Next Meeting Information

Next Meeting: May 17, 2017

Friday, April 28, 2017

Sinclair Ferguson on Joseph's Multicolor Puzzle

You can listen to Sinclair Ferguson's Four Corners of the Jigsaw Puzzle here. Below is a quote from that sermon.

Genesis 50:20:
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

"One of the things I notice with Christian people is that often they seem to find themselves shunted off the highway of usefulness and fruitfulness. They are put on a dead end street, and they are discouraged and disappointed. What are you to say to them?

You are to say: God has brought you into this in order that the traffic of his purposes may move on, until you will be in the right place at the right time, but at that point a very different person, having been transformed by your difficulties and trials. Then, God will make you fruitful for his Glory among His people.

Do you wonder what the future holds for you? He is doing something in you, in order that you may be in the place where through you he will do something for others. You see, afflictions are like frosty weather on garments; they change the hue and they bleach them white. God works in our circumstances. Samuel Weatherford said "There are some graces that grow best in winter."

And Jesus is the musical conductor of our lives who knows the score perfectly. Years and years ago--we have three boys and a girl-- and my little girl wanted to go see the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And the night she was going, my wife was sick, so I had to go to Edinburgh and watch. (I think I was the only person in the audience who didn't know that at some point in that musical, Pharaoh turns into Elvis Presley. I let out such a guffaw of astonishment that it was about six months before my daughter would admit that she had seen it. )

But our seats we had were right at the very front of the audience. And so, we were in the rare position of being able to see all the action on the stage as well as all the music being played in the pit underneath.

And I've never forgotten the way the conductor came in: He came to his little podium--most of the audience couldn't see this--but I saw him take out of his pocket a little packet of M&Ms. He opened the packet and put them in this little cup that was beside the podium. And, he began to conduct and every so often--very causally--he would pick up an M&M.

There was all this drama going on the stage...but the conductor was unfazed. He knew what he was doing because he already knew the score.

Now, I'm not suggesting that God is unmoved by the afflictions of our lives. That He is in heaven eating M&Ms. But, when evil is set against him, He who sits in the heavens laughs. He holds them in derision, because he knows the score. And the reason he knows the score is because he is not only the conductor...but he is the composer.

Do you remember Cowper's hymn? Its called "Light Shining Out of Darkness":

Deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will. 

Or to put that in the better words of our Lord Jesus, in a slightly different context: Do you remember when Peter protested that Jesus was washing his feet? Our Lord Jesus said something to him that surely applies to the whole of our lives: "Peter, you do not now understand what I am now doing. But afterwards you will understand....so trust me."

Its one thing to have your lenses crafted Biblically, so that you understand what God does. But that is not a substitute for trusting him personally. And so wherever you are...its even possible that you are here today partly because you know a Christian who has gone through circumstances that are appalling to you and it has puzzled you. You say "Why should he/she, who is such an outstanding Christian, go through this?"

And you are learning through this passage, that perhaps you are the reason. Because the Lord is drawing you to himself through him/her to bring you to Christ."

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