Day 43 What If You’re Forgotten?

Good morning, day forty three. What if you are forgotten? What if? What do you do when you did the right thing? You helped the right person. You told the truth. You still you served faithfully and you still got forgotten. What do you do? When your name should have been spoken, but it wasn't.

What do you do?

What do you do when someone walked out of the prison? Because God used you to help them. But they left you behind. That kind of pain is quiet, but it cuts deep. It's the pain of being overlooked. The pain of being useful to someone else's breakthrough, but still stuck in your own confinement, anybody. And anybody know what that feels like. Come on, somebody knows. Somebody knows what that feels like. Somebody knows what that feels like. The pain of watching doors open for other people while yours yours stays shut. The pain of wondering whether God sees. God sees the service nobody remembers. Anybody? Genesis 40 doesn't give us Joseph on a throne yet. It gives us Joseph in prison, still serving, still waiting, still interpreting, still faithful, and then after all that still forgotten. That's the wound of this chapter. Can you stay faithful when people benefit from your obedience and still forget you? And should that change in any way? What we do, how we do it, who we honor, how we honor. Do we bring our obedience? Do we bring it before God and trust him with the timing of our release? Welcome to True Word Faith for Life. I'm Dr. Sean. Before we go further, my book, True Word Faith for Life, it's available in the store at TrueWordfaith for Life.com. I know, super hard to remember, was written to help you stop surviving on religious scraps and start walking in the truth of God's word with courage, clarity, and faith for real life. That's what we're living, right? We're living real life. Don't you want courage, clarity, and faith? You're living this life as long as you got a heartbeat. Don't you want courage, clarity, and faith? So here's the question for your heart today. Where have you started believing that being forgotten by people means you should be forgotten by God? I'll I'll ask it again. Where have you started believing that being forgotten by people means you've been forgotten by God? That touches some of us very closely today. Some of us feel very forgotten. Some of us feel like, man, we have given it all. Nobody sees us, but especially God. God doesn't see us. That question matters. It matters because Genesis 40 speaks to the long middle of obedience. Oh, it's all fiery in the beginning. All right, this is what the Lord has for me to do. I'm gonna do it. I'm doing it. And by day two or three, you're like, mmm. This is a lot. This isn't this doesn't feel like I had hoped it would feel like. The result that I secretly hoped that I would get. I'm not getting the applause. I'm not getting the thank yous. I'm not even getting the do they even know I'm here. Who's they, by the way? Who's they? Genesis 40 speaks to the long middle of obedience. Not the beginning, not the breakthrough, not the look, the middle. The place where you're still waiting. Prison, by the way. Prison. Genesis 39 ends ends a repeated promise. By the way, prisons then weren't like they are now. They were horrific places. I'm not saying prisons now are a good place to be. I'm not saying that, but it's comparing apples and ornvarks. Genesis 39 ended with that repeated promise. Do you remember from yesterday? Adonai was with Joseph. Adonai was with Joseph. That presence didn't remove Joseph from prison immediately. We all wish that it would, right? But it did sustain him inside it. And if we're gonna read the Bible honestly, we have to receive that. It's tricky. It's super, super tricky. So by the way, I encourage you if you're not a subscriber on the YouTube channel True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean, the main channel, the one with like 4,000 subscribers, I encourage you to subscribe. Dare say I do. Subscribe, hit the little bell for all notifications, and hit the hit the thumbs up while you're there. Helps more than you think. Look, if we're gonna read the Bible honestly, if if it's really going to hit home for us, true word, faith for life, true word, faith for life. Well, we have to read the Bible honestly. We have to read it in the ancient Near Eastern uh context, language and culture, if we have any hope of understanding it. Good morning, all. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome. And thank you for subscribing, Miyavika. Don't we want to read the Bible, honestly? Look, it's it's not the easiest book. I'm I'm gonna grant you that. We gotta work at it. This is my moose works Bible. One of 'em. You believe that? How cool is that? Anyway, it's it's a rugged book. It's rugged. It's rugged, it's tough. We have to read it honestly. Wayne Schultz 1589, he he wants to know why does God make people suffer? God doesn't make anyone suffer. You know? That's that's that's the the desire to make no sense of it. Of all this, to make it have nothing to do with any responsibility of ours. I do many teachings on that. I encourage you to go to trueword, faithforlife.com, the blog, go there. I'm telling you, it'll it'll bless you. Even if you're just here to disrupt, I would just encourage you to just listen. Just listen. Step out of the anger, step out of the anger, step out of the, I'm gonna prove this wrong, because you want to prove this wrong, you want to prove this not real. Because if you prove it wrong and not real, if you prove Jesus, if you prove God, if you argue it so well, so convincingly that you turn one or two, all you've done is sink yourself deeper. You want, you want for it not to be real because you don't want the consequences. So many challenges of the faith. This is not an easy thing. And nobody said it was. I say it all the time. I say it all the time. So I would encourage you to listen. Maybe you'll hear something different here. Maybe you'll hear it in a different way. Maybe you feel like God's angry at you. Wayne says God seems angry at us. Well, maybe you're angry at you. Maybe that's what you're reading. I don't know. At us. You don't speak for me. God seems angry at us. No, you don't speak for me. God's presence doesn't always mean immediate release. Sometimes God's presence gives you strength to remain faithful while the door is still locked. Joseph is in the prison. He's suffering. He's suffering. This is where the king's prisoners are confined. Well, that little detail matters. That's not a random place. He is near Pharaoh's court, though he is still very far from freedom. He's hidden, but he's not misplaced. He is confined, but he he isn't outside God's providence. So if we take a breath here, we just breathe it in. Then two officials of Pharaoh offend their lord, the king of Egypt, the chief cupbearer, and the chief baker. The baker. Both are placed in custody in the same prison where Joseph is confined. The captain of the guard appoints Joseph to attend them. So Joseph serves them. That detail's easy to pass over, but it's powerful because Joseph is in prison, in prison. Again. And it's unjust. He is in prison unjustly and still he serves. He doesn't say, well, I have my own problems. He doesn't disappear into self-pity. He doesn't use his pain as an excuse to stop noticing people. This doesn't mean Joseph is pretending everything is fine. How are you doing? How you doing? How you doing for real? I'm fine.

No.

No. Everything is not fine, and he's not pretending it's not fine. But what this means is he hasn't allowed injustice to turn him inward completely. Hey man, I'm tired of dealing with people. You know why? Because I keep getting the short end of the stick. I keep getting that. And man, oh man, am I tired of it. I'm tired of getting the short end of the stick. I'm tired of look, I've been in a pit. All I did was be me. And dad made this coat for me or had this coat made for me. And yeah, it was amazing. And yeah, my brothers didn't have one like it. I wasn't trying to be the favorite one. I wasn't trying to do that. And then he gets thrown into a pit. First, they were gonna kill him. Then he gets thrown in a pit. It's insane. Then they sell him to Egypt. Somebody from Egypt, come on. And then Potiphar's wife, she's trying to get all up on him. And then when he won't do it, and he flees and he leaves his garment behind, she lies. She wanted to lie with him, and then she wanted to lie on him. How many? How many there? How many? How many right there? For those listening on audio, I'm pointing at the screen. I don't know why, but I am. How many of you out there? Somebody lied on you hardcore. It's tough. It's tough. But it but he didn't allow injustice to turn him inward completely. He's still attentive. He's still responsible. He's still awake to the people God has placed near him. That's holy maturity. It's not fake happiness. It's not denial. Faithful presence in a hard place. Oh, come on. Some of you are in a hard place right now. I know and dearly love many people who they're in a hard place. There is nothing easy about where they are right now. Faithful presence in a hard place. Come on, somebody out there. You know that spot. You know that spot because you're living it. One night, both the cupbearer and the baker have dreams. Each man has his own dream. And each dream has its own interpretation. Well, in Egypt, dreams were taken seriously. They weren't treated as random mental noise. Dreams were often connected to divine messages, omens, royal destiny in the unseen world. Egypt has professional interpreters. This is a totally different place. Totally different place. Oh, Jonathan underscore C.7. Somebody, somebody had been reading my notes. Here it comes. It's gonna come. You hey now. Egypt has professional interpreters. This is how they were. Court specialists. Sacred texts. And trained men who were supposed to make sense of these things. But here inside the prison, there's no Egyptian specialist available to help them. There's only Joseph. So when Joseph comes to them in the morning, he sees that they are troubled. That is an important line. He sees that they're troubled. Joseph notices their faces. He sees distress. Think about that. Joseph has every reason in the world to be consumed by his own suffering, by his own pain, by his own situation, by his own worry, his own fear. He was trafficked, he was betrayed, he was enslaved, he was falsely accused, and and he and he's in prison. Yet he notices. Hang on one second, hang on one second. Wayne, you're not dealing with some chump here. Because you think that I'm too much of a chump to stand toe-to-toe with you with scripture and show you. You've rejected scripture. You've said, hey, I don't want to be a part of this. You know why? Because you don't want you don't want accountability for your actions. So what you want to do is create this environment of the easiest questions in the world about, well, why is there suffering? Well, why do little children get cancer? You don't care about children, you don't care about people suffering with cancer. You only care about you. I don't know your age and I don't know your life, but I figured that part out just from the little bit of very predictable crap that you put on people's chat. Stop being a chump. Stop being a chump and realize that there is absolutely something bigger than Wayne Schultz 1589. I can tell what's in your mind. You're small, you're a small-minded person, you're a weak person. And this right here, you feel like gives you power. It doesn't. It exposes you. It exposes you. There's no arrogance here. There's ultimate humility. Ultimate humility. I've seen a million people like you come and go. And then in the moment that the doctor looks them in the eye and says, You have cancer. Oh, sure. There's a moment where you hate God. You hate God. That moment when something horrific happens in your life. You hate God. There's that first moment where you hate him. Where the doctor looks you in the eye and says, You got cancer, man. It's stage four, it's advanced. It's beyond our ability to help you. We can we may be able to ease the suffering. Then guess what happens? Oh, in those quiet moments inside wherever you live, you pray to God. God, if you're out there, please help me. Why? Why? Does he owe you something? Does he owe me something? Nothing. These aren't insults, these are truths. You are a chump. You're a chicken. You're a chicken to face the truth of this. And there are many of you. And and in your feeling, your self-aggrandizing feeling of being, oh, I don't know. I'm smart. I'm intelligent. So I'm going to go and disrupt other places where people are searching for hope and searching for peace. The people do see me. They do see me. All my hurts, habits, and hang ups. Today. Today. Today. Oh, absolutely Yeshua is listening to me. He hears every word. Every word. And he's listening to you. You don't notice someone else's troubled face. All you care about is you. I want. I want. Take this pain away. Give me this. You're not unique. You're as common as an apple on a tree. Aren't we all? Look, he notices someone else's. Joseph notices someone else's troubled face. That's no small detail. Sometimes the evidence that bitterness hasn't won is that you can you can still see someone else.

Who are you gonna see? Who are you gonna see? Are you are you gonna look only only into into your your life, your suffering, your challenges, your fears. You're not alone.

There's so many people. Pause. It's not a question I don't know how to answer. This is a different teaching. This probably is way too complex for you to start with. You don't start with that question. You start with these questions. If you go to my uh true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean YouTube page, which apparently you're on, Wayne Schultz 1589, you absolutely will see where I answer it many times. This isn't the time or this isn't the place. See, you're one of those people that you walk into a room, you don't know where you are. You don't know your place in that room. You don't know where you stand, you don't know your standing. But let me tell you something. You have standing before God. And one of these days, you're gonna, that heart that beats in you, one of these days is gonna stop. It's gonna be the last beat of your heart. And you're gonna stand before God. And all of this smallness, all of this, all of this, you know, uh satanic smallness that you live in. That's where you live. And in hopeless anonymity. This is where you get a microphone. Oh, I'm gonna go to Christian believers, and I'm gonna try to disrupt. You know what you've done? You say, more attacks. You're a chicken. You'd never face to face say this to me. You never would. You never would. You know why? This removes you from anonymity, from obscurity. This thing right here. That's what gives you a microphone today. You wouldn't know how to behave with elegance or class. The only thing you know how to do is disrupt. Only a chump does that. The reason you don't want to believe in God is because you lack humility and you don't want accountability, and you certainly don't want the consequences. You believe in God because you're trying so hard to dissuade people of God. People who are placing their faith in him. So you absolutely believe in him. The suffering, the suffering that people have. Do you actually care? I'm talking about Joseph here and how he saw the suffering, the troubling of someone else's face, and he's in jail. A dirty, nasty, terrible prison. He's there. And still he looks outside of himself. Have you ever looked outside yourself? Have you ever attended to someone else's suffering? No. You only think of you. And one day, in one moment, you will stand before God and be accountable. And then because you have you have remained in unbelief, because you you haven't become a follower of the way, placing your faith and your life in Christ, you will remain lost because you will forever be in darkness, sorrow, pain, inescapable. Inescapable. For all of eternity, you will never be able to escape it. Look, that's you're you're lost. And you don't know it. You think you can argue your way out of being lost. You oh man, you will remain lost. Listen. Most atheists, I've debated them on the biggest stages. That's why I don't do debates anymore. They're a waste of time. Exactly. Either you believe or you remain in unbelief. You are most welcome to remain in unbelief. Doesn't impact me in any way. I wish you would change your mind. I wish you would open your heart. I wish that whatever has hurt you, or whatever hurt you have caused, it may be hurt that you have caused. It may be that you feel like you're out of reach, that God absolutely, yeah, you're not perfectly calm. You're not perfectly calm. He says, I'm perfectly calm, enjoying a nice walk. No, you're not perfectly calm. Sometimes the evidence that bitterness hasn't won is that you can see someone else. You can still care, you can still ask, you can still serve. Joseph asks this, why are your faces downcast today? Why? Why are your faces downcast today? Can you imagine being in prison and asking this question? That's a ministry question in a prison place. It's simple, it's human, it's attentive. He doesn't begin with a speech. He doesn't speechify. It begins by noticing, and the men tell him, We have had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them. And Joseph answers, Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me. Tell me about these dreams. Can you imagine being a person like that? Now we're starting to understand why God chose Joseph. My goodness, he's in the worst of circumstances. How many times have we just basically stubbed our toe and we're ready to throw God away? That's it, it didn't work for me. Reading the Bible didn't work for me. Praying didn't work for me. Being a Christian didn't work for me. The sentence tells us that Joseph's heart hasn't lost its theological center. He doesn't claim interpretation. Look, he doesn't, he's not saying, look, I'm I'm a I'm a man of personal magic here. He doesn't claim dream interpretation as some sort of personal magic. Look, I can do something for you here. You know, you got any shekels? Did they take all your shekels from you? When he brought you in and did the strip search? Because I'll take them, you know, I'll clean them off first, but whatever. He doesn't sell himself as some sort of spiritual expert. He doesn't say, I have a gift, so come to me. He says interpretations belong to God. Even in prison, Joseph points upward. Even in confinement, he knows the source of wisdom. Listen, by the way, Wayne, Wayne knows that. Wayne knows he's going to hell with without turning his life over to Christ. He believes in Jesus. He believes in God. He knows that God is absolutely real. And he knows that he is the creator of all. He just wants to escape accountability and consequences. And he won't. Just like every other person that does what he does and lives how he lives. I don't trouble myself anymore over it. I don't. I don't. You'll see the amount I engage sometimes, and sometimes I just ignore. But he's a known disruptor. This is what he does. He doesn't trouble me at all. And he's a pretender. He just wants attention. But the thing is, one day he is going to get the attention that he that he he desperately wanted. But that attention will be you spent your life not only denying me, but trying to get other people to deny me. Instead of living in your own belief or unbelief. And then you called upon me in that moment of your death. You called upon me that last time, your heart, by the way, that I created. You called upon me. Please, God, please, God. So many atheists call on the name of God in their moment of death. He's no different and he knows it. Even in confinement, Joseph knows the source of wisdom. Even after dreams contributed to his brothers hating him, he doesn't reject the language of dreams. He still believes that God can speak. He still believes that God can reveal. It comes close to us, right? Real word, real faith. This is where it comes close to us. We're living real life. Sometimes pain makes people cynical about the very place God once gifted them. A singer gets wounded and stops singing. Come on, I know many. A teacher gets criticized. And by a singer gets wounded, look, I'm I'm not talking about somebody who hurts them. I'm talking about somebody who says, you're not as good as you think you are. Well, you're pitchy. Well, you're, you know, everybody is a critic. Everybody's a critic. Why? Because these microphones, this is, I don't know, several hundred dollars. But there's cheap microphones. There's a microphone that comes with this. And so everyone has a microphone. This is why social media is both great and dangerous. Because people can be vicious in the comments. People look to go. And that's what Wayne does. This is what Wayne does. Don't be tripped up by Wayne. Wayne just Wayne thinks that he's just got this thing he's good at. He's not good at it. He's not, he's had that answer. He's had that answer given to him. Why does suffering happen to innocent and good people? Why? Why does it happen? He's had it answered for him a million times. He doesn't like the answer. Because it all means that he is accountable to God. It all ends up with accountability and consequences. And he doesn't, he doesn't want that. Place your faith in Christ. He already believes in Christ. He doesn't not believe in Christ. Oh, he absolutely does. And so do many others. Look, the singer gets wounded, and and and it things are so it sends them spiraling. And they stop singing. Jonathan, welcome. You can listen to the rest later. It'll pause where it where you stop. Thank you for listening. God bless you. Grace and peace. So a teacher gets criticized for maybe how they're teaching, and they stop teaching. A servant gets used. They finally realize, oh, wait a second, they're using me. I have a friend like that. I have a friend, dear friend, who will do anything for anybody, and he's good at any everything. And he's humble and he's quiet. And he's sweet and he's caring. And he's got plenty to do on his own. But people have figured out, hey man, I ask him to do, he'll come do it. And they take advantage of him. Sometimes that happens in churches. I say this a lot. Churches will use you, not every church, but some churches, they will use you. They'll take every volunteer they can get and they will work the good ones to death. Leadership is growing the volunteer base. And then when you can pay people that deserve to be paid, you pay them. But then we have a generous person. Look, I'm a generous person. My my wife will tell you. Much to our detriment sometimes. But a generous person gets betrayed and then they close off their heart. It can happen. A generous person might give a 20 to a homeless person standing at the intersection. They think, well, I'm helping. Then they see that person later on drinking, drinking gin. And you close off your heart. You go, man, I didn't realize. By the way, the worst thing you can do is hand people money standing in intersections. Much of the time, their plight is not real. Much of the time. Sometimes, almost 99% of the time, it's a drug situation. It's an alcohol situation. And and they will take money from you, absolutely. And then they will put it in their arm or they will guzzle it down. You're not helping them. You're not helping them. Here's one that maybe hits you. I don't know. Maybe you see you in one of these things. A leader gets falsely accused and then says, you know what? You know what, you ungrateful bunch of people? The ones that turned against me were supposed to be my friend. This is a false accusation. It's untrue in every respect. And you turned on me because so many other people were turning on me, because that's what people do. They don't stand by somebody. Look, if you actually did it, I get it. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta purge that poison. But here's the thing: there are many that are falsely accused, and everyone leaves them. But that leader gets falsely accused and they refuse to lead again. They say, no, no, no, no, no. God hasn't said don't lead again. God hasn't said step down, step away. He hasn't said that. The people, the social media addicted people, they do. Because once the wind starts to lean a little bit, once the wheat starts to lean a little bit, they're like, oh, I don't know. So many accusations, I don't know. No evidence. And I understand they allow it to destroy them. And they say, nope, I'm not doing it again. That that bunch of people, they're ungrateful. I've done all I can do. I've done all I can do. Didn't work out. How about this one? A dreamer gets mocked. A dreamer. Many have said, I'm a dreamer. My mother, my own mother. Well, that Sean's a dreamer. God rest her soul. That Sean's a dreamer. A dreamer gets mocked and decides to never speak hope out loud again. Look, I've been there. That's me. I'm the generous one and I'm the dreamer, and I can tell you. You get mocked and you decide never to speak hope out loud again. Listen, when you do this, when you do what I'm doing, you invite into your life some of the worst people, who, by the way, would never do it in person, but they can do a lot of damage with this. And they know that. It's their only power. And they think it's their only hope, but it's not. It's their downfall, it's their detriment, it's their ruination. So Joseph could have said, No, thank you. Dreams got me here. No thanks. You know what? I did all the dreaming. Uh-uh. No. No thank you. Dreams are what got me in this place. But he doesn't do that. He lets God use what others once hated in him. Come on, somebody's out there. Somebody's out there right now. And you know God can use you. But others have hated you for it. Those gifts that you have, quiet or loud, public or private, those gifts that he gave you those. And Joseph let God use what others once hated in him. That's powerful. Don't let people's misuse of your gift that you got from God. Make you bury what God gave you. If you have the voice of an angel, sing. Sing through your pain. Sing of God. Sing of his mercy. Sing of his ever-present comfort. Sing of his greatness. Don't shut that up because you've been hurt. Well, this gift led to so much trouble. I've got a buddy right now. The man is so talented. He's ridiculously talented. He's a classically trained pianist. He's unbelievable. He's played on the biggest stages. And there was this one reviewer that just hated his guts because he wouldn't give him an interview. He wouldn't give him an interview. That was the whole reason. The guy stopped playing piano. Oh, by the way, he's he's a believer. He could he could the greatest rendition of how great thou art I've ever heard in my life. He said, you know what, I'm not I'm not playing piano publicly anymore. Not doing it. And he buried his gift that God gave him. Don't let mockery become your master. Don't let betrayal decide whether or not you will obey. Joseph is still Joseph in prison. Not the same immature 17-year-old from Genesis 37. But still carrying the gift God gave him. He didn't forget where it came from. Listen. I understand you don't know my life. It's impossible for you to know it unless you you know me closely and you're in my inner circle. You just can't know it. I've lived a weird life. I was born a weird kid with insane gifts. Which, by the way, I thought everybody else had. But I was also born with immense challenges. God saw fit for me to overcome that. 2.6 pounds at birth. Two and a half months premature. But yet I was born with these weird gifts that I didn't tell anybody about. I didn't treat the gifts the way they should be treated. And some of them are gone. Take it in a moment. I do this, and I'm not looking for your pity, your sympathy, any of that. I do this because I couldn't not do it anymore. My medical team will tell you, it's my wife, my family will tell you, worst thing in the world I could do is do a daily Monday through Friday show at 7 a.m. for Pete's sake. It's the dumbest thing. I don't have the money for any of this stuff. I have to wear special braces to be able to sit up straight. My body is failing me day by day. And one day it'll give up. One day it'll say we've had enough. God controls that switch. And when it's when it's his time to call me home, it'll be time. Might be in the middle of a show. Might be in the middle of speaking, in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a word. What gifts has God given you that something hurts you and you shut it off? You shut it off. You've been given so many gifts. Sometimes people don't want to use the gifts for God and God's kingdom because they say, if I use the gifts for God's kingdom, guess what? I'll be a target like you. Look, I did a show, the collision of faith. It was a radio show, the collision of faith in politics. God in country, the collision of faith in politics. I was a target. Boy, oh boy, millions of people subscribed. But so many people. So many evil people out there. Horrific people. What gift are you are you putting away because you're in prison? Look, the cupbearer, he shares, he shares his dream first. He sees a vine with three branches. The vine buds, the blossoms, and and and it produces it look, the vine buds, they blossom as vine buds do. They blossom. And then it produces grapes. Okay. Pharaoh's cup is in his hand, and he presses the grapes into Pharaoh's cup, and he places the cup in Pharaoh's hand. Joseph says, three the three branches are three days. In three days, Pharaoh will lift up the cupbearer's head and restore him to his office. He will place Pharaoh's cup in Pharaoh's hand as before. That phrase, lift up the head, it matters. It matters. Amen, peace of mind, three amen. Lift up the head. In this chapter, that becomes a double-edged phrase. Oh, for one man, it means restoration, and for the other, it means judgment. The same royal action exposes two different outcomes. One is raised back to service, the other is raised up for execution. Talk about a dichotomy. Talk about polar opposites. Genesis isn't careless with the language. The text is showing us that Pharaoh has power over life and death in Egypt, but Joseph's God has power over meaning, truth, and timing. Just like the people that come here and they seek to disrupt. They're not looking for debate. They're not looking for answers. They have gone place to place to place, not for answers, but to disrupt. And maybe some of them are going place to place to place because they don't like the answer. The answer makes them accountable. The answer places for them consequences. I'm going to keep asking until I get the answer that I want. So then Joseph says something deeply human. He says, only remember me when it is well with you. And please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh and so get me out of this house. Joseph isn't stoic. He isn't pretending prison doesn't hurt. He wants out. He asks to be remembered. And that word remember is larger in scripture than in mental recall. Listen, in Hebrew worldview, this is why I do what I do, how I do it. The ancient Near Eastern language, culture, and context in that worldview to remember is often to act. When God remembers Noah, he sends the wind and the waters begin to recede. When God remembers his covenant, he moves in faithfulness. To remember isn't merely to think about someone. It is to bring them before power. It is to act loyally on their behalf. Speak my name. Bring my case before Pharaoh. That isn't unbelief, that's honest humility. Joseph trusts God and he still asks for help. Joseph serves faithfully and he still says, Remember me. Joseph believes God is with him and he still says, This prison isn't right. Some of you need to hear that. This prison isn't right. I believe you, Lord, but this prison isn't right. But listen, you can pray and still ask for help. You can pray to the living God. And sometimes the help that comes comes from other people that can act on your behalf. Sometimes it comes from you. Sometimes you pray, you say, God, God, God, uh, help me. My health is so bad. My weight, my this, my that, my diabetes is bad. And but the thing is, is you eat sugar and candy all night long. Sometimes the thing, the person, the entity is you. Help you. And sometimes it's others around you. You can absolutely pray to the living God. And sometimes his answer is, I'm gonna send this person or that person by. And sometimes he's gonna convict you and say, Look, man. You gotta stop smoking. You got C O P D, man. You gotta stop smoking. You can trust God and still pursue justice. You can believe God is with you and still say, look, this situation is wrong, Lord. My friends, you can look, by the way, first of all, let me just say this. God doesn't need anything from you. He doesn't need anything from you. He doesn't. If he never did another thing for me, I owe him my life. How many of you can say that? I'm being for real here. How many of you can say that? Look, I don't get anything for any of this, by the way. By the way, for those of you who give, I'm not a I'm not a 501c3. I say it all the time. I'm not a 501c3. You're not going to get a slip at the end of the year. You can do tax deduction and all that. But I'm telling you, it humbles me when you do it. It humbles me when you do it. You know who you are. There's a family out there that gives. I can't believe it. Every month, it is amazing to me. And I'm humbled every time. There's somebody that wrote me this beautiful letter, and her and her son gave me to help me with all this. You would be amazed how expensive all this is. It's crazy. And I'm so humbled by it. I shed tears on that page that you wrote that note. And these two people, the timing could not have been more perfect. Look, you can believe God is with you and still say, this situation is wrong. You can serve faithfully and still long for release. You can say, God, please, I'm, I'm, I get up and do this and I go and I do this and I and I do this. This is you. This is you saying to God, I'm tired, Father. I'm tired. You can serve faithfully and still long for release. Faith isn't emotional numbness. You don't make yourself numb. Faith is allegiance to God in the middle of your real pain. Some of you out there are in the midst of this. And and and one of those things that I said, one of those circumstances, it's you. It's the life you're living right now. Life is nothing but a series of ouchies for you. You feel invisible, and still you serve. God bless you. God bless you. Some of you have you've you've thrown away your gift that God gave you because you said it caused you, it caused me pain. Caused me loss. It caused me sorrow. It caused me hurt in my heart. I get it. I a hundred percent get it. Faith is allegiance to God. Real, true faith. True word faith for life is the name with Dr. Sean. That's the name of this. It's the name of my my podcast, my uh, my uh website, true wordfaithforlife.com. Why? Why do you think I came up with a this complicated name for this mission that I do? Why? Why do you think I did it? Because people they long for truth, they long for understanding, and sometimes even if it hurts them, they say, I just want to understand. Hear this. Take a deep breath. Then the baker hears the favorable interpretation and tells Joseph his dream. He sees three cake baskets on his head. In the upper basket are baked foods for Pharaoh, and but the birds, they're eating them, they're eating them out of the basket. And Joseph gives a hard interpretation. The three baskets are three days. In three days, Pharaoh will lift up the baker's head from him. He will hang him on a tree, and the birds will eat his flesh. That's sobering. Joseph doesn't soften the word to make it easier. He tells the truth. This is what's coming. We've been given bad news from doctors. Miss Colleen and I. Several times. You need to get your affairs in order. Have they not, Miss Colleen? Right to our face. You need to get your affairs in order. This is not survivable. This is how it's gonna happen. That's I appreciate doctors and care professionals who who are just up front. They're plain spoken about it. They don't dance around it. When I used to have to make death notification with a police officer, that's one of the things. That's one of the things I learned there is don't dance around it. This morning at 2 13 a.m. your your son was involved in a motor vehicle accident. And unfortunately, he did not survive his injuries. He has died.

And then countless times.

And and our doctors have been that way. I'm not asking for pity. That's that's not the point I'm making here. Not every message God gives is pleasant. Not every truth is comforting. That guy that was here, he's running from the uncomfortable truth. He knows he is. He knows he is. And believe you me, before you think I wouldn't, that guy, I would get on my knees next to him and I would pray with him. And I'd pray for him. I pray for the unbelievers every single day. Those that hear and seek to disrupt. I pray for them. I'm not some great dude, trust me. If you knew me and you knew my life, you'd know I'm not. I don't hate that guy, I love that guy. But soft words don't save. They don't. Joseph doesn't manipulate the interpretation to protect himself or gain some sort of favor. He speaks truthfully to the cupbearer and truthfully to the baker. Faithful people don't only speak when the word is easy. Somebody out there, come on. Come on. I need you to understand. Faithful people don't only speak when the word to be spoken is easy. They speak truth with reverence, even when the truth is hard. On the third day, Pharaoh's birthday feast happens. He lifts up the heads of the cupbearer and baker among his servants. Except the cupbearer is restored. And the baker is executed, just as Joseph interpreted. Then comes the last sentence of the chapter, and it lands like a stone. Yet the chief cupbearer didn't remember Joseph, but forgot him. That's all Joseph asked for. Just remember me. Speak of me. Speak of this. I'm in prison. I just need you to tell Pharaoh. That's the wound. All Joseph asked was to be remembered. That man was restored. The interpretation proved true. The door seemed ready to open. But the cupbearer forgot him. Not because Joseph failed, not because Joseph was wrong, not because Joseph was absent, but because the timing was not yet complete. Timing. God's timing is not. Listen, I'm very personally and intimately connected to a situation that hangs, decisions that are in the hands of other people hang in the balance. And the easier flow of things, the things that we would want to happen in the way that we want them to happen because it'll make it better, easier. Waiting on word. Yeshua's know is almost always, almost always the simplest of blessings. Hard to see. The waiting is difficult. The eleventh hour on my lands. We always wish God would answer in the first hour, but sometimes we're not ready to hear it in the first hour. Sometimes the truth, the timing, all of those things doesn't remove the ache. You know it and I know it. Being forgotten hurts. Being forgotten hurts. And this is where we have to let the chapter stay honest. Joseph isn't released in Genesis 40. There's no immediate happy ending. Oh, good. The episode is over. 30 minutes, you know, boom. There's no quick vindication. There's service, though. There's accuracy, there's restoration for another man, and then silence. Joseph remains in prison. But that prison that's not outside God's story. The Bible is still moving toward Yeshua. Jesus Christ, the faithful servant who was also forgotten and rejected by men. He was forgotten and ignored by men who claimed to love him, who spent three years with him. No, I don't know him. You're crazy. I don't know him. I don't travel with him. I don't even know the guy. I just said I don't know the guy. Look, man, I don't know why you keep asking me.

I don't know the guy. One, two, three.

He was abandoned and left his mom and other women standing at the foot of the cross, kneeling at the foot of the cross, bawling their eyes out because the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the only perfect man to ever walk this earth, tortured. And yet he cared for the sick, the sinful, the broken, the rejected, and the ashamed. None of those people showed up. None of them showed up. He spoke truth, only truth. Yeshua revealed the Father. He did good. Good, such good that nobody else had ever done. And still he was abandoned, betrayed, mocked, and condemned on the cross. One criminal mocked him, and another asked, hear this, to be remembered. And Yeshua said, Today you will be with me in paradise. Joseph asked a man to remember him, and he was forgotten. The dying thief asked Yeshua to remember him and was received. That isn't some small inconsequential contrast. Human memory is weak. Human gratitude fades. Human promises fail, but the mercy of Messiah doesn't forget those who call on him. Yeshua remembers his own. And if you belong to him, your name isn't lost in the prison I have for you today. I've gone way over, and I apologize. The challenge is this. Stay faithful. Stay faithful in the place where nobody is clapping, or the audience is tiny, and they can't do anything for you. They can't elevate you, they can't enrich you, they can't fix what hurts on the inside of you. Stay faithful where nobody is clapping, where they can't do a thing for you. Don't let Being forgotten turn you into someone God did not call you to become. I'm talking to you. Don't let delay make you bitter. Don't let disappointment bury your gift. Don't, don't, look, do not stop noticing the hurting faces around you just because your own face is hurting. Your own heart is hurting. Joseph was still in prison, still falsely accused, still waiting, still unseen by Pharaoh, but he wasn't useless. He wasn't abandoned. He wasn't outside the story. He served the people in front of him. He bloomed where he was planted. He told the truth God gave him. He asked honestly for help. And when the cupbearer forgot him, Joseph remained in the hand of God. So here's your choice. I said there's a challenge and a choice. Take a deep breath. This one won't be easy. Anybody that ever tells you that following, being a follower of the way is easy? Nope. No, it's not easy at all. It's very challenging. Will you measure God's faithfulness by how quickly people recognize you? Or will you trust that Adonai remembers what people forget? Will you become bitter because someone benefited from your obedience and walked away? Or will you keep your heart soft, your eyes open, your gift available and your soul ordered under God? Here's the concrete step. Here's the real thing you can do. Name the place where you feel forgotten. Call it out. Name the place where you feel forgotten, not vaguely, specifically. The friendship. Man, this friendship is one way. You're always there for what that person needs, but boy, when you need, never there. It might be the ministry. You serve and you serve and you serve and you serve. Total lack of appreciation from those around you. Total lack of help from those around you. They just keep asking because they know you'll say yes. Maybe you're a pastor and no one is coming to Christ. No one. Maybe you witness to people and you tell them about your story. You quote Bible verses, and no one is converted. Maybe it's your job. You're at your job, you're busting your hump. You're there early. You're the last to leave. Every time they need something extra, you're always doing it. You don't get paid for it, the title doesn't follow you. They don't recognize you for what you're doing or how you're doing it. They just keep asking and keep taking. That act of service you did, nobody thanked you for. Every time. But it just didn't happen. Write it down before God. Write it down. This you use paper. You use a pen or a pencil if they still have those. And you write it down. You write it down before God. This is a you and God thing. This isn't you, God, and 27 other people. This is you and God. And you don't be fake. When you take this pen in your hand, you don't be fake about it. You don't put it in a bunch of religious ease, church language. You and God, you getting real before God, the Father, the creator of all, heavens and earth. You take this pen and you say, Father, this is where I feel unseen. And you be real. It's time for truth. It's time for truth. Then I want you to do this. Serve one person in front of you this week. Without it being transactional. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Bendale. Bendale. Funny way to say that. I know that what that means in Spanish, by the way. By the way, I don't know if I thanked all of you. I don't know if I thanked everyone. I apologize if I didn't. I appreciate it. Even the fellow that comes around and seeks to disrupt. There's several of them. Some of them you don't see because I know who they are and I clip them out. I want you to hear this. Please don't tune out. I want you to write that down where you feel unseen, where you feel forgotten, where you feel unappreciated. Write it down before God, you and God. Then I want you to serve one person in front of you this week without using service as a transaction. Tell the truth where truth is needed. Ask for help where it's appropriate, and refuse to let another person's forgetfulness define God's faithfulness. That's shalom in the waiting. It's not pretending the prison is good. It's not pretending the delay doesn't hurt. But refusing to let delay disorder your soul. Shalom is ordered. Shalom has ordered faithfulness under God while the door is still locked. I said it before, I'll say it again. Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey. It's asking for a strong back, Father. We pray right now. We bring you the places where we feel forgotten. We bring you the service no one noticed, the faithfulness no one thanked us for, the truth we told, the help we gave, and the doors that still haven't opened. Keep our hearts soft in the prison place. Don't let us become bitter, Father. Don't let us become bitter. Don't let disappointment bury the gifts you gave us. I did it, I'm guilty of it, and I repent of it.