In this sermon, the speaker tells the story of a family with four wicked sons and one tender-hearted youngest son. The father had trained the sons to be rascals, but the youngest son was different. One day, while they were chopping wood in the woods, a tree fell and injured the father. The sons left him and went hunting, leaving the youngest son alone. He saw a flickering light in the distance and made his way towards it, facing various challenges along the way. Eventually, he found an old woman who turned out to be his grandmother, and she rejoiced to learn that her son had gotten saved.

Genesis 48, starting with verse 15. Genesis 48, 15. And he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would enlighten us this morning from your word. Father, we thank you that we can have life in Christ. We thank you that we can meet this morning, as was said earlier, and worship you freely, and we do. Lift up our land to you, and we pray for our leaders. And we ask that thou would give us direction this morning, as leaders, and as your people, as we seek you every week to see what you have to say to us, and how you want us to pray, and then how you want to use us through the week. And then we come back again to see how you've worked through the week, and to praise your name, and to listen again to you, to see what you have for us again. It's a cycle, the cycle of life, and it's the life of Christ working in our hearts. We pray now for any that do not know Christ as their Savior, that would be here today or listening by radio, that you would work in their hearts to show them that this is something that they must make a decision about, whether to believe on the Lord or not to believe. Thank you now that you would speak to us this morning from your Word in a specific, special way, in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, after last week, listening to Mr. Christensen share about Noah, I thought, well, who's next that God used in a significant way in preserving life, and to me it was Joseph, and Joseph's been one of my favorite characters, so I just spent the week meditating on his life and looking into his life in a fresh way, and looking around, seeing what was there that I might find, and I found something that sort of is related to this thing. How many of you know what that is? Most of you do. How many don't know what it is? Can't see it. Can't see it. Okay, let me open it up. You never know what's inside until it's opened up. Now you know what it is. Pull this little doom and flotsy up. It's a compass. Would you say that Joseph was like a compass, and you'd take and look through it like that, and find you a tree out there and get your bearings and read off the degrees, and if you've ever been in Boy Scouts or had survival training or something like that, you work by degrees. You move by the degrees that are on here from one spot to the other, and you can actually set up an obstacle course or a path for somebody to come around and then find a prize way out in the woods by so many steps and going to degrees and finding the next mark and everything. But Joseph was like a compass, I believe, in that God gave him direction and used him to give direction to other people around. And as I meditated on his life, the first thing to start off with somebody in their life is their name. And what does Joseph's name mean? Anybody here know right off? Without looking at the notes in your Bible? Okay, go ahead and look at the notes in your Bible. I had a note in one of my study Bibles, and it said, He shall add. And I went to the Hebrew this morning and looked it up. I thought, well, I'll get another opinion on that just in case I'm not right. The Hebrew actually meant increaser. Increaser. If you add, you increase. And if you go back over to Genesis 30, I don't know if this is so much a sermon this morning as it's just going to be the sharing of some thoughts. And I do have a story that I read a few weeks ago, and I read it to some of the kids. They may have to help me if I tell this story. I don't know whether to tell it now or at the end of the sermon or our study or whatever. It's a little bit long, but it's an interesting story. And when I got done with it, I said, That is the life of Joseph in a story. And I don't know if the person that wrote it intended it to be like that, but it was an interesting story. It was about a woodchopper. Maybe some of you read that book. Is it The Little Woodchopper? Is that the name of it? The Little Woodchopper. Very good story. You can borrow it from us. But Genesis 30, in verse 22, And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her womb. And she conceived and bare a son and said, God had taken away my reproach. And she called the name Joseph. Called his name Joseph. And said, The Lord shall add to me another son. And one of the things I've learned recently is that in the first mention of things in the Bible, usually the definition is given right in there. And I'm finding out that is really interesting that things are like that. In looking at his name, she said, The Lord shall add to me another son. This was, his name was a prophecy. It really was a prophecy, the Lord, that God would add another son, but also it was a prophecy of his life ministry. His life would be one of adding and increasing to the lives of others. And this is why we have this song, I thought would be really good this morning, I have some of the kids play this, to He Giveth More Grace, because it talks about adding, and we might turn to that and look at it at the end, after we go through this. And it seems like God's been preparing this morning through the songs as we went through here. God is teaching you to be a minister to people. God loves people. And the church is actually, sometimes I think we get so caught up in our own programs and our own feeding ourself, we forget that when we go out, we are to be ministering to people all week long. If Christ is living His life through us, He is going to be ministering through you and I to people. And this is what Joseph was, he was a minister. God didn't start adding though, in his life until he subtracted. It's just like sometimes you get some direction, it's well to go, I want to go north, I want to go up here. And if you live in this area of the country, in Missouri or over in Kansas, around some of the places, the only way to get there is to go the opposite way first. The way some of the crazy roads are around here. How many times you've been tooling down the road, just enjoying everything, you go over a hill and the road almost ends and you're at the end. And it takes off some little, there's a creek down there and the road just doesn't go. It doesn't go straight anymore. It goes this way or that way. And Joseph then, God began to add in his life by first subtracting. And every time he takes something out of our life, we go, ouch! Was that necessary Lord? And so he started off with a pit. And I saw something last night that was new about that pit that I hadn't understood before until I looked at the end of his life and began to look at the blessing that Jacob placed on him. And then the pit made sense. Wouldn't you like God to... How many of you, when you read books, you go to the end of it? If you read a novel or something like that? Any cheaters here that read the end first? Okay, we have confession, we have altar call up here. I don't do that, but it might make the book easier reading sometimes than trying to figure out what's going on. I wish all my books when I was in school had the answers in the back. It would have been a lot easier to get the problem solved if I knew what the answer was. Wouldn't it have been? Schools are designed to torture kids. But anyway, when God got done with His refining process with him, and in the process even, there's this testimony. You go over to chapter 39, since we know the life of Joseph so well. You go over to chapter 39, but as he's in the process of removing from him all of the things that were valuable. You have to bear with me. I'm using an old Bible, one I bought back in 1987. And right after I bought it, it's a funny print in there, but the print began to shrink, actually shrink in my Bible. And so I wasn't able to use it very long. But I got it out because I knew my way around through the life of Joseph in here pretty well. But yeah, I can't read it much anymore. But in chapter 39, just notice these things. When God began to subtract from his life and He removed the things that were of value to his life, you know, he had to die to his glory and he died to his youth and he died to all these things. But there's these testimonies as you go down through there. Look at verse 2. And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man. Here he is, a prisoner in a strange land, but he is a prosperous man because the Lord was with him. You come to verse 3. And his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. Isn't that a testimony of the life of Christ in a believer? That the Lord is with that person. And I think it's a powerful testimony when unsaved people come up to a saved person and say, what is it that you've got? What is it you've got? And you just don't fabricate this. That is the drawing of Christ. They come up and they say, it's just something different and that's your open door to tell them, well, it's Christ. Why did you do that? Why do you do this or that? And hopefully they're coming up not because they're mad or upset or something because they're really being drawn by the Spirit of God. But verse 5, same thing, came to pass. Verse 21, 23 and over in 41, 38 and 39 there's this testimony that the Lord was with Joseph. Now let's go back in time a little bit. Before we, you know, if you're going to run a race, sometimes it's good to back up a little bit so you can lunge forward. So let's back up into his life a little bit. Back over in 27 and 41, listen to this statement, and Esau hated Jacob. Now come over to 37 and verse 4. Now we're beginning in the life of Joseph. 37, 4, And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him. We might as well get it straight and understand this, that there is a Spirit in this world that does not like Jesus and does not like the life of Jesus being manifested in your life or my life. And so life is just not going to be in straight interstate with no hills. And so as they hated Esau, so they hated him. And Jesus said, Ye shall be hated of all men. Now one of the things about the life of Joseph, not only was it a prophecy of having another son, Benjamin, added, and also a prophecy of him becoming a minister to the world, but also his life was a prophecy of the life of Christ, a revealing of the life of Christ, and also the church. All of this is packed into his life. That's why Joseph is one of my favorite characters to study. Now, moving on, let me say this about being backed up a little bit. Let's go back even farther than Esau hating him. The first shepherd was Abel. Abel, Hebrews 12, he says that he had the blood of sprinkling. His blood was sprinkled. His blood was shed, and it touched the ground. The first shepherd was slaughtered, speaking of the sacrifice of Christ. The next shepherd to dwell on would be Abraham. He spoke of the wealth of the shepherd. And we won't go through all of these, but I'll just mention these to bring you up to Joseph. His father, Jacob, spoke of these three areas at least about being a shepherd. You see, these men were shepherds. He spoke of the responsibility of the shepherd because he said, I will bear the loss. He spoke of the endurance of the shepherd. He talked about the finest, if I can read my own notes here, the responsibility, I bear the cross, the endurance. He had the endurance of the shepherd. And then the care, if the men should overdrive them. You go through his life, you see, in the life of Jacob, you had the preparation for the life of Joseph being prepared in his ancestors. Now, the way I got to going on this this week was a couple of things. One thing I picked up last Sunday that somebody shared with somebody else and I just caught it stuck in my ear and got stuck there like a little arrow. And then somebody else said something. I was talking to a man on the phone this week that wanted me to do something and we got to talking about the Lord. And he made a reference about a verse, he said, Romans 8, which says, all things can work together for good. And I jumped on that and I said, I don't think it says exactly that. All things work together for good. All things work together for good. And all things not only work together for good, but things are being worked out in my life right now for the generations to come in my children and my grandchildren and things were being worked out in the past for you. And so all things work together for good, but there is a principle that is working continually to mess that working up. And I believe a lesson today for us in the life of Joseph is that we as the fathers are responsible, grandfathers and fathers, for direction for our families. And sometimes it's hard to know what direction is because of all of the confusing things and ideas and philosophies that have come in. And then also people are saying, well, you need to do this. And then we got traditions. Not all traditions are bad, but we got this and that. But as we flow along through life, God is going around curves and if we're not careful and we don't go around the curve with Him, we go smack into a tree and we get stuck up. And there's generations that have been thrown off a track because the fathers and the grandfathers have failed to keep getting their directions from God. Because many times things change in the spiritual movements. We all know that denominations go in about a 50-year cycle from starting off as a Bible study to where then they begin to get more liberal to where pretty soon they're just a social function. And about 100 years is the most that most of them will go in a fundamental direction without switching gears. And many fathers have failed to shift gears when the Spirit of God was saying things are getting bad. We need to get back on track. Now Joseph had put into his life his direction for his life ministry by his father. Now let me keep on going now. Let's look at Joseph. Joseph was feeding this flock. It says in verse 4. He was feeding his flock. Now Joseph, then, if his fathers coming all the way back to Abel up through Abraham had these characteristics, what would his have been? His characteristic, I believe, he was the ruling and the feeding of the flock. Because he ended up being the ruler and the feeder. And there are five lessons that I'll share with you. We'll get to it. I'll just have to keep on going a little faster. I just picked out these five things about his life that we'll close up in later on towards the end. But there's a natural tendency of the flesh to resent and to resist spiritual rule. I have been paying very close attention to the last few weeks of how God is answering prayer. Some churches put prayer meeting in the middle of their week. Or some I know do it Saturday night or different nights. But I think it's really interesting that we put prayer right in the center of our Sunday morning service. And I've been watching how God over the last few months has been answering prayers. We've seen salvation happen. And I'm beginning to see that I have to pray through. Not only we start off our week, our first time we meet together in prayer, but I start off every day and I try to pray through my whole day. And if I know things going on with you that are going to be a special concern, I try to spend special time on that besides this special, not just normal, prayer of praying for you. But Lord, there's something extra going on today for this family. And I just ask you to give extra direction and protection through this. The elders have that responsibility to be watching over their flocks and shepherding the flocks and giving direction and understanding. But there's a natural tendency to resist the spiritual. And we need to be careful that we don't do this. I've been watching now as we've been doing some things that God has directed us to do, how God has been answering more specifically in prayer. And more power is given in prayer. And more discernment to know when to move. I talked to somebody this week. He was in Atlanta. And call me up. You know how they do. Trying to sell you something on the phone. Trying to get me to change my phone company with him. We wasn't on that very long before we was right into his spiritual need. And in a few minutes, he just prayed to receive Christ as his Savior. I don't believe these things just happen. I believe these things happen because we get tuned up the first part of the week right, and then we get tuned up, fine-tuned for the day. Joseph was tuned up by his father and his grandfathers. But there's a tendency to get you off. That tendency there was with his brothers. Now let's look at the preparation of the shepherd just in passing. We know these things. He had the prison. And while he was in prison, the reason God could use him so mightily when he got up to be Pharaoh's right-hand man, actually, he was just going along for the ride because Joseph was in control of the nation. And he'd been given that authority. But he had the prison first. And what he did in the prison qualified him for the palace. And that's in 40 verse 4. There's one little statement about Joseph's life. Many want the palace position, but they never will go through the prison principle of serving. Verse 4, And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them. And they continued a season in ward. When I went through all my years of schooling, not only did we not have a real emphasis on prayer, I had one teacher that really emphasized being filled with the Holy Spirit, and that was good. But we didn't have a lot of emphasis on serving. We had emphasis on going out and putting in so many hours a week or this or that. But really serving right where you were at. If you were in a job or in a situation, that's why he could move on to the palace. And just from 44 over to 41, he goes from being in the prison serving them, and in 41, Thou shalt be over my house. You're over everything. Now, in the process, he got married and God gave him two sons, added two sons to his life. Look at chapter 41 and 51 and 52. And let's don't miss this. Because how we name our kids, our children, I should say children. Kids aren't goats, huh? But 51, And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. For God said, He hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's house. And the name of the second called he Ephraim. See, here's the book of Genesis. A name is given. The definition is given right after it. For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. And here's his testimony of adding. Fruitful. John 12, 24, Much fruit will come out of the dying. John 15, Much fruit by abiding. A fruit tree will bear fruit. A fruitful man will bear fruit. Now, I'm just going to say this. I'm not going to get off into this one. This is a whole other sermon or whatever. But in going through his life, I noticed this. That the fruits of the Spirit were manifest in his life. Have you ever picked out the nine fruits of the Spirit? Joseph, when his brothers came to him, do you realize how much self-control, temperance it had when they showed up on his doorstep wanting some food? The Spirit of God, you know, hold it, Joseph. And as I went through there, I saw others like joy was manifested in 43, 34, and 43, 23. There's peace. These things, you can go through and find the rest of them and then share them with somebody or share them with us next week. But here, let's go into Joseph's life ministry now. God started off his life with the pit. He engineered a circumstance. And we're going to come back to this pit when his father gives him his blessing. He brings all the light of heaven on that pit. But God engineers a circumstance first. A pit and then there's a famine. He prepared Joseph for the pit and then he prepared him for the famine. And he had a purpose for both. I was talking with one of the graphs this week. As a matter of fact, it was one of the sons. I was over at the house and then he shared with me. I didn't know. I hadn't heard. He'd come up and asked me if I'd heard what happened to his father. And when he shared what happened there, of course, I was really shocked that this man, he's just gone. He's in heaven with the Lord. But his son said this, that on the flight, Delgraph got cut off and he couldn't get on the flight. And his wife said, I'll just stay back with you if I got this straight. And he said this, no, you go ahead and you just go on and get out of here because there's no telling when I'll get out of here. And so she listened to her husband and she went on ahead. If she'd stayed with him, then she might have been killed also. And both the mother and the father in the family would have been killed. But here is the principle of God directing through the head. Now, God is going to be directing through the spiritual head of the land, land, which is Joseph at this time. So God has engineered a circumstance. But before he has the circumstance, he has a man prepared for the circumstance. And many times we do not understand what is going on in our life. We don't understand about this dry pit that maybe we're in until we get way down the road and then we see that God had been engineering us for a circumstance. So he's preparing the man, Joseph, for the famine. In chapter 41, 56, and 57. Let's look at that. This is sort of a frog message. We're going to hop around here. Chapter 41, 56, and 57. And the famine was over all the face of the earth, and Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold unto the Egyptians. And the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt, and all the countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn because the famine was so sore in all lands. God, I believe many times, cannot use believers because they won't let Him prepare them for their life ministry. They just resist year after year and maybe it takes longer and longer and maybe they never even get into their life ministry position because they resist God. And they refuse to learn to live by His grace. But God was able to have their Joseph to open up all the storehouses because Joseph had maintained his relationship with the Lord through all of his training process. So a prepared man will prepare for his purpose. 48 and 49, if you go back up there, I think, is that the same chapter? No, somewhere else. Let's keep going on to this now. He opened. He opened to them. There is a parallel all through here. I haven't been mentioning these things to you, but in every spot like this, He opened to them the storehouses. You can go over into the New Testament and find in the life of Christ or in the New Testament, scriptural principles that apply like this. He opened to them the scriptures in Luke 24. In every spot in the life of Joseph, there's a corresponding spot in the New Testament. I haven't been mentioning these to you. As a matter of fact, maybe I could go back and catch a couple. I made some notes on some of them, but it's more time. Like, He served them. You know when He served them? In Luke 22-27, I am among you as He that serveth. All down through here, you have these principles corresponding in the life of Joseph. I told you, his life depicted the life of Christ. Then you'd slip over another gear and his life portrays the life of the church. It's all there in his life. God directs through the head. Now, let's take that one statement. God directs through the fathers, the grandfathers, the elders in the family. In 42, look at 42. Now, when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look upon one another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt. Get you down thither and buy for us from thence, that we may live and not die. Here is Jacob directing his family. Did you realize that Joseph, if he had never got back with Jacob, would have never got his father's blessing given to him? He had to get back home. And I believe many are sort of wandering around in life because they've never had the blessing put upon them by their father. And they need that blessing for their life ministry and life purpose. Now, let me close up with these five lessons and I'll tell you the little woodchopper story. Proverbs 18, 6 says, A man's gift maketh room for him and bringeth him before great men. His gift had made room for him. The fulfillment of the life of Christ in Joseph's life was manifested in at least these five areas and you can find more. First of all, and these are lessons on his life purpose. He was a provider. Joseph was a provider. 42, 25, you look at this. Even when his brothers came to him and he's still playing this game with him of hide and seek, when he sent them off, he made sure that they had plenty of provision. If we can go back over to 42, 25, if I can find that. Here's what he said, Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn and to restore every man's money into his sack and to give them provision for the way. One of the things that God does in the father's heart is He gives him the insight and the ability to direct his children for that which they will need in the way of life. Joseph, since his gifting was to shepherds, was to make sure that his brothers had plenty of provision for the way. From the moment they stepped into his life from all the years, the father had been used to bring them together. Isn't that interesting how the father, God uses the father in the area of betrothal, we talk about courtship, to bring together his children for their mates. And he's praying. He's praying year after year and watching and listening to God. And God will use him to bring together. Many don't hit it right because they've missed out on that direction. He was also a revealer. Look at 45.1 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by them. And he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. By the way, I'll come back to these things. He was a provider. Where's the corresponding? My God shall, what? Philippians 4.19 God will provide all our needs. What's the one here? He was a revealer. In Luke 24, they knew him when he broke the bread, when he was going down the Emmaus road. In the breaking of bread, he revealed himself to them. Let's get the third one. 45.5 He was a preserver. He was a preserver. Now therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sow me. For God did send me before you to preserve life. Thank you. I don't think we think about it that the Father is to be used to preserve the life of His children. So many lives are wasted. Wasted lives with no purpose. And as we get older and we begin to get higher up on the hill, and we reach the peak, and then we get on the other side and time really goes, and we see our children maybe doing things that are vanity, that don't have any profit in the future, we in our spirit will be turned. Hey, you need to put more time into this area maybe than that area. We encourage them to preserve their life. They will not use it or lose it. He was a preserver. God sent 1 John 4, 19, the corresponding Jesus, He sent them that we might live. That's life. The fourth one, He was a deliverer. 45.7 And you know all of these things. God sent me before you, and the last thing it says in the passage, to save your lives by a great deliverance. And of course you can see all of these things in the life of Christ, but if you take them over into the life of the church, who is God going to use in the last days to minister to people? It's the church. This is why we believe that there needs to be a great overhaul in the church. Because right now the church basically is inward oriented and not too much outward ministering oriented. And so God will tune us up, prepare us for a great, great harvest. We call it an awakening. We're going to get woke up. It may be a rude awakening, but it's going to be an awakening. And God is going to prepare us. He was this last one. By the way, the corresponding to the deliverer is 2 Corinthians 1.10, who delivered us from so great a death. This last one now, I want to focus in on a little bit. I want to get to this one. He was a nourisher. Joseph was a nourisher. And that was the chief characteristic of his life. He was a nourisher. Everywhere he went, he nourished people. I talked to somebody on the phone this morning. And as I talked, the Spirit of God just began to speak to me a little bit about this. And I threw it out to this person. And he was just like a little nursing baby. He just took it. And so I threw out a little bit more. And he drank that. And so I did a little bit more. And he drank that. And I was just nourishing him. I hadn't even thought about it until now. Joseph was a nourisher. Everywhere he went, he nourished. What did Jesus do? He nourished people. And I've been meditating, and one day we're going to come back and do John chapter 6. I've been meditating for several weeks. I just need more time. On John chapter 6. That is a fantastic chapter on the life of Christ being He's the bread of life. Joseph was bread to these people. He was life. Now look at 45, verse 11. And there will I nourish thee. And he told them in verse 10 that they were to dwell in the land of Goshen and that they would be near to Him. And all these things, you see the life of Christ. But he says, I will nourish thee. Here's the ones that sought to kill Him and destroy Him. You see the life of Christ there. Nothing came out of His life but love and concern for people. As a matter of fact, this was a testimony that I'd heard about Mr. Graff, that he had great concern. Now, I didn't really know him personally. Great concern for people. I knew his father. I knew his father better than that. By the way, let me say this too about his father. When I went over and talked to his father and prayed with him, his father made this statement. God had a reason. And he said he had told one of his grandsons, don't question God. He said, you may not see it now. It may be later. Or never on this earth. But God had a reason. God had a reason for this pit in Joseph's life that he would be a nourisher. And John 6.35 Jesus said, you'll never hunger. If you're hungry and you're thirsting spiritually, it's because you're not nourishing or eating and drinking at the fountain of life. The life of Jesus. Now, he was a nourisher. Jesus said you'll never hunger. And in closing up the prophecy of his father, look at 49.22. 49.22 He went through the sons and he came to Joseph in 22. Joseph is a fruitful bough. If you're hungry and you'd like an apple, and you go to an apple tree and it's in season, it's time for fruit, you really don't appreciate the tree that much that doesn't provide the fruit for you. You want the tree to have the fruit. Joseph is a fruitful bough. Even a fruitful bough by a what? By a what? A well. Where did he start off? By the way, the Hebrew word for pit is the same word for well. This well is different though. The other one, I believe, was dry. This one, the definition of it is a fountain. Bubbling fountain. As far as I can understand. He is a fruitful Joseph. Not will be, but Joseph is a fruitful. Joseph was, back when he was a little boy, a fruitful bough. His time came, though, later on. In our children's lives is their life ministry planted there by God in their spirit. It's our responsibility as their parents to nurture them and to direct them into their life ministry. And so when he came along, and Jacob said, Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well whose branches run over the wall. The archers have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him. But his bow abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. Isn't that good? This is his blessing. And he goes on. From thence is the shepherd the stone of Israel. This is his blessing that his father is pronouncing on him. Even by the God of thy father who shall help thee, and by the Almighty who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breast and of the womb, the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors. Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills they shall be on the head of Joseph. And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren." It took that separation from his brethren to become that fruitful branch. Now, Jacob's well was there when Jesus came to the well. Jacob's well was there. And that's another whole story. But there's a little fellow in the story of the woodchopper. The woodchopper was an old man. Getting older. And he had five sons. Now, four of the sons were what we would say rascals. They stole, they poached, they were not nice kids. And the reason they were not nice boys is because their father had trained them to be like that. He was not a nice man either. He was what we would say would be a wicked person, ungodly, didn't care about spiritual things. But there was one little boy, the youngest son, who had a tender heart that was not like them. One day they were out in the woods. Their occupation was they were woodchoppers. And while they were out there in the woods chopping, a tree fell over and a branch flipped over and caught the father and injured him. And the sons brought him back to the house, bound him up the best they could, and went back to chopping wood. Through this, the father was seriously injured and could not work anymore and he had to stay home. Through this process, he came to a point where he remembered his godly mother who had prayed for him as a little boy. And he had left home early to get away from that godly influence. And so here he is now, broken, crippled, getting older. And his little boy and him are now alone day after day in the house. And he begins to see his way. He begins to see his sin. And he begins to repent of what he had been and what he had done in his life. And he gets right with the Lord and he gets saved. And then he leads his little boy to see Jesus. And they begin to read the Bible and meditate on Scripture. And he tries now talking to the other sons. And they laugh at him and scorn him and they don't care. They're very cruel. And they're very hard. Matter of fact, one day, one day the old woodchopper died. And the sons, when they saw that their father was dead, what are we going to do? Well, we'll just dig a hole and throw him in it. And that's what they did. They went outside and dug a hole and threw him in it and went off and got drunk and went on their way. Very, very callous. But then there was this little boy. What are they going to do with him? This little woodchopper's son. Well, they decided they'd get rid of him. And so they decided what they would do is they'd take him way out in the woods. So they took him out in the woods, way out in the woods, three days off, and they tied up the dog. And so they took him way out there and then one night they all went to sleep and in the middle of the night, early in the morning, or somewhere in there, they all got up and they snuck out and left the little boy there in the woods alone. He woke up in the morning and he thought, oh, what's happening? Then he thought, well, my brothers, they've gone off hunting. But then they didn't come back that night. One of the brothers had thrown out a piece of bread in the grass and he found that and he was able to get some food. But he was alone. The next night, he had to get up in the tree to stay away from the wolves and there he was. But while he was up in the tree sleeping, he had woke and he saw this light way off twinkling. Every now and then he'd see this little flicker of a light through the tree so he knew there's something out there. And so he began the next day to make his way towards that light. And on his way, he had a hard time. His dog caught up with him, by the way. He broke loose and his dog came up and there was this wolf. He went through all these things. He fell into a river and almost drowned. His dog pulled him out and saved his life. A wolf almost got him and his dog jumped in there and saved his life. And then they finally got to the house at the edge of the woods and there's an old woman living there all alone. And she took him in and her dog and began to teach him. He just moved in with her. And in the process of time, and it was a very quick time, as she began to question him, you know how the story goes. She found out this was her grandson. And she just rejoiced when she found out that her son had got saved and all this. But she was very grieved and kept on praying for the other grandsons. Well, time went on. He got married. The young woodchopper got married. The grandmother died. And he's there with his little family. And one day, out of the woods comes these four old scraggly men. Old men. Two of them were really pretty old. And they were starved. And they told him this story how they had ended up in prison. All their evil had come back on them. They had spent years in prison. Their health was broken and everything. And you know what he did with his brothers? He welcomed them in. And he built them a little house to live out there so they could get some work. They didn't have any work. And I thought, that's the life of Joseph. That's the life of Joseph. All things work together for good. And Jacob had said he would be a fruitful bough. He'd be a fruitful branch by a well. You will be a fruitful branch as long as you stay by the well. And draw your nourishment from the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for the life of Joseph given to us. Thank You for the life of Christ revealed in His life. And now, Lord, just stir our spirits up. Not to be slothful, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to let our requests be made known unto You. And speaking of thankfulness, Father, we ask that You would give us a spirit to look forward with praise so that we'll be able to look backward with joy. There's Joseph. Looking back now with joy, seeing how that pit worked out. And then, Father, that we would be able to look upward with thanksgiving so that we would be able to look around with gratitude. And because of that spirit of Christ that was in Joseph, He, like the woodchopper boy, drew His brothers into His home and ministered to them and brought them to Christ also. Father, our lives are to be a testimony of the living Christ in our lives. And we know many will not understand us. Many will think we're off track. And many will ridicule us or be questioning us and whatever. And we know that we're not perfect. We've got many things to learn. But we thank You that Your grace will be sufficient for every moment that we live as long as we draw upon it and receive our nourishment from You. We thank You in Jesus' name, Amen.