of acts joseph again comes up and this is from the mouth of the uh the disciple stephen who is the first person to ever be killed for following jesus in the new testament he trusts christ all the way to the end though and with his last words he prays for god to forgive the people who are putting him to death it's an amazing story acts 7 and the bible tells us that that with his face looking like an angel he fell to sleep and everybody around him were just like stupefied paul the apostle himself was there that day and it rocked him to the core to see stephen's faith in steven's sermon that he gave in acts 7 he talked about joseph and retold the story that david does here and i intentionally choose for us to look at joseph's life through the lens of david's perspective and it's also powerful from stephen's perspective because it shows us just what i prayed a moment ago that it's possible to look at what god did in someone else's day and see how good he was looking at the story from beginning to ending and have your faith encouraged why because you're living your life in real time sometimes when you read the bible and you read about someone doing something you kind of forget that they didn't know what the story was going to turn out like in in the midst of it happening they were just dealing with the craziness of life so so joseph for instance we just read a moment ago that that god was doing something very big david says god was making promises to abraham about the nation of israel and they're living in it but first they needed to go to egypt for a while because he had unfinished opportunities for salvation for those living in the land of israel at that time the iniquity of the amorites was not yet complete that's a phrase that i love he said i can't establish you as you as a nation yet here because the iniquity of the amorites is not yet complete i haven't given them enough time to be forgiven i haven't given them enough time to turn around and so i'm going to wait 400 years while you mellow out in egypt and then and only then will i raise up moses to get you out because i love these people over here and refuse to judge them so later on when you come into the book of joshua and there's judges and there's battle some of our sensibilities are like oh my gosh how could god do this he's so vindictive he's so cruel he's so mean after 400 years he waited he waited he waited he's long-suffering he is compassionate so if you have this image in your head of god as mean and angry and with a lightning bolt and wanting to put you in eternal time out that is not his heart that is not his spirit he's waiting waiting waiting he's pleading with you he's saying do not get judged do not end up i do not delight in the death of the wicked be saved be converted be forgiven be refreshed but if you will not receive his mercy you will experience his justice and so david's recounting this all from the promised land meaning he's able to say this all came to pass we did go to egypt for 400 years we did come back out the reds fee did par you did make a way where there was no way we're here in the land now so i'm recounting david saying god's faithfulness in my day and it's encouraging me with the crazy in front of me because i see oh wow god didn't let the wheel go when there was crazy in front of them so you were faithful to keep your covenant with abraham you're faithful and they needed to leave to go to egypt and so you allowed a famine to come they wouldn't have stayed there had it not been for the famine so it kind of shows you by the way that some of the hard things we face can with time turn out to be some of the best things that we ever go through because they're god's way of leading and guiding and steering and maybe we wouldn't have been open to what he wanted to do had there not been that difficulty so god used the famine is what david's saying you used to famine you sent the famine you had a plan for the dry season and even before that happened you sent a man he said you sent a man joseph before you you didn't just send the family of israel into egypt you sent a man before them that's an interesting sentence you sent a man before them and then the next phrase is joseph who his brothers sold into slavery so you're saying that when the brothers took joseph by force threw him into a pit and he's like like pit happens i'm in a pit and then pulled him out and we're gonna kill him but instead chose to sell him as a slave you're telling me that was you sending him into egypt you have an interesting way of getting your work done is that does that mean you did the evil thing no you were using the evil thing you were you you were redirecting what man meant for evil joseph will say at the end of his life what they meant for evil was evil so he's not excusing what they did but he's saying but god meant it for good he sent me here to save many lives he was doing something bigger he he was translating right like i was in colombia once and um in colombia i got to go to like pablo escobar's favorite restaurant and that was interesting and they were like telling me like this is one of his 97 drug lord houses and like that was interesting and this is where there's a billion hippos because he had hippos and they've proliferated and there's no natural enemy to hippos in this area they shouldn't have ever been here and they're like i was like that's interesting and then they're like okay now you need to preach like that's also interesting because i'm now thinking about hippos and pablo and narcos and and so i gotta preach but but before me there was someone talking and i couldn't i couldn't understand what he was saying because he was in spanish but then i noticed there was whispering happening behind me and i was like what is that and i was like oh he's like hello i am your interpreter and he would just whisper in my ear everything the guy was saying a sage i was just oh that's nice oh like and he had to mention everything and and so look i couldn't understand what i was seeing but i understood it because i listened to what he was saying that's the power of keeping your head in the clouds that's the power of looking up it's it's looking at what you're seeing and what are you seeing my brothers are selling me into slavery what am i hearing i'm sending you you are my man i'm sending you before your family if i'm your king and i've allowed it then i've got a plan to overcome it i've got a plan to redeem it i've got it doesn't come as a surprise to me there is such there is such power in verse 17 of psalm 105. he sent a man before them who was sold as a slave what man's doing what god's overturning what's happening that the human eye can see and what god is capable of doing in it so this is us learning to have a split screen reality what you're seeing but what god's saying you're listening for the translation you see he meant it for good you meant it for evil god meant it for good he he means well it's something we're saying of people like i mean he's doing something bad but he means well now it's often not true if he meant well he would do well right but but but what god means when what we're seeing is evil is good is going to come out of it at the end of the story so that's david telling this that the joseph going in was all god's plan joseph being in shackles was god's plan joseph being in this all was what god testing him with the word he had committed to him and that was the dream that's the cloud okay so now we're backing up a little bit because joseph's a little kid and his dad jacob is telling him about the dream that changed everything for him the god dream for jacob was the day that god taught jacob how heaven works it was a dream of a ladder a ladder from heaven to earth not the other way around and that dream was when god showed him and spoke to him clearly you can have a relationship with me because of what i have said and because of who i am and it's not based on you and in fact god chose to come to jacob joseph's father on the worst day of his life when he had run and cheated and lied and he he had no one who was willing to help him and on that day god said i choose you i love you i'm for you you're still a part of my family and he showed him this is how heaven works heaven works not by us working our way to god how many church services have you gone to how many verses have you memorized ooh god is so tickled pink by your goodness like well you better go through that ten commandment list one more time bro because i swear to god you are in huge trouble if you have fallen short that is not how heaven works jacob learned that's that's religion good luck ever being able to do that by the deeds of the law no one shall be justified but thanks be to god that he sent his latter down and his latter's name is jesus and jesus said i have come down from heaven i'm the latter from heaven the angels ascend and descend upon me and if anyone comes to me they can come to the father if anyone comes to me they can be made whole they can be made right so jacob was being told here's how heaven works and that dream he taught to his boys that story of god working through their family this was all a part of joseph's life so joseph began to seek god clearly joseph began to trust god and he too had dreams god gave a calling to him we all have individual callings and the dream the cloud the head in the clouds for joseph came specifically when as following god god showed him you're supposed to be a leader you're meant to lead it's very clear that you're a leader of men and one night he falls asleep and he has this dream and he sees in the dream his brothers who are all older than him his older brothers his ten older brothers all being subservient to him and in the dream they're all working in the field and they're sheaves of wheat like fantasia all come to life and start like marching over to his like sheaf of wheat and bows down and like gives obeisance to it like it was in a military parade of some sort and uh and and so joseph kind of wakes up like wow i've got my calling i've got my dream i'm meant to lead i meant to to be in charge this is what god has destined me for and so the hard times came when he actually began to follow those dreams and follow those those those clouds that god gave to him in fact it was the dreams that got him into trouble because he told his family about it and he was you know sharing with them and you could make the case for over sharing with them uh what this was gonna do and they they didn't like it very much no predictably duh you're right and joseph's like super surprised by it all uh but they decide we'll see if we can we'll see if those dreams come to pass because they said we're gonna we're gonna tear those dreams from your hands genesis 37 verse 18 they saw him afar off even before he came near them they conspired against him to kill him then they said to one another look the dreamer's coming come therefore let us now kill him and cast him into some pit and we shall say some beast some wild beast has devoured him we shall see what will become of his dreams so it came to pass when joseph had come to his brothers they stripped joseph of his tunic the tunic of many colors that was on him which if you grew up in church you saw like the cartoon version of this he was wearing like a rainbow jacket and they were super mad because they were they were wearing dull khaki colors and he's wearing bright festive garments and they're like dang it we want we want bright clothes too uh but the reality is what made them mad about his jacket wasn't just the color it was the fact that his jacket had sleeves it had long flowing sleeves and the tunics that they wore were all cut off at the shoulder translation theirs was built for working it would be like today at christmas imagine your family all around like your little baby brother opens up his christmas present it's like an armani tuxedo and a leather briefcase right and then you open up yours and it's like a wrench a hammer and a carhartt coverall so you're like real discreet dad right so you're saying i'm gonna have calluses and baby bros going brooks brother on me you're saying he's destined uh for for being upper class and and we are gonna be clearly cut out for middle class we're gonna be shepherds so as you the emotion in their minds they're ripping this jacket off of him we're saying we'll see if if you rule over us we'll see if you are better than us we'll take these sleeves from you and joseph now who's all he's ever done is trust god all he's ever done is try and follow god's call on his life he's sitting in a pit and so what does he do we're going to see as we read and as you throughout the days of of this week go through all these stories you're going to see that he kept his head in the clouds even in the pit and i jotted down and you can do it too if you see the space where we have sermon notes section you you can see i jotted down six different things that you can do to keep your head in the clouds because listen spoiler alert easier said than done it's like that's great but i'm actually in a pit right now and it feels like i'm in a pit and this the circumstance is so big and and so let me show you very specifically when you feel like life sucks what you can do to keep your head in the clouds first thing is this you can control what you can you can control what you can and not obsess over what you can't control really quickly excuse me the majority of the day-to-day details of joseph's life are out of his control when you are in chains and you're now being taken to an auction block and you're sold and a guy buys you whose name is potiphar who's the captain of the executioners basically for all of pharaoh's armies who would put people to death if they were guilty of something that would warrant that you're now in this guy's house and he's like all right do this do this do this what's what's out of control most of the details of joseph's life were out of his control and i think for a lot of us that's where we live we tend to focus on where we don't have control instead of doing what joseph did is okay what do i have control over and what he had control over was being the best slave that he could be i didn't get to pick the situation but i sure as heck get to pick how i approach this situation he's unlocking the power of perspective he's telling us that we can choose how we face what we didn't pick to be in our life he's saying you guys can choose to face your misery with god's mercy you can choose to even experience what makes you feel like you're falling apart but to do so in a way that invites the favor of god that you can face pain and prosper at the same time this is challenging this is unbelievable but the text will tell us as you read in the in the story multiple different times joseph became successful what does it look like here's what i wrote down in my notes to suffer in your situation successfully because this make no mistake about it he's suffering in fact later on his brothers will talk about that day and say did we not ignore his cries which is unbelievable to think about crying up don't do this don't use his own brothers he was suffering but the bible says he was successful in his suffering successfully suffering because the whole time he kept his head in the clouds kept believing god's got a plan so i'm just going to be the best that i can at doing this i'm going to i'm going to control what i can which is what me my mentality my mentality my outlook my disposition and the the way that i approach my job with excellence and so whatever menial job he was originally given no doubt because they would buy slaves all the time and burn through them and and they would start you off with with with no doubt very small levels of responsibility he so quickly developed a reputation in potiphar's house that they promoted him to the next opportunity and the next opportunity and soon he was running the entire estate he was the caretaker over at all and the only thing potiphar actually cared about was what he ate for lunch everything else talked to joseph he was successfully suffering he had not read the book of genesis he did not know what david knew he didn't have a clue what stephen was going to preach as far as the ending he was in the middle of it just like you are today you're in the messy middle you're in the thick of it so what do you not know allah what are you not in control of a ton but what are you in control of yourself you can choose to honor god you can choose to say i believe he's got a plan i'm not going to become bitter i'm not going to become jaded i'm not going to become small i'm not going to become a victim i'm not getting stuck right here i'm just going to focus on what i can control right here right now today and a lot of people allow what they can't control to keep them from doing what they can but that just gives away all your power and joseph said not this guy 17 years old he makes that choice and you would think well man suffering successfully well god's surely going to honor that yeah god honored it by his life getting drastically worse as he goes from a palace he's running to a prison that he is once again back in the pit because even when you're trying to do god out do good for god after bad things happen guess what more pit happens and so jason joseph's back in the pit which brings us to our second thing we need to learn and that is to learn from our mistakes joseph teaches us you can in the midst of your pit keep your head in the closet by learning from your mistakes and i watch joseph doing this it's an amazing thing to see him progress because admittedly i think he would even admit this at the beginning when we first meet him he is not the most diplomatic right so far as tact goes he's lacking discernment of reading the situation if you're a little brother and you have 10 buff bigger brothers and you have a dream about their sheaves of wheat bowing down you don't tell them about it over lucky charms you guys right he does and they're like wait they already hated him and couldn't speak peaceably to him and so he thought i'll help the situation out by telling them hey guys god told me you're all going to work for me one day so that'll be great right it's like ah stuff it's tough so but you watch joseph get better at reading you watch joseph just learn to read the room learn to know how to talk to people learn how to interact with people which he shows us that one of the things we can do when we're in these hard times is develop ourselves and that gives us yet another aspect of something we can control here's an area of my character there's an area of my life that i can grow in and it can change me and i can i can get better here and by the time the story ends i mean he is just a master at winning friends and influencing people there's like a spirit of carnegie up on this cat because he is emotionally intelligent and switched on and self-aware and he can read your mood and know how to cater what he says to you he gets incredible at it so that gives us another sense of purpose in the midst of a painful situation i also love this and i jotted this down that joseph never let his big dreams keep him from doing little jobs he never let big dreams and i think if we're honest some of us the pit that we're in today is just that our reality of our lives does not look like the dreams that we thought it would look like and so god presents us with a little opportunity and we won't do it because it doesn't feel like the big thing we're sure that we are destined for but joseph learned to take the small assignment before he ever got to run a whole country he was willing to run one little house for fatifah and and then when life got worse and he ended up in the prison he asked the warden of the prison is there anything i can do well you could do this and he does that so well you guessed it he became successful in his suffering and soon even though he was still a part of the prison population pretty much the warden was like just let me know how it's going you can run the place you pick where people joseph was running the entire prison and becoming successful and god was with him in the prison he had learned from his mistakes he was getting better at reading people and i think that that joseph is a challenge to all of us to say okay if i'm in a season of holding if i'm if i'm in a holding pattern if i'm in a time where it's like this i don't know what you're doing god here i'm going to take this as an opportunity to develop myself so when i get to that i'll be ready for it and i'll be thankful for what i did here that i wasn't just killing time and and being frustrated all the time thirdly jot this down joseph teaches us how to keep our head in the clouds by opting for the road less traveled the road less traveled jesus said that there are two roads in any given situation there's a broad road and a narrow road and the broad road is the way that most people would go and it leads to destruction and the narrow road the winding road the going to the sun road is treacherous and gnarly and few there are he said who find it now culture has put this out there as you got the angel on one shoulder and the demon on the other paul would help us to see it as the battle between flesh and spirit but basically there are at all times the path diverging in the forest and the question for all of us is are we going to do what comes naturally to human nature or are we going to do what the holy spirit will call us to do in that in that opportunity and if you had been through as many pits as joseph had it would be easy to justify and rationalize the broad road the easy way out the low road in those moments but i've identified two different ways where he took the road less traveled he took the road less traveled when he came to being tempted because in potiphar's house as he was thriving and successful he also had abs okay so just so you know it's one of four people in the entire bible that we are specifically told he was handsome in faith and in body alright so so homie was jacked and uh and the bible says that his master's wife began to cast longing eyes on joseph potiphar's gone all the time chopping people's heads off and stuff and so she started to get this like feeling like a lot of joseph a lot of infatuation for joseph and so one day she just comes to him and says lie with me let's have sex my husband will never know he's gone let's have sex now pause right here if you're joseph why would you have any allegiance or any sense of honor for a god who clearly did not take care of you following you god got me here so you know what thank you for moses hadn't even given the ten commandments yet so i don't know how technically he even knew not to do this right he clearly didn't learn this great sense of morality from his family his family's sexual lives were a mess his dad had four wives and his son reuben joseph's older brother slept with one of them okay so he clearly wasn't like well no my father wouldn't do this and reuben wouldn't do this right so you know and surely there's a libido in that body somewhere and he's like you know uh maybe i just will right but he didn't take the opportunity to have sex with potiphar's wife he said no he said no mrs potiphar i i can't do that because it would be a dishonor against your husband and because my god would see and it would be wrong in his sight and and he knew that there was a even evangelism going on because the bible says potiphar knew that god was blessing his household just because joseph was in it what if we served god in our suffering so well that god blessed people who weren't even seeking him as a i mean that is a challenging statement and joseph thinks of of all the damage he would do to his testimony and his witness and his influence and so i love it that he prioritized inside peace over being her side piece on this day and he refused to go down that road you would feel good for a minute but i'm not forfeiting all the joy and the peace that comes even in this pit from knowing that i'm following god i'm following his plan i got my head in the clouds and so i'm not tempted by what's here on the earth in this moment i'm thinking further i'm thinking bigger and she persisted and persisted and persisted and finally she grabbed his clothes and now his second time in his life someone's trying to tear a jacket off of him how interesting and that moment he he didn't stand there and talk he jumped out of his jacket and ran out of that house buck naked he just got out of his robe and just got out of that situation and and she now changes and screams rape and and gets her husband to to come home and and and i don't think he really believed this had happened because the bible says he put joseph in prison y'all if you're the chief executioner and you really think someone did that to your wife i think you would chief execution them right i get the suspicion that he knew that maybe this was not true but had to save face by at least making joseph go away so it was a little bit of a count of monte cristo situation so he just has to go out the back door and never be seen from or heard from again and so now joseph is like what the heck now like for standing up for you this bad happens and then i honor you in the pit and even worse happens and and what does he choose to do he continues to pick the road less traveled continues to pick and even all the way to the end when his brothers finally bow down before him their sheeps that we are acknowledging his they don't know it's him and he's got all the power sucking in command over all of pharaoh's armies and joseph chooses to forgive them he could have had them all put into a dungeon somewhere let's see how you like it let's see how you like iron fed or simeon let's judah get over here right find the princess of princess bride chamber and get them with the albino in there and just you know all of this stuff but he didn't do that he picked the road less traveled he chose to extend forgiveness revenge wasn't even on his radar because he was living too high to even see it he was flying high up in the clouds but his feet were firmly grounded and planted on this earth so he extended forgiveness and i love that because he was capable of giving his what he learned this is what maybe god's trying to teach us in this time how the very thing we want is oftentimes in giving will lead to us receiving what did joseph want from the very beginning of his story he just wanted someone to listen to his dream but no one would no one cared no one wanted to validate his dream so what did he learn to do in prison he learned to listen to other people's dreams so when the baker and the cupbearer get incarcerated and they have dreams what does joseph do tell me about your dreams now wait hold on you want other people to listen to you you have dreams joseph yeah but tell me about yours in it in listening to their dreams it was time to lay because it was years later but god set into motion how he would get to come out of the prison when he would get to interpret someone else's dream yet again pharaoh's dream yet again so the only way god allowed joseph's dream to come true was by him paying attention to everybody else's and maybe the thing that's keeping you back from your god-given destiny is that you're focusing too much on your god-given destiny maybe if you start to notice the other people in your life and start to care for maybe maybe your dream will come true on accident almost as you're just following blessing other people serving other people giving your life to make other people's lives imagine how much bigger your life could be it's been said if you would become smaller in it but didn't jesus say the way to receive your life is by giving it joseph he got into the situation through dreams but it would be through other people's dreams that he would get out of it that leads me to my next point because all that he was learning along the way got to be utilized in his new role running egypt during a famine which was why god sent him in god couldn't allow his people to go in there still an inside man was running the joint so once he was sent in as unique as the travel arrangements had been up until this point once joseph was installed in this role you realize that he needed first to discover that you could tear my coat off me twice but you can't have my character and only then when his integrity was was proven and baked in and like job said tried with fire and come forth precious like gold when god had tested him tested him with a dream is it possible that today you're being tested by a dream he gave you that today seems like it's not coming to be are you tested by a dream will you keep your head in the clouds will you keep holding on to hope between now and then that joseph was able to utilize all he did and all he learned in his role that he got originally had him for all along so what's the takeaway takeaway is this use your new super powers use your new super powers when you have gone through a pit i dare you to believe it was for some purpose you got put through that crap what was the suck that you went through the suck fest was for a purpose and so now you've got activated superpowers so don't forget to use them don't forget to utilize them everything joseph got to experience and learn unlocked things in him that were then to be utilized down the road now that i've run a house i should never have been in and now that i've run a prison i didn't deserve to be locked up in oh okay i'll use those same skills running this country jesus said that if you're poor in spirit you're blessed so do you feel poor in spirits today how lucky why because yours is the kingdom of heaven jesus said if you are mourning today you are blessed lucky because what you shall be comforted and comfort is only ever given that it might be multiplied as it flows through you those who have given uh receive comfort or comfort are meant to give comfort blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth lucky you're meek you're going through something this is hard you're in a pit you're going to inherit the earth i firmly believe if i believe anything whenever god allows you to face pain it's always because he's preparing you for power it's always because he's he's settling you he's strengthening you i looked into the eyes of a friend who i love and who is in a pit right now and it looks like there's no way out right now and he asked me without with desperation in his eyes he says is it worth it you've been in pits is it what's on the other side he goes sell me on the pit sell me on the pit because i just want to do something to bolt from this pit because you know there are some things we can do to make the pit go away following god to go away and i i fumbled for a while trying to articulate how for me in the pits that i've been through and it's all personal because it's all different but for me i cherish the pits i cherish the hard times because in those times god came near and as we continued to talk what finally caused his eyes to light up what caused him to stand up now it's two in the morning we're sitting in this horrible situation in franklin tennessee because nothing was open but he finally stood up when i said to him i don't know i just feel like the more you suffer the more you weigh and he that that gave him some sense of i want that the more you weigh he said because i feel right now like i'm just being blown away by this pain i said but eventually god just makes you way more you become stronger you're not a lightweight you're you're a heavyweight there's a weight of glory there's a substantialness to you there's a there's a sense of you feel it you're aware of it you you're i weigh more and i believe that's a part of the superpowers of going through hard times of going through pain is that if you learn to hold on to hope when it hurts like hell you come out of it heavier you come out of it with more of god's glory on you and capable more of of receiving deep spiritual truths and the knowledge of his presence and aware of his whisper and you then can use those superpowers to bless and help other people what does that look like joseph as a kid blah blah blah blah super oblivious right my favorite joseph moment since you asked in the whole bible in the whole bible it's just how good of a leadership person he was meaning he was like napoleon kind of strategy and grain silos and we'll put this distribution center over here and here's how i see the city running like it's just amazing that some people are wired that way but he clearly clearly someone say clearly was not very good at actual like like like day-to-day life stuff okay here's the proof genesis 37 uh joseph's brothers were out feeding the flock with their sleeveless you know outfits and uh joseph's dad says hey could you go check on your brothers this is genesis 37 verse 13. they're they're feeding the flock and check them why don't you go and and and and help them and joseph said here i am because he never let big dreams keep him from little jobs even if it wasn't maybe what he was born to do put on this earth to do and then verse 14 he said go see if it's well with them make sure they're all right so he sent him out to the valley of hebron to find his brothers now verse 15. a certain man found him and there he was wandering in the field right clearly not good at this not a great natural sense of a gps just wandering in the field head in the clouds right he's like what are you looking for here they are right so so not really switched on but but post pain post difficulty post pit post pals post prison he became more aware of what was in front of him and was able to use that superpower to the degree that look at genesis 40 verse 7 when two of pharaoh's officers had become incarcerated joseph's running the prison joseph says to the pharaoh's officers why do you look so sad today why do you look so sad today how challenging is it that a man who's lost everything and at the point we read this verse genesis 40 verse 7 has been in this situation for 13 years well 11 years and it will be two more of this guy forgetting about him but that he's able to say why are you sad that's a man using his new super powers he's using that he weighs more he's been switched on he's not just wandering in the field he's aware of these people he's saying god you've got someone for me today who do you have in this who's going to be put to death that i can show light to show love why are you so sad today how many of us perhaps would feel less sad if we opened our eyes to see other people around us that are more sad what purpose what it would it give us if we could stop just for a minute just saying i'm barely hanging on here i can't think about anybody else no but maybe the way god's gonna heal you is by you focusing on other people using your new superpowers number five we're almost done don't bottle your emotions joseph teaches us or let them have the last word what do we do we accept them we process them but then we declare god's truth over them okay so we're not saying your feelings don't matter ignore them that's a train wreck we're being honest enough read read joseph's life how many times underline every time it says joseph wept joseph cried caution you might need two highlighters this dude is bawling constantly right and he should be allowed to so this isn't monty python we're not jumping around with one leg saying it's merely a flesh wound he's gushing out from the knee it's actually a problem so we're being real we're being honest and not bottling up our feelings i want you to feel so free to use bad words when you pray i just i want you to feel free i'm not saying cuss when you pray i'm saying you should feel free to you are forever henceforth absolved from the responsibility of protecting god from how you really feel unloaded on him he can handle it you will not offend him he has heard worse he really is unshockable so you bring it to him none of this sensor i need to filter it and then i'm bringing you you bring like don't bottle your emotions be weep if you're on a weep scream if you want to scream cry if you want to cry there's nothing he hasn't heard there's nothing he's not prepared to help you with he's here to protect you you don't need to protect him as though like oh i can't feel this way because it would it doesn't line up with a nice tidy theological grid or whatever and god's like i created the cause most i can handle it whatever grid you think you've got me trapped in just tell me how you feel okay but you also didn't stay there because his tears and how he felt he processed again through the grid of god meant it for good god meant it for good no matter what was done god meant it for good god so he didn't let his feelings have the last word so bring god your authentic feelings this is how i feel but then when he whispers behind you and how does he do that he does it right here and he declares his plans are for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope he declares that he is going to work all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes that we might be conformed into the image of his son jesus christ so now we're gonna bring the feelings feel the feelings acknowledge the feelings but then we say but here's something higher than feelings here's something higher than emotions and it's god's word which sets the pace for my life so i accept how i feel i just also happen to see something even more real i'm keeping my head in the clouds and colossians 1 23 tells us that if we are not moved away from the hope of the gospel meaning we keep our head in the clouds we will continue in the faith grounded and settled so your job is to keep your head in the clouds god's job is that he's going to make sure your feet stay firmly grounded and settled here on the earth so we offer the road less traveled we use our new superpowers we don't bottle our emotions or let them have the last word lastly we stay forward thinking we stay forward thinking we don't ever get trapped in a moment joseph when you read about him he's always like well when i get out of here you know bro you've been here for a long time you're probably not getting out of here but then these new prisoners come in and he's like hey when you get out of here put in a good word for me so i can get out of here because i there's more there's more in store for me you just get the sense he never gave up hope he never accepted this as his faith i'm gonna just forever live in this prison this is just where i am no he believed god made a promise to his family and it was not revoked and this is merely a delay and god has some purpose in it so i'm going to do the good that i can but we're moving out of here man this prison is not my home egypt is not my home i'm getting back to israel so when the whole family moves to israel and he's leaves the israel and is in egypt with him he gets old and dies he's 110 years old he's had a great life now he gets to see his children to the third generation which is awesome because at 17 he thought his life was over so i just don't i just encourage you to remember not to trust your perception of the situation miles over at 17 you're going to hold your grandchildren in your arm one day i dare you to speak i will live and not die this is not over this is not final i'm going to keep moving i'm going to keep trusting i'm not always going to feel this way it's not always going to look as bad as it does today there's always tomorrow there's always something so joseph's 110 and he actually is dying and his life actually on this earth is over but he's still forward thinking he's still optimistic in fact this is genesis 50 verse 24 he said to his brethren i am dying now but god will surely visit you and he will bring you out of this land do you see this the power of hope for what god has promised in the future generation this is him watching jaden in the fresh life leadership college video and going i'm pumped that there's someone who's 20 years old born the year 911 happened that god's doing a work in who's going to be sent out into the world that's us as a church saying we are behind the next generation that's our children and our children's children that is us saying we will release the roar we're going to fight for kids to have hope this this is joseph what's he's comforted by leaning forward looking forward god will surely visit you guys he'll bring you out of this land he'll bring you back to israel when the 400 years are over they're going back baby you're not staying here he's speaking moses into existence do you see that he's believing for a red sea parting he's trusting for a sinai revelation he's speaking manna falling from the sky he doesn't even understand how what he is saying is going to come true but he's forward thinking into the promises of god for the future just like you need to be how is the world going to be different tomorrow because of what god's going to do today through you verse 25 he took an oath from his brethren and said god will visit you and you have to make me a promise that you shall carry my bones up from here this guy is amazing he's like you can bury me here just make sure someone tells someone that when you're packing up to leave after the passover and the blood of this all that make sure that in the things that you carry you bring my bones because i lived in egypt but i never belonged to egypt and i want my bones when they come resurrecting out of the ground at the last day to do so from israel this is a guy with his eye on the future also a master planner right he's planning out where he's going to rise from the dead from like this is pretty awesome i want my bones excuse me to spring out of the ground from israel that is forward thinking this is where we need to live this is where we need to be anchored it puts into perspective covid19 it puts into perspective the craziness of this world which is unprecedented unprecedented unprecedented every hard time is unprecedented always and you know what's what's what's what's bigger than that christ is coming you know it's bigger than that ten thousand years from now we're in heaven you know you know what's bigger than that god has overcome he has defeated the grave so when we anchor ourselves there we're not being moved away from the hope of the gospel heads in the clouds literally son of man returning from the clouds and then it causes our feet to be grounded settled we can have peace and be at ease even in the suckfest of all suckfests when we have our heart anchored on the coming promise of god's kingdom which will never be shaken so to revisit our lesson from today all these six things are telling us how to keep our head in the clouds and this is what we can do specifically and actively to keep our heart future focused on what god wants us to do this is what to do when your life sucks i hope it helped all right now um before we go i want to pray for some people and i i specifically feel like there's some of you who are reticent to receive this because you like the pain from your past you would never put it that way but i think some of us and i only know that because i've been there have been nervous to be healed because it's the only thing linking us to a life that we once loved especially if your story involves grief there can be a sense in which you are reluctant to receive the full healing god wants you to experience because you feel like perhaps it would be a betrayal to what was precious that was torn from you and i'll just admit i have felt that some sense of if i ever am not fully sad all the time about my daughter lynya dying that somehow i'm losing something that links me to her and the connection i feel too or in my sadness if i let god take that away i'm not connected to her at all it's a lie of course but it was exposed when lisa harper a year ago was preaching at our church and we were sitting in our backyard after dinner and she and jenny and i were just unbearing our souls about what we were going through and i i just admitted to her some things and jenny did as well and we were all praying and she felt the holy spirit really impart some things to her she wanted to communicate to us and so we held hands in parade and we are all bawling but one of the things she said that i'll never be able to forget is she said i feel levi like the holy spirit is trying to use lennox's laughter to wash away residual sorrow and grief you're holding on to from the death of lynya and hearing her say that just complete i just felt like i felt like such a sense of relief and release because in my mind i was thinking it was the pain that was connecting me to her but god was trying to say no your healing will connect you to her you're being healed from that pain and that's that's what i see in joseph because joseph will have two boys and he'll name one god has made me be able to forget and the second one he will name he has made me fruitful and when you allow god to make you forget not of course forget where you've been and how good he's been psalm 105 is proof we want to remember god's faithfulness but when we forget what it means to be so clenched up that we're not letting god actually in to heal the nooks and crannies of our heart when we think we're being loyal to something we once loved by staying bitter and by staying vengeful and by staying hateful when we like me feel like that somehow links me up to hold on to the last little bit but but to open yourself up whether it's the laughter of a child or whatever it is god wants to use to wash to rejoice to to cause there to be singing and dancing and to feel a sense of i should be sadder than i am right now and if god if you want to heal my limp i'm not going to pretend i still have one and i just today don't have any answers or put together package for you this is not an atm machine thing where you punch in the numbers and this is what spits out but i'm inviting you to join me on a journey of walking with jesus and experiencing the power of hope for your situation that is horrible and awful and i'll never try to tell you to say it's not but to tell you that even in the midst of that there is one who is good so father we know you see us we know you hear us and we don't have to bottle up our emotions because you said you see every tear we don't have to pretend we're not confused because we are but we're yours we're loved we're free and that's what i'm praying for your spirit even right now doing such different things and lives and we're opening ourselves up to you to the prospect of what life with hope will look like and could look like if as we're praying watching online joining us at fresh life locations around the country if you would say the holy spirit's doing something in my heart i'm not even sure exactly what's all going on but i'm open to it could i just ask that you would raise up a hand just to say i'm in i want i want this hope i want to want this hope god i pray your tender mercy is upon these i pray for the power to suffer successfully i pray for prosperity in the midst of pain i pray for joy i pray for a bloom i pray for radiance i pray i pray that there would be such deep laughter never previously felt possible unlock these superpowers in us god from levels to levels from glory to glory help us to become more like you to trust you to be a community of faith that would show a watching world what it looks like to hurt with hope you can put your hands down receiving blessings from god and if you're here and you've never made the faith decision to follow christ as your lord maybe you're religious maybe you know some verses from the bible maybe you would have even called yourself a christian the same way you would describe yourself as a democrat or a republican or a visa or a mastercard customer a christian like it's a box to be checked when it's not it's a savior to be followed it's the lord to to to be revered it's it's a god to bow before and if as of this moment there's not been a time in your life when you allowed him to forgive you of your sins because that's what jesus did on the cross and everything we're seeing in joseph is just this picture of jesus betrayed by his brother and brethren sold for 30 pieces of silver laid low in a pit to be raised high in exaltation and if you want to invite jesus to come in to save you to be your lord this is the moment now how is the time i'm going to pray with you i'm going to ask the church family to pray with us but this is between you and god you're saying to him i want you i want you to fix me i want you to heal me i want to follow you i want to pick up my cross come what may if that's you i'm describing say this prayer with me dear lord please come into my heart make it beat again fill me with your spirit thank you for the cross thank you for the empty tomb i will follow you and if you just prayed that prayer i believe so much in the power of a moment to nail that down so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna count to three and when i get to three if you prayed that prayer i want you just to raise your hand up saying this is me this is real i've just given my heart to jesus when i get to three shoot it up god will bless you one two three shoot your hands up shoot your hands up we're praising god for all the lives church online family youtube and facebook come on god bless every single one of you

Channel: Fresh Life Church

Views: 4,017

Rating: 4.9565215 out of 5

Keywords: fresh life, levi lusko, head in the clouds, what to do when life sucks, fresh life church, fresh life sermons, fresh life messages, 2021 sermons, levi lusko sermons, church online, online church, levi lusko messages, pastor levi lusko, hope, look up, sermons about hope, messages about hope, suffering, healing, perspective, sermons about healing, hopeless, feeling hopeless, how to heal, how to have hope, how to find hope

Id: cKlL4fWvEb0

Length: 56min 58sec (3418 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021