Our Sovereign and Good Father

Genesis 42:1-9, 45:1-8

Show Notes

Genesis 42:1–9 (Listen)

Joseph’s Brothers Go to Egypt

42:1 When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” 2 And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” 3 So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. 4 But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. 5 Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

6 Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. 7 Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” 8 And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. 9 And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”

(ESV)

Genesis 45:1–8 (Listen)

Joseph Provides for His Brothers and Family

45:1 Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

4 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

(ESV)

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Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

Good morning. If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Genesis 42 and Genesis 45, and I promise you no more bad jokes this week. You should consider yourself lucky. I had some I left on the table from last week. I thought about talking about how Joseph practicing social distancing saved lives, but I didn't go there.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:25

We do only have 3 weeks left in Genesis, 3 weeks after being here for it seems like about a year, and these are 3 of my favorite weeks because this is when we really see all the threads from the different stories being woven together at the end. We're finally gonna see the end result for everything that God has been working in Joseph's life. Next week, we're going to see the end result for everything that God has been doing in Jacob's life. And then finally in our 3rd week, we'll be seeing how God is pulling together everything in the lives of that entire family and the changes that he is working there. So we have 3 great weeks ahead of us.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:07

We do have a lot of ground that we need to cover today because the section that we're gonna look at is really long. It's a really long section about Joseph's life here. You can tell as you read through this, it's really reading through 5 chapters here that the narrator is slowing down. As he's reaching the climax, he's trying to savor every moment. There's lots of repetition that's happening here.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:33

If this was a movie, picture lots of scenes being shot in slow motion at this point, so we can savor every moment here. It makes for great storytelling by the campfire. It doesn't make for easy preaching. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to read the highlights of this the story and then we'll kinda fill it in as we go. So we're gonna begin in chapter 42.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:02

And by the time we reach this chapter, Joseph has already risen up power. He's the 2nd highest in command of all of Egypt, and he has used his power to feed people during this famine. And now his brothers have come before him asking for grain, and that's where we find ourselves in Genesis 42. So read with me. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another?

Jeffrey Heine: 02:35

And And he said, behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there that we may live and not die. So 10 of Joseph's brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus, the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:05

Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers. And he spoke roughly to them.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:27

Where do you come from? He said. They said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:41

And he said to them, you are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land. Now go to chapter 45, beginning in the first verse. Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him. He cried, make everyone go out from me.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:04

So no one stayed with him when Joseph made known himself to his brothers. And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. And Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?' But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. So Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:33

And they came near. And he said, I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold to Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in these lands 2 years, and there are yet 5 years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you, a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:05

So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to pharaoh and lord of his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to god. Pray with me.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:23

Father, we ask that through your spirit, you would honor the reading of your word, that you would open up our hearts and minds to receive this. Lord, may we come to a much greater understanding that you are our sovereign and our caring father, and everything that you do for us is for our good. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:55

Amen. There are times over the years that I must confess, I have been a horrible parent. You know, no parent obviously wants to be a horrible parent, but there's times that you certainly find yourselves being a horrible parent. Shortly after Caroline, my first born, she was born, we were trying to give her the gift of sleep, Lauren and I were, and in order to give somebody the gift of sleep, you need to let that child cry through the night, which is a hard thing to do as a parent. And I remember we we had tucked Caroline in her crib.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:34

We had said good night, and we went to the other, we closed the door, and Lauren and I, we sat outside of the door, and we could just hear Caroline screaming. I mean, screaming so loud, and and Lauren wants to go in there, and I'm stopping Lauren. I'm saying, nope, we are giving Caroline the gift of sleep. She needs to be able to fall asleep on her, you know, on her own. And Caroline is just screaming and screaming, and each time I'm like, Nope, we're giving her the gift of sleep.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:59

Well, she screamed for a long time. Finally, she was able to sleep. In the morning when I went in to check-in on her, well what I found was that her foot had actually got through the crib and was stuck there and was being pinned in. She was screaming because she was stuck and she had fallen asleep in her own vomit. And after that I just thought, I am a horrible parent.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:24

I'm a horrible parent, and things didn't really improve much. Just actually a few years ago, we are here at the church and we are having a picnic after our 11 o'clock service. And I'm talking with somebody and, somebody comes running up to me saying, somebody's child just fell off the jungle gym in the playground, and they've broken both of their wrists. And I remember when I heard that, I I said out loud to the person in front of me, it's like, why can't parents just watch their kids? And then somebody came running up to me and saying, Joel, Georgia just fell off the jungle gym and broke her wrist.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:04

I was like, I'm a horrible parent. And you find as a parent, you try the best you can, you do the best you can, but nobody really prepares you for this, and you're going to make so many mistakes. But we do have this, we do have this one comfort. No matter how many mistakes we make as parents, we're not nearly as bad as the patriarchs. The patriarchs were horrible parents.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:35

And we've seen that through a lot of Genesis, especially when we've seen Isaac and we've seen Jacob, we've seen some horrible parenting. But now what we're coming to see is that behind their horrible parenting, if we actually look closely, we see that God has been doing some very good parenting. God's been stepping in and He's being the parent that they've all needed. He's been loving them unconditionally, He's been showing incredible grace, incredible patience with them, and he has also been bringing in discipline into their lives. And the past couple of months, we have certainly seen this discipline in the life of Jacob, and most recently in the life of Joseph.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:24

And we've seen that God's discipline doesn't look like ours. He doesn't come down and scold them and tell them everything that they're doing wrong. He doesn't say, don't make me count to 3. God doesn't discipline like that because those things don't actually work. Some things we just can't be told, we have to experience.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:48

We have to experience discipline. God knew that Joseph, he was in danger of becoming a arrogant and cruel man. And so out of love, he disciplines him. He has him abandoned and sold as a slave off to Egypt before he finally raises him to power. His brothers are so full of envy, so full of hatred, that God needs to let them sit in guilt for 20 years before they finally realize that Joseph is alive.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:24

Their father Jacob, of course, we have seen how he has always tried to find his satisfaction in a person rather than God, and he does this over and over and over, and And he had just been doing that with Joseph, placing all his identity in Joseph, and so God rips Joseph away from him, bringing pain into his life. But he's doing all of these things as a form of discipline because we see that when they're going to be reunited together, we're gonna see how God has used it all to change them. God's been the Father they have needed all along. In mercy, he has caused all of these terrible things to happen in order to change their hearts. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's just jump into this story.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:14

When the famine hits, Joseph's brothers, they head to Egypt in order to buy food because things are getting desperate for them. And that's at this point that Joseph realizes his dreams have come true. His brothers were bowing down before him, some 20 years after those dreams. In chapter 45, verse 5, we get to the main point of this entire narrative. We read these words.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:43

Joseph says, and now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. You sold me, God sent me. That's a remarkable statement that we read here. You you should underline that, highlight that in your Bibles, Because here we see where God's sovereignty and where man's freedom meet. Joseph, he says, yes, it was out of the evilness of your hearts that you sold me into slavery, but it was absolutely a part of God's plan.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:28

He will later say in Genesis 50, you meant this for evil, but God meant this for good. And that is an incredible, incredible insight by Joseph into all that is happening. He understood that what his brothers did was wrong. Yet he also understood that it's what God wanted, that everything was going to God's plan. Today we might see it as something like this, you fired me, but God sent me.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:04

You divorced me, but it was God sending me. You talked behind my back, yet it was God speaking. You criticized me, yet it was God humbling me. We see that God uses evil for good. Joseph's brothers out of the evilness of their hearts sold them into slavery.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:35

God used that to get Joseph to Egypt. Potiphar's wife, out of the evilness of her heart, lied about Joseph. That was God's way of getting Joseph to be thrown into prison where he would later rise up to a place of power next to pharaoh. Everything was happening according to God's plan. So for those of you who don't feel like your life is going according to plan your plan, You might be right and that it's not going according to your plan, but it is going according to God's plan, and you cannot thwart God's plan for your life.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:14

You're not nearly powerful enough to wreck God's plan for your life, don't think so highly of yourself. God is in control. God is working out all things for your good. That's actually a verse we like to quote a lot, Romans 828. Most of you are familiar with that.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:37

And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose. We quote that verse a lot. We we love that verse. I have seen that verse on t shirts, bumper stickers, license tags.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:57

I have seen it, you know, football players wearing it on their cheeks. I see that verse everywhere, but I'm not totally convinced that people actually know what that verse means. Typically, we think it means something like this, Your boyfriend breaks up with you. So you go to Publix, buy some cookie dough hoping to drown out your sorrows. I'm stereotyping here.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:27

But while you're at Publix, you meet the man of your dreams. Fall in love, you get married, you have Romans 828 read at your wedding along with 1st Corinthians 11, you know, because you know that God has caused all things to work together for your good. Or perhaps you get fired from your job, but then a week later you find your dream job. Romans 828. Once I was mountain biking and I had a terrible wreck and I flew off the trail, did a flip, tumbled for a bit and then when I came to, I didn't pass out but just when I looked up, I saw these brand new Costa glasses.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:08

I was like, God causes all things to work together for good. I still have those glasses. A lot of times that's how we think about that verse. And when we interpret Romans 828 like that, we might partially be right at times. But if that's the only way we interpret that verse, we're actually missing out on a great truth.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:33

And we're also gonna waste a whole lot of time and a whole lot of energy trying to find that external good for something bad happening in our lives. And the problem with this is we're likely never gonna find that external good for why something bad is happening in our lives. I I know we always try to find the silver lining in the cloud, and we want to find the external good, whether it's for, a tsunami or an earthquake that happens, or whether it's from the death of a loved one, or possibly from a spouse having an affair, or from a pandemic that comes. We wanna find well, what's the good? What's the external good?

Jeffrey Heine: 17:19

What's the silver lining in this and we we search so hard for that. And we wanna know why is God bringing in all of this pain. But instead of looking for that external good, we should be focusing on what is God trying to do internally? What is He doing in my heart? Because we can be confident of this, He is most definitely working internally.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:45

He wants a heart change. Joseph was fortunate that he was able to see that external good. He was able to see how God used all the pain in his life in order to save 100 of 1000 of people. But he only got to see that at the end, not as he was enduring the pain. Most of us will never see that outward good, the outward reasons for our pain, but we need to trust that God is doing something in here.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:19

He's increasing our faith. He's humbling us. He's deepening our roots in him. He's conforming us to the image of Christ. And these are the things we need to focus on, not out there, but in here.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:34

Think about this. In this story that we've been looking at, God could have kept the people from starving millions of different ways. I mean, just just for starters, how about not bringing a famine? That's the easiest way for God to not have caused the people to starve is just don't bring a famine in the first place. But the goal was not ever really about not getting people to starve.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:03

It was about working in people's hearts during all of this. Changing Joseph, changing Joseph's brothers, changing Jacob. Let me tell you a story and ask for a little bit of patience here as I tell the story for a couple of minutes because I'm gonna try to tell this story backwards, which is a little counterintuitive. But one of the reasons that I'm here at this church and I'm preaching, is because growing up, I grew up in a godly household. I had an amazing mom and dad.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:42

My my dad would lead us in our family devotions each evening. It was a part of our life. And I actually became a Christian at one of our family devotionals. My dad, he would get up early before 5 o'clock every day to spend time in the word and prayer, and he would pray for his family. And those were the things that grounded me early on in the faith and and from which I was called into ministry.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:12

Now how is it that my dad came to have the faith that he had? Well, it's because when he was a child, he actually lived across the street from a small Methodist church, that was in Jackson, Georgia. It was actually just 20 yards away from his house. And, and so with it being so close, he could just walk over to church even when his parents might not have gone. And so he grew up in church.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:43

How how is it that, my granddad came to buy that house so close to that church? He didn't originally live there. He actually lived on a farm at first, but he fell on hard times, and they had to sell the farm in order to buy this small little house by the church. Well, why was he so poor that he had to sell the farm? Well, it's because he was an alcoholic.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:12

And because he was an alcoholic, he couldn't keep a job. Why did he start drinking in the first place? Well for a while my granddad, he actually lived in California. He lived there and he worked there, but he started drinking because of depression. And the reason he was depressed, and he lost his job in California, and had to move to Georgia was because on Tuesday of October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:46

And then when the stock market crashed, lots of people lost their jobs. And so I could trace back me being here preaching all the way back to the Great Depression, and the horrible events that were to happen there. So I could say, I could argue actually that God caused the great depression for me. He caused it for me, he caused it for us, you know, so so I would be a believer so someday would start redeemer so that you would all be members there, and you can make an argument for that. And if I argue that, I would be partially right.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:27

But God was likely doing millions, He was doing millions upon millions of things for millions of people through the Great Depression. Things that I will never know about. And it would be very self centered of me to try to find that one external good from all that evil that was happening at the same time of millions of people losing their jobs. All just so I could become a Christian be called to be a pastor. Who knows all that God was doing during the Great Depression?

Jeffrey Heine: 23:06

Me being here just being one of them. Who knows what God might be doing in this pandemic? I know we're trying to find that silver line. Who knows? Likely millions upon millions of things.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:22

But we shouldn't try to find that one external good that he's doing because we'll never know. What we should do is focus on what he's doing in here. We'll drive ourselves crazy crazy always trying to find that silver lining. Look inward, not outward. In Hebrews chapter 12, we read that the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He chastises every son He receives.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:55

Because we are the Lord's sons and daughters, he disciplines us. And this isn't just a little, you know, slap on the wrist discipline here. This isn't God sending you to time out. This is a discipline that has teeth. The word that's used there is podeo.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:13

That word that's also for chastise there. It's it's the word, mastigo that's used to describe literally flogging someone. Those things together, they form a picture of a discipline that bites. A discipline that hurts. A discipline that brings in pain, but just the right amount of pain into our lives in order to teach us a lesson to correct wrong behavior.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:42

And there is no father on Earth that perfectly pideo or disciplines us. But our heavenly father, he knows exactly how much pain to bring into our lives in order to discipline us. That's what God is doing in the life of Joseph. Joseph was a spoiled brat, evil growing in his heart. Let me ask you, can you think of anything positive that can result from a teenager being doted on by his father at the expense of all of his brothers, being given absolutely everything, a teenager who could do no wrong in his father's eyes, and he never had to work a day in his life, can you think of any good that can happen from that?

Jeffrey Heine: 25:37

Is that the recipe you would put together if you were trying to make a godly man? Not at all. You don't make a man with depth or a man with character that way. So God sees that and he brings pain into Joseph's life in order to change him. Now God could have just said, Joseph quit being a spoiled brat.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:02

Stop it. But we can't be told those things. We have to experience discipline in order to be changed. That's how we learn. So God throws Joseph into slavery.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:19

Then he raises them up into Potiphar's household. And then he throws them back down into prison. And then he raises them back up to where he's now overall of the prison. And then he throws them back down because Joseph thought he was about to be released, but then he realizes he has to stay there for 2 more years. And then he raises Joseph back up into a position of incredible power.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:46

This is God's discipline in Joseph's life. This is how he changes him into a humble man full of integrity. He would bring him high and low, high and low. Every time Joseph thought his life was finally turning around, God would call it cause it to come crashing back down. And now we see Joseph doing this to the lives of his brothers.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:16

You know the story. Joseph's brothers, they come to him, they don't recognize him, and he doesn't immediately reveal himself to them. He first he calls them spies and he he has them all thrown into prison for 3 days. And he releases everybody except for Simeon and he sends the rest back home packed with food. But he says, don't you come back unless you bring your youngest brother Benjamin with you.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:47

And so they're sent away. They go back home while Simeon sits in prison for an entire year, yet Jacob will not send the brothers back with Benjamin. He won't do it until starvation starts to hit. Finally, Jacob relents and he sends Benjamin with his brothers back to Egypt. When they come before Joseph, well Joseph treats Benjamin like royalty.

Jeffrey Heine: 28:16

And all the brothers are now thinking, okay, everything's turning out really well. And then once again, Joseph has them all loaded up with grain and he sends them home, but this time Joseph, he hides a silver cup in Benjamin's bag. And then right after they leave, he sends soldiers there to go and to arrest Benjamin for stealing the silver cup. And so now they come crashing down again. What is Joseph doing here?

Jeffrey Heine: 28:48

Why all of this drama? What what is he doing here? I've actually read a number of commentaries that just say, Joseph is getting revenge. Joseph is being cruel here with his interaction with his brothers. But I don't think anything could be further from the truth.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:07

Joseph is not being cruel. This isn't cruelty, this is kindness. It's a severe kindness, but it is a kindness because he is doing to them the exact same thing that God had done to him. He brings them low. He raises them up.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:28

He brings them low. He raises them up. He speaks kindly to them, and then He speaks cruelly, and then He speaks kindly, and then He speaks cruelly. You can break even the hardest of stones by heating them and cooling them, and heating them and cooling them. You do that enough times, and they will eventually crack.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:56

And this is what Joseph is doing here, is he's breaking their hearts. He's trying to bring repentance to them. He's trying to change their hearts. He's not being vindictive. If he wanted to be vindictive, he had all of the power of Egypt behind him.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:13

He could have just thrown them into prison and He could have let them rot, but He doesn't do that. We actually read in chapter 43 that his mercy burned hot. And these actions were done out of mercy from Joseph because he wants to see the lives of his brothers changed. He recognized that this is how the Lord had disciplined him, and now he's doing the same with his brothers. And towards the end, with an absolute stroke of genius, Joseph actually recreates the very scene of his betrayal because he wants to see if they've actually changed.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:59

So I'm not sure if you've ever noticed this before as you've read through the life of Joseph, but he actually recreates the very scene of his betrayal. He says, I'm going to throw your youngest brother, the one that your father loves above everybody else, I'm going to throw him into the pit, into prison. And when I do that, you can all go free. That's all they have to do is allow their youngest to be thrown into the pit and they can all go free. Just like they did to Joseph 20 years earlier.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:39

But this time, we see a change. This time, Judah, Judah and one of the most moving, moving places in all of Genesis. Judah here, he steps up to the plate and he pleads, don't throw Benjamin into prison, throw me in instead. He offers himself as a substitution. And it's at this point that Joseph reveals himself.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:08

When he sees, when he sees Judah offer himself as a substitution, he can't hide any longer. He must be reconciled. Judah of all people. Judah's the one who says, don't take the boy, take me. I mean, if if you remember, it was Judah's idea to sell Joseph into slavery.

Jeffrey Heine: 32:34

It was Judah who had actually abandoned the family earlier to go move in with another clan in Genesis 38. But now look at Judah. He's becoming a substitute. And this is actually the first time we see in the Bible the offer of a substitutionary sacrifice. When Joseph sees this, he's filled with emotion, and he cannot wait to reconcile.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:05

When he sees the offer of self sacrifice, he simply can't wait any longer. What a picture we have of the Lord. Judah here is pointing us to someone who would come down in his lineage later. He's pointing us to Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate Judah.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:27

Jesus is the one who sacrifices himself for our place in order to bring reconciliation. Jesus is also the ultimate Joseph, the one who was betrayed by those closest to Him, stripped by His garments, sold for silver, and abandoned to die. And Jesus is the one who turns ultimate evil into ultimate good. Jesus is the one who has brought us salvation, not just from hunger, but salvation from sin and death itself through His work on the cross. And when we look at the cross and we see what Jesus accomplished there, we know this, that any of the pain and suffering that come into our lives isn't punishment.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:17

Punishment is what Jesus bore on the cross. We are not paying for our sins. Any of the pain that comes into our lives now, we know is discipline. It's simply the Father not punishing us for sin, but he's bringing in pain in order to make us more like Jesus and to change our character. Pray with me, church.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:45

Our father, we thank you for the work of Jesus on the cross and how he has taken our punishment. And now the things and the pain that happens in our life, it's not punishment, but it's a severe kindness to us. The things you bring in to make us better people, people who look more like you. And so, Lord, I pray we would trust you. Instead of trying to find all the some external reason for the bad things happening in this in this world or in our lives, Instead, we would focus on what are you trying to do in my heart?

Jeffrey Heine: 35:16

How are you trying to use this to make me look more like you? And, Lord, we thank you for that severe kindness because we you are a good, good father. And You love and You Because You love us, You do discipline us. And we pray this in Your strong name, Jesus. Amen.