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Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021
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Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2021
2021: From Bitter to Better
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From Bitter to Better
2021
Associate Pastor Cole Parleir
Focus: When we trust God and His plan, He will take us from bitter to better.
Prophetic Word for 2021
Second City Church, in 2021 God is giving us the choice to get bitter or get better. We have the choice to remain in fear of life's uncertainties harboring anger and bitterness toward God for the circumstances He allowed that caused us pain in 2020. This choice will be justified in the eyes, hearts and minds of an unbelieving world. This choice will drive you into self-reliance unable to receive God's Word and plans for you in 2021.
We also have the choice to get better in 2021 by believing and trusting in God's redeeming plan that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. He is the God of all comfort who also disciplines and prunes those He loves that they may be even more fruitful. This lasting fruit brings God, our Lord, much glory and us much joy.
Today God wants us to know that He desires to take us from bitter to better as we move into 2021.
Pray
Genesis 50:1-26 ESV
'Then Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ‘My father made me swear, saying, “I am about to die: in my tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.” Now therefore, let me please go up and bury my father. Then I will return.’” And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.”So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company. When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and grievous lamentation, and he made a mourning for his father seven days. When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore the place was named Abel-mizraim; it is beyond the Jordan. Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them, for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own. And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
To move from bitter to better we must trust God with what was lost
When we trust God with what we’ve lost or what has been taken from us we are acknowledging his sovereignty and making room for His redemptive plan.
Trusting God with our losses is not approving of evil, nor empowering the evil One, or diminishing the real pain caused by loss. It is simply acknowledging a good and powerful God at work in a fallen sinful world.
We can trust God with our losses by not speaking evil of him or cursing those with whom the losses came through. We mourn with hope in God’s redemption.
Romans 12:14 ESV
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
“Be careful, dear friends, that you do not misrepresent God yourselves. You who murmur; you who say that God deals hardly with you, you give God an ill character; when you look so melancholy, worldlings say, "The religion of Jesus is intolerable;" and so you stain the honor of God.”
- Charles Spurgeon
God has never done evil nor can he.
James 1:13 ESV
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
God is working ALL THINGS together for our good.
'And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. '
- Romans 8:28-29
Ex: Peter vs Judas (one led to suicide and the other to a holy earthly life and eternal life)
"As we pour out our bitterness, God pours in his peace."
- Pastor and Evangelist F.B. Meyer
To move from bitter to better we must thank God for what was gained
God used the slavery and the famine to bring blessing to Joseph while fulfilling His redemptive plan for the world.
'See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
- Hebrews 12:15-17
Gratitude is the shovel that digs up roots of bitterness.
It can be a heavy shovel, and faith is the muscle behind the shovel of gratitude.
When we by faith ask God to open our eyes to see His good plan he is pleased to do so.
When we remind people of the gospel of Christ's redemptive work on the cross and resurrection, we are helping others with our faith dig down deep and uproot ugly bitterness.
If bitterness is not DUG up it will SPRING up and defile not just you but your sphere of influence. You have to make a choice to employ gratitude or let bitterness root. There is no middle ground.
'Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” '
- Mark 10:29-31
To move from bitter to better we must build on what remains
Because God is The Redeemer, He can and is always building even when the world is destructing.
Joseph’s brothers destroyed their family and yet God turned that same family into a large nation which became the earthly lineage of God’s one and only son, Jesus Christ who would make salvation available to the whole world.
At the end of Joseph's life he became a prophetic voice to God's redeeming plan of salvation for his family, stating that God would deliver them from Egypt according to the promise of God made to Abraham.
God brought his one and only Son Jesus Christ into the world not to condemn the world, but to save it and redeem it.
'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
' Matthew 24:35
Because of the power of Christ’s sacrifice we can leave 2020 at the foot of the cross where the blood of Christ covers it, uses it for our good, and will one day bring justice to all the unrepentant evil.
When we are pruned or shaken we are blessed to see what is at the core: Christ or self.
God has pruned you and now He can multiply you with fruit that will last.
Today the invitation is two fold:To the lost and bitter:
Come to Christ as the Rock of Ages and only redeemer who leads you into eternal life.
To the believer:
Don't miss the grace of God and allow bitterness to take root.
This is not God's plan for your life.
Trust him, thank him, and build on God's promises in Christ that are trustworthy.
Second City Church - Associate Pastor Cole Parleir 2021