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Hi, I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions and our last week
together in the book of Genesis. This is Genesis week 10, day one in our
chapter, "A Day's Plan" through the book of Genesis five days a week. That means
we're in chapters 46 to 50 this week.

And in this book, congratulations, you've made it through a study of the book of
Genesis. The first book of the Bible has many of the first primary truths for
our lives. It is life-changing to read what God did, not only in creation, but
also in the establishing of His promise through His people.

It is life-changing to see how God transforms our lives through His Word and
through His power. And my prayer is that God has changed your life through this
study. We'll continue to this last week as we look through it together.

And my prayer is that He'll really solidify all that we've learned together
through this book in this last week together of looking at this book. Remember,
in this last section of Genesis, as we're looking through the life of Joseph, we
have been looking at the fact that his life was designed and developed around a
dream that God had given. And we've been talking about what it takes not only to
receive the dream, but then once you receive it, how do you manage the dream?

How do you begin to live out this dream that God has brought into reality in
your life? And last week we talked about the first four things you have to do.
Number one, you have to develop discipline.

Number two, you have to choose service. That's how you manage a God-given dream.
You choose to serve.

Number three, you always remember who owns the dream. And number four, you learn
to forgive. It's part of managing a God-given dream.

The fifth thing we learn is in these first couple of verses of chapter 46. What
did dream managers do? Number five, they finished the job.

They finished what they've set out to do. They don't get halfway there and then
stop. They don't get a little bit of the dream finished and think, "Well, that's
enough.

" They go all the way through and they finish the job. Joseph, who had this
incredible dream that he had raised to the highest leadership of some place. He
didn't know it was Egypt when he first had the dream.

When that dream came true, when he got the robe and the scepter, he could have
said, "Well, that's good enough. I'll do a year of this and then I'll retire. "
But he didn't.

He finished the dream. In fact, Joseph's most significant contributions came
seven years after he even received the dream. He got raised to this position of
power.

He received the dream and it wasn't until seven years later that his most
significant contributions came. He fed Egypt during the time of famine after
they had seven years of plenty. He moves Israel and his whole family to Egypt to
be saved from destitution and possible starvation.

That happens seven years later. When God gives you a dream, it's a long-term
dream. When you receive the dream, there is that moment of thrill, but then,
then you live it out.

You finish the job. Let me read for you what happens in Genesis chapter 46
verses 28 to 34. "Now Jacob sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to get directions
to Goshen.

" Remember they're moving their whole family to Egypt, down to Goshen, a section
of Egypt. "When they arrived in the region of Goshen, Joseph had his chariot
made ready and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. As soon as Joseph
appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long
time.

Israel said to Joseph, 'Now I am ready to die, since I have seen for myself that
you are still alive. ' And then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's
household, 'I will go up and speak to Pharaoh and will say to him, 'My brothers
and my father's household, who were living in the land of Canaan, have come to
me. The men are shepherds.

They tend livestock, and they have brought along their flocks and herds and
everything that they own. When Pharaoh calls you in and asks, 'What is your
occupation? ' you should answer, 'Your servants have tended livestock from our
boyhood on, just as our fathers did.

Then you will be allowed to settle in the region of Goshen, for all the
shepherds are detestable to the Egyptians. '" Here is Joseph. He's still
managing the dream.

He's making sure that when his family moves down to Egypt from the promised
land, that they are given one of the most fertile, one of the most promising
parts of Egypt. And they do it by saying, "We're shepherds. " And so Pharaoh
says, because they didn't like shepherds, "Well, we'll just put you all together
out here.

In fact, we won't put anybody else out there. " And they were allowed to have
one of the best places in Egypt because of that. And Joseph knew this.

He was managing the dream, but this didn't happen immediately. It only happened
later. I want you to especially notice as we see how God brought the children of
Israel from the promised land down to Egypt.

And some of you know this story. They're going to live in Egypt for 430 years.
For a while, it's going to be good.

But then the Bible tells us that someone came in who did not know this Pharaoh,
who was so kind to the Israelites, and all of a sudden everything changed. They
began to be oppressed, and then they became slaves, and the slavery became a
terrible thing to the people of Israel. And finally, Moses has to set the people
free.

That's going to be this 430-year history that the people of Israel have in the
land of Egypt. I want you to notice something that happens in these verses is
extremely important for understanding how God works in our lives. In chapter 46,
going back to verses 1 to 7, listen to what happened to Jacob.

So Israel, or Jacob, set out with all that was his. And when he had reached
Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father, Isaac. And God spoke
to Israel in a vision at night and said, "Jacob, Jacob, here I am," he replied.

"I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Do not be afraid to go down to
Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt
with you.

I will surely bring you back again, and Joseph's own hand will close your eyes.
" And then Jacob left Beersheba, and Israel's sons took their father Jacob and
their children and their wives and their carts that Pharaoh had sent to
transport them. And they also took with them their livestock and the possessions
they had acquired in Canaan.

And Jacob, in all his offspring, went to Egypt. He took with him to Egypt his
sons and grandsons and his daughters and granddaughters, all his offspring. So
here they are on their way down to Egypt.

And yes, here in this land of Egypt, they would become a greater nation. They
would grow as a nation. But here, as I mentioned earlier, they would also become
slaves.

They would face the death of their own children at the hands of the Egyptians.
They'd have to be set free by Moses from this terrible slavery. So what is
happening in these verses when God says, "I am the God of your father, don't be
afraid to go down to Egypt"?

They were walking and riding right into the midst of God's will. But God knew,
God knew that 400 years later they were going to face a great oppression. So why
did he send them there?

Why did he say to Jacob, "Don't be afraid to go there"? Understanding the why of
that is understanding one of the most important things in your life and my life
for seeking the will of God. God's will does not mean that you are put into a
place where there are no problems in this world.

There is no such place in this world. It means, when you're put into the place
of God's will, it means that even your problems lead towards the great things
that God is doing in this world. It's not about where God places you in this
world.

It is about what God is doing in this world. And he wants to place you in a
place where he can do what he is doing in this world. So yes, the people of
Israel had to face a terrible slavery.

But if they'd stayed in the land of Israel, they would have faced a terrible
starvation. There's no escape from problems. The question is, am I in the center
of God's will?

And if I am, the fact that there are problems, he can use those. He can use
those to show his greatness in this world. Even as he used the way that he set
the people of Israel free from Egypt, taking them out by the Red Sea, splitting
the Red Sea, building into the lives, their lives and our lives even today, a
story of faith that's never to be forgotten.

It shows who God is. If you think that because you're having problems in your
life right now, it must mean you're not in the center of God's will, absolutely
not. There is no place where you're not going to have problems in this world.

The question is, where does God want you? And what does God want to be doing in
your life? Now, I'm not saying that God does not protect us.

He does. He protected the people of Israel as they went down to Egypt, making
sure they were in the right place. And once he saw they were taken into slavery,
he brought Moses in to set them free.

God will protect you. He'll bring you out through the problems. But he doesn't
protect us from ever having a problem.

When you have problems, recognize that God is there, not only working in the
problem, but to bring you through the problem to the place of greater glory for
himself. And that's what it's all about. Let's pray again.

Jesus Christ, thank you that you understand. You understand problems because you
suffered while you were in this world. You suffered in the doing of God's will.

You were every second of your life right in the center of the Father's will. And
you suffered persecution, you suffered torture, you suffered even death. But
Jesus Christ, that's not the end of the story.

Your suffering is not the end of the story. God's glory is because God brought
glory to himself through your suffering. Lord, you understand problems and you
see the problems that I'm having that we're having right now.

And as you see these problems, you know the good that you can bring out of them.
You know how you're going to bring us through them. I pray you'd give us faith
to see, even when we can't see the answer, to see that you're at work and that
we can trust you.

And instead of running from problems, we'd run to you, whatever the problem, and
we trust in you. We ask this, Jesus, in your name, amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to talk more about managing God's dream and finishing the job.