10-30-19 | Joel Gregory - Anderson University, SC

0:19 Anderson, it's a delight to be here with you. I want to thank Dr. Michael Didway and Clamp Divinity School and the administration of Anderson for inviting me to come over in order to share a couple of days talking about biblical preaching and also for the opportunity to speak to the chapel today. A little more than 20 years ago, there was a movie starring Will Smith and Stockard Channing called Six Degrees of Separation. Before that, it was a Broadway show. And what a lot of folks don't know is that it was based on some actual university research. A researcher named Stanley Meldrum had a hunch, a theory, a hypothesis that 30 people randomly chosen in Omaha, Nebraska were not that many people away from knowing 30 people randomly chosen in Boston, Massachusetts. Problem was, he had to come up with a way to demonstrate that.

1:28 long before the digital world before any text messages even email he decided he would give postcards little pieces of mail to 30 people in Omaha and ask them to send them to anybody they might know who might know somebody who might know somebody in Boston and he found out a fascinating result and that is the average person randomly chosen in Omaha was only six people away from knowing someone in Boston. They knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody. You've got the idea. That was long before Facebook. They say anyone on Facebook is only four people away from knowing anybody else on Facebook. Six degrees of separation.

2:31 One of my favorite biblical characters is the Hebrew leader Joseph, great-grandson of Abraham, grandson of Isaac, son of Jacob. You run into him in the book of Genesis when he was 17 years old. Let me just read a few verses to bring before you the life of Joseph. Some of you may remember that life. In Genesis, a book of beginnings, chapter 37, it says, Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger. This is the history of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lads were the sons of Bilhah and sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father.

3:30 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he's a son of his old age and he made him a coat of many colors but when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers. They hated him and could not speak peaceably to him. But Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers and they hated him even more. So he said to them, Please hear this dream which I have dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field, and my sheave arose and stood upright, and your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheave. His brothers said to him, Shall you indeed reign over us, or have dominion over us? And they hated him even more for all his deeds and his words, And thus begins the story of Joseph.

4:25 Now, if you just didn't wake up this morning with your Josephology right in place, let me give you a one or two-minute Cliff Notes abridged condensation, a synopsis of his life up to a point. He was the favorite son of Jacob. And when he was 17, he was sworn out to check on his brothers who were keeping the family flock. and he snitched on them now if you're taking notes today you could write this down nobody likes a snitch And his brothers hated him already because he paraded around in his new coat. So they decided they'd kill him. But one of his brothers said, no, let's sell him. We can make some money out of this. So they sold the 17-year-old down the interstate to Egypt. And there he was bought by a man named Potiphar. Potiphar, but Potiphar never saw a teenager like Joseph.

5:20 He said everything went up. Stocks went up. Bonds went up. Everything was better. So he said, look, I'm giving you everything in my house. You run the house, Joseph. You've got everything except Mrs. Potiphar. And Joe said, that's okay with me. I think Mrs. Potiphar must have been a member of the original cast of Desperate Housewives. I don't know what happened, but she chased Joseph all over the house. Lie with me. And finally he said, I will not sin against God. She grabbed his tunic, his Exhibit A, took it to the district attorney, and Joseph wound up in jail. He did the right thing, and it turned out wrong. back. Same thing happened in the jail. The jail had never been so good. Prisoners were peaceful. Everything was calm. The jailer said to Joseph, hey, look, Joe, here's the keys to the jail. I'm out of here on a tour. Good to have you here. You watch things. And at just that time, Pharaoh's butler and baker got thrown in jail. I don't know what they did. I don't know if the butler didn't press the pants, the baker burned the rolls, but they got thrown in jail.

6:24 and they had a dream. And Joseph was a good dream interpreter. And he said, Mr. Butler, in three days you're going to be back in Pharaoh's service, but Mr. Baker, in three days you're not going to have a head. And it happened. And as the butler was leaving, Joseph gave him his business card. It had two lines on it, Joseph, dream interpreter. And he said, give this to Pharaoh and tell him he's got a prisoner that doesn't deserve to be there. Well, the butler went back and got amnesia until Pharaoh had a dream. You might have studied it in Sunday school. Seven fat cows, seven skinny cows. He looked at all the astrology charts, the Ouija boards, that lady with the 800 number, or what's her name, Sister Cleo. Anyways, looked at all of them, trying to find somebody who could tell him what the dream meant, and the butler said, ah, I've sinned against God.

7:19 I've got a business card right here. This is a loose translation, but you're following me. You got a guy in your jail who's a dream interpreter. They knock on the door, and all of a sudden, Joe is standing in front of the most powerful man in the world who says, oh, that's a snap. I know you, what that is. And suddenly, he's the COO, the chief operating officer of Egypt. That's in a nutshell, Joe. But I want to hand you something this morning. from his life it's meant a good deal to me maybe it'll mean something to you and that is you're one degree at a time from the next thing God is going to do in your life now let me hand you this and I'll sit down but first of all you're one degree closer regardless of how you got into the mess that you're in.

8:21 Now, some of us have a smooth life, but others of us have a Ph.D. in messology. You ever tried to figure out how you got where you were? At the millennium, back in the year 2000, they built a new bridge across the Thames in London, the great river that flows through the city. One end of it was at the Tate Museum, the other at St. Paul's Cathedral. It was a pedestrian bridge. It was to be a marvel of technology. But on January 1, 2000, when they opened it up, the bridge began to wobble. In fact, it wobbled so bad people were holding on to the struts and the sides. They thought it was going to fall into the river. They ran everybody off, and the next day they let them on 25 at a time, and it did the same thing. So they shut the bridge down, the Millennium Bridge, and they tried to decide, did the bridge make the people wobble or did the people make the bridge wobble?

9:19 And they couldn't quite figure that out. That's a metaphor for me about how life is. Sometimes you can't separate what you did and what circumstances did to get you where you are. Well, you can sit down next to Joseph if that's how you feel. There was some stuff that was done to Joseph. First of all, he was from a very dysfunctional family. Read it.

9:51 He was the object of his father's favoritism. Now that's too bad because his father's life had been ruined because of his father's favoritism. I guess Jacob didn't know the first law of holes, H-O-L-E-S, and that is when you're in one, stop digging. He just kept on intergenerationally. That was done to Joseph. Let me give you a clue about something. I know this is pretty simple. You don't get to choose the family you came from. You didn't get a vote in how you got here. And you add to that, well, you know the Bible story probably. You know, here was Jacob. He worked seven years thinking he was going to get Rachel. and on the honeymoon when he lifted up the veil, uh-oh, it's Leah. Seven more years.

10:45 He gets Rachel. If that were not a problem enough, Genesis is a very real book. It says both of them gave him their handmaids to sleep with Bilhah and Zilpah. So the children of Israel, the 12 tribes, the children of Israel were 12 boys born with four mothers living in the same tent. You don't have to be James Dobson to figure that one out. It was not an easy circumstance. That was done to Joseph. He didn't get a choice in it. But then he did some stuff to himself. He was a snitch. I don't know what his brothers were doing, but he snitched on them. People don't like snitches. Dr. Didway and I have a mutual friend, Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., pastor of the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California. Oakland is the third most dangerous city in the United States, and the street where that church sits is the most dangerous street in the third most dangerous city.

11:47 A lot of danger. He got a young man out of prison with the promise that he could go to GED class, get an equivalency diploma at Allen Temple. He was sitting in the class one day when he got a text to come outside and to meet some old friends. The teacher didn't want to let him go, but finally he relented and consented, and the young man went out, and right there under a gold cross on a blue field, the young man was shot to death.

12:19 It was his old gang who didn't think he could have gotten out without being a snitch on the gang. Snitching, whistleblowing may help, but it can also get you in trouble, and that's what happened to Joe. and his brothers. But he also caused his own problems another way. He told people his dreams who were not ready to hear his dreams. Not everybody is ready to hear the dream that God gave you. That's why he put two guards in front of your mouth, your teeth and your tongue. Just keep it closed. Jesus said, don't cast your pearls before swine. he told his dreams to people not ready to hear them and I'm sure when they sold Joe down the road to Egypt he was trying to figure out what did I do that made me wobble and what did they do to me now come close to me this is where I wish I weren't preaching to you here as you sit in the dark sitting you over and just having a cup of coffee with you grace means you don't have to spend your life looking in the rearview mirror wondering how you got where you are grace means that god can take you right where you are and get you where he wants to get you there are people who live in the paralysis of analysis students their life is lived looking in the rearview mirror trying to figure out what did I do and what did they do to me and they freeze grace means Jesus Christ can take you where you are and knit you one step closer to where he wants you to be well let's join Joe again sometimes you do the right thing and it turns out wrong.

14:26 Here he is, a slave in Potiphar's house. Potiphar is an Egyptian word that means slaughter. So he's in Mr. Slaughter's house. God's blessing is on Joe. It sticks to him. Everything is better. So Mr. Potiphar said, look, here's the keys to my Bentley. Here's the combination of the wall safe. Here's my number at the private club. I'm out of here. like I said you got everything except Ms. Potiphar well Joe did what was right I mean nobody was going to tell if he slept with Ms. Potiphar chased him in in the house you know exhibit A she catches him she's mad she needed to join a 12 step program or something I don't know why but so he winds up in jail he did the right thing and it came out wrong now there is a silly version of Christianity today that says, whatever you do, every day is going to be more prosperous than the next.

15:30 No. There's a Greek word for that. Baloney. No. Jesus Christ told his followers what Joseph learned. In this world system, you'll have tribulation.

15:51 I know somebody here, in a Sunday school class at church, at a Bible school somewhere at a camp, you stood up, stepped out, and said, I confess Jesus is Lord. and maybe you bought into the fiction that everything was just going to be smooth as glass after that. Well, sit down and have a talk with Joseph. He did the right thing, and it came out wrong, but even that put him one degree closer to where God was going to get him. I always wanted to play chess. I always wanted to be a good chess player. I tried, but I could never think more than three moves ahead. If I moved my pawn, you moved knight, I'd move a bishop, and then I got lost in the thing.

16:44 Do you know that chess masters, once you make your first move, they can think 30 moves ahead all the way to checkmate. if a mere human chess master can do that, how many moves ahead of the game do you think God is?

17:07 He's not reading your life one page at a time. And even when you do what's right and it turns out wrong, God can use that to get you one step closer to where he wants to get you. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I don't know. When I was growing up, there was a toy called Mr. Bozo. I don't know if they still make Mr. Bozo. He's four feet six inches tall. You blew him up, and you hit him. Do they still make Mr. Bozo? Okay, somebody said, yeah, you still get Toys R Us. Well, my friends and I in fourth grade got together, and we thought, well, if we hit him hard enough, he'll stay down. I hate to tell you, we took a baseball bat to Mr. Bozo, just to see if we could keep him down. We finally got so curious, we did some forensic surgery on Mr. Bozo.

18:07 It was a very deflating experience for him. But we found out that he had something in him that we didn't know about. there was sand in the bottom of Mr. Bozo, and regardless of how you hit him, he came back up. If you are a man or a woman of God's purpose, of faith in what Jesus is doing in your life, we'd say as Christians. You will come back up. That's what happened to Joe. Because he found out that God was putting people in his future that he didn't even know who would change everything for him. Here he is in the jail. Jail's never been so good.

19:00 He's a man of God's promise. and the jail's calm the jailer says i've never had the jail this calm everybody's happy here's the keys i'm off on a cruise to the bahamas you take it joe and there's the butler and the vip prisoners thrown into the jail the same time joseph is there you're studying psychology here you may run into a principle called synchronicity it's a long word synchronicity it was invented by Carl Jung, a sort of a theistic founder of psychiatry. It meant this, that things happen in your life that seem to be at random. There's no connection, and yet they come together meaningfully. That's what happened to Joe. He's in jail, and two men with access to Pharaoh are thrown into jail. Well, they have a dream. It's interesting how God speaks in dreams.

20:01 I still believe he does. He can get down into the neurons and the synapses of your head, and in stage four, rapid eye movement, double dose of ambiance sleep. He can say stuff to you. I don't have time to tell you the stories. Well, that happened to them, Butler, Baker. They asked Joe. Joe says, oh, Mr. Butler, you're going to be back by Pharaoh three days, but Mr. Baker, you're not going to have a head. And it came to pass. Well, God does that sort of thing.

20:38 There was a time in my life when I was both publishing and preaching, and about every other month I had to fly to New York City because that was a location of magazine distribution and advertising. I flew up to Newark, New Jersey on an icy February night. The plane was delayed. I got in about two in the morning I grabbed my grip off of the baggage carousel and I was so tired I did something I've never done ever before since I went out to the cab line I got in the cab and I said take me to the closest hotel I don't care where it is well they took me to an old Ramada Inn right at the end of the runway I got out I didn't even know if I had a room and I went up and there was one room then hunger overcame sleep so I went into there was a bar and grill off the lobby and a guy was eating some soup. I said, give me some of that, eating my soup.

21:35 And out of the back of the room, even darker than this room, a voice came, Dr. Gregory. I wanted to put my hands up. It was Newark after all. a tall 20-something young African-American man came up to me and said, I'm Joe Carter. I'm pastor at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, 106 Sussex, Newark, New Jersey.

22:06 And he said, today I just finished reading your autobiography. And he says, it's strange to see you here. And I thought to myself, self, he doesn't know how strange this whole thing is. started a friendship more than 20 years ago that has been meaningful in his life and my life. He's one of my closest friends on this planet. We've spoken together around this country. I was at his church last New Year's Eve. I'll be there next New Year's Eve. He's a member of my ministry board, one of my closest confidants and advisors. and it all happened because of a late plane that showed up and I went to a hotel I didn't know about where a man was sitting who had just finished reading my autobiography.

23:05 Came close to me. God is a God of prearrangements. Right here at Anderson, there are going to be people you will meet who will come into your life. and it will change the direction of your future. Be alert. Maybe somebody across the hall in a dormitory, maybe a professor mentor, maybe somebody on transportation, maybe somebody across the counter. And the dry cleaners, but he's putting people in your life. I could wear you out. You'd miss class if I told you the stories of people he spent in my life that changed everything. And I didn't know it at that moment. well Joe is one degree closer you know did you ever get amnesia sometimes when you're down and other people are up or you're up and other people are down there's an interesting dynamic if you're in an empowered position or a disempowered position I've had experience in my life when I was disempowered and I wanted people to remember me and they totally forgot me until just the right minute.

24:21 That's what happened. Sometimes God can change everything quickly. Here's Joseph in jail two years. Pharaoh has his dream, seven fat fowls, seven guinea cows. None of his soothsayers, astrologers can help him. Butler says, ah, you got this guy in your jail. He's a great, he's a platinum quality dream interpreter. and there's a knock on the jail door. Joseph you're to appear before Pharaoh Pharaoh's nickname was the son of the sun the S-O-N of the S-U-N he's a deity Joe took a bath oiled himself up put on a new tunic and suddenly he's standing in the presence of the most powerful man in the world seven fat pounds seven skinny cows Joe says that's nothing you're going to have seven years of plenty in Egypt and then the Nile's going to drop you're going to have seven years of famine.

25:23 And Pharaoh sends a text to his HR department. I need somebody to run a national food program. And they text him back. Your Highness dummy. Duh. He's right in front of you. And suddenly Joe's the second most powerful person in the world.

25:49 A lot of times what God does in your life is slow. But sometimes you can be one degree away from what he's about to do suddenly. yes that shouldn't surprise us when you open the New Testament over there in the book of Luke there were shepherds in the field keeping watch over their flocks we've romanticized shepherds it was a dirty dull profession boring all you heard was all the time but suddenly there was an angel and with an angel a multitude of the heavenly host and everything changed. Jesus was crucified, buried, bodily rose from the dead, ascended back to heaven, and his followers waited in an upper room. He said, wait.

26:43 One week, two weeks. Suddenly, there was a sound like a rushing mighty wind and tongues of fire, and the church was born. Now, come close to me. There's one somebody in here right now. I can assure you with this many people that you're one degree away from something happening suddenly that'll change things for you. what's your next degree?

27:16 It's his hands. You know, we're not here. Anderson didn't hear we're not here. I'm not here because we worship Joseph. Joseph was like every human being, full of flaws. But there's a great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of Joseph on the human side. Jesus. Born of the Virgin Mary, chromosomes of God and chromosomes of Joseph's DNA. It's funny, they share some things in common. Joseph came from a flawed family and Jesus came from an unusual family situation too. born of Mary and the Holy Spirit. A lot of gossip about that in Nazareth. Joseph's brothers didn't believe in him.

28:13 Neither did Jesus. Read it in John 7, Mark 3. It was only when he was resurrected that his brothers believed in him. Joseph had to go down to Egypt to save his family. Baby Jesus took a detour to Egypt. And then came back and ultimately called his family and saved his family. It's called the church. We're here because we worship a Lord who one degree at a time came to his destiny. And the good news is this rainy day in October, he can do the same thing for you. Thank you. Thank you.