Sunday Sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 16 April 2023 

Psalm 81:5- This He established in Joseph as a testimony, When He went throughout the land of Egypt, Where I heard a language I did not understand.

What came first? Was it the testimony or was it the reason for the testimony?

• God first established Joseph as a testimony. Joseph was going to be wrongly accused by Potiphar’s wife, he even went through the prison and pit.
• Even through the challenges and losses you go through, you serve a God who will bring forth a testimony in its midst. The testimony is not after you go through a challenge but God has established your testimony right at the beginning, even before you face the challenges.
• When you see a difficult situation, you need to declare that “I have a testimony and I have a lifting up after this”. If you are going through a health situation, you need to say that the heavens have a testimony of healing for me. 
• God projected Joseph’s testimony even before he went through the challenges and the pits. 

Even before challenges, the end result is already declared by God, the creator of heaven and earth, the alpha and omega. 

• If that is the case, do not sit there burdened, God will come to your rescue. Blessed be the name of Jesus. God has seen the end from the beginning. Knowing this will bring courage and confidence in you. 
• When I see a problem, I ask God, what is the testimony that You have kept for me at the end of these challenges? If you are a man or woman of faith, if you worship God, if you carry the Holy Ghost’s presence, if you walk with Jesus, you will ask HIM that. 
• The uniqueness of Joseph was that he was a Presence man. Wherever he was, he carried the presence of God. Whether it was in Potiphar’s house or in prison, he carried the Presence of God and God was with Joseph.

God is raising a generation that will carry the Presence of God. 

MOSES DESIRED GOD’S PRESENCE

• Moses was leading a church and God said that He will send an angel to lead them our but Moses said that he wanted the Presence of God to go before them. God responded to Moses saying I will cause MY Presence to come with you and I will give you rest. 
• If you have the Presence of God, even if you go through wilderness, a land that is dry and arid full of snakes and scorpions, thorns and bristles, God will give you rest even there. • Moses did not have tools no weapons and no systems to really back him, no army, but because He had the Presence of God with him, he was able to deliver a nation and bring it out. • Even if you don’t have anything else in your hand, God will open unimaginable portals of heaven over your life, you will see miracles. You will see the red sea part, you will see giants fall, Jericho walls fall etc. This day worship Him in the Spirit if you understand the presence of God. • In Luke 11, we see both Martha and Mary. Martha was actually a Presence personbecause she brought Jesus home. But once He came home, she became a performance person; she felt she needed to do something to impress Jesus. But Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and kept having conversations with Jesus. Jesus said, Mary has chosen the best part.

The best part is to taste His presence and sit at His feet

• Don’t be under the pressure that you need to always do something. If you just give the priority to Jesus’ presence that is enough, and if you become someone who tastes the presence of God, that is sufficient.

Mark 3:13- 13 And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. 

• Jesus called to Himself those He wanted. He has a deep understanding of who you are. You are not listening to this message by chance. He knows you, He calls you knowing your weaknesses. He knew them and HE called them. 

He called them to be with Him. 

• Because they were with Him, they were able to heal the sick, cast out demons etc. • You need to first sit in His presence and receive that direction and unction on what to do and then you will see God’s miracles. But if you go without first receiving that direction from God, then it is useless you laying hands on others. 

There are two sets of people 

1. Co-workers- the people who work with Jesus i.e. those that sit at His feet. 2. Go-workers- they want to do something. They have neither been sent by God, nor has God told them what to do and neither did they receive direction from His presence. • You need to be co-workers. You need to sit with Jesus. You need to remain in His presence and then do what you need to do after hearing first from Him, and not doing what you wish to do or doing what you think is right but to first sit in His presence

There is a reason why God loved David, he delighted in HIS presence. David says, ‘one thing I will ask of the Lord and one thing I will seek that I will behold the beauty of the Lord’. He did not ask for the throne or for anointing. His presence is greater than all of this. 

• Lord, I want you, I want your presence. I want to know you. If that is your true desire, everything else will follow, your palace, your position, your chariots, songs, worship opportunities, ministry opportunities, and everything else will be added to your life.
• If you run after these things then you may never experience it. But if you first say ‘Lord I want your Presence’, then you will experience His blessing. 

Smith Wigglesworth carried the Presence of God. I have read that he never even preached a word most of the times. There is an incident - He was sitting in a train and reading the Bible. A person sitting next to him told him, I can’t look at you, when I look at you I see all my sinfulness and the

person started to cry. Then others around them also began to cry and they gave their lives to God. Smith Wigglesworth did not preach a sing word. But he carried the presence of God and people were transformed. 

If you want your children to pray in tongues and serve God, you need to be a person who pays the price for God’s Presence. If you do, then automatically their lives will be transformed. God’s work will be revealed. 

• Charles Finney and John Wesley would ride their horses for vast distances and people would sit on trees and watch him go by and they would call upon Jesus. No matter what you are travelling in, car, bus, train, flight, you need to know and be assured that His Presence is with you. 

Lord, I want your presence. 

• In Luke 2, we see that Jesus spoke in wisdom to the elders in the temple at the age of 12. Mary and Joseph found Jesus missing. He was their only son and they found him after 3 days! How would we have reacted if our only child went missing? 
• You may be going to church, reading the Bible, and doing everything right but the Holy spirit is asking you- is Jesus withyou? Have your forgotten the presence of Jesus? 

Greater than the songs, worship and fellowship is Jesus. 

• Gideon is called the ‘mighty man of valour’ despite being the weakest and the smallest tribe. There are two questions in your life that you need to have answers to: 1. Jesus asked the disciples- Who am I? Who is Jesus for you?

2. Who are you?

In Genesis 17, Abraham has a revelation of the El Shaddai GOD- Strong Nourisher, Strong Provider, Strong Giver – this was the revelation that Abraham had about the Lord. El Shaddai! 

Abraham saw his Isaac here. The Promise. 

• Who is Jesus to you? Is HE a strong provider, a strong healer, and a strong deliverer? Are you sure? Are you convinced? If yes, you will experience it! God’s presence will step into your body and set you free. You will see praise rise up from within you, let the glory of God fill you, let the hand of the Lord lift you. 
• Gideon is saying I am weak, I am from the least of the tribes, I am not good for anything. But God says you are a mighty man of valour. You are not weak. You are a person of valour. You need to know today who you are. 

You need to declare with your mouth that I am a child of God. That is your greatest title. Look at your life and prophecy with your mouth. 

• Gideon was told- go with this strength of yours and the nation will be delivered into your hands. immediately, 30000 people were called.
• We feel that quantity is quality, but that isn’t true. God says ‘not so many people’. You only need to know who I am and who you are. 
• You need to know who you are, and who I am saying you are. If yes, then you don’t need major contacts, major networks or major degrees, God will do greater things in and through you. • Immediately all the fearful people were asked to leave. 10,000 stayed back. They were taken to the water. Only 300 turned up there! God said only 300 is enough to deliver a nation! 

Tell your neighbour, ‘you will do great things. Just walk in obedience to Jesus. Just get baptised in the name of Jesus’. Keep close to Jesus. His presence is most important. 

WHAT WAS JOSEPH’S TESTIMONY? 

1. He was a Presence Man

• In that presence was God’s favour. You have favour in God’s Presence. Joseph must have thought, ‘How can I have a coat of many colours and still go through the pit and prison?” It is for a big testimony! A testimony that glorifies God will come through it. 
• You may have many degrees but not getting a job, why? To obtain a testimony. I have many ideas but nothing is bearing fruit. Why? For God to being forth a great testimony

2. Joseph had a never-give-up Mindset

Never give up. If you don’t give up, your problems will give up. 

• When problems come, you go after Jesus Christ. Your problems will leave you. That trouble will leave you. Paul says, press forward towards the heavenly calling. You will press forward. 

Philippians 3:13- 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have [a]apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 

3. Mystery of forgiveness

The highest virtue of Christianity is forgiveness. 

• The Christian life is not coming to church and sleeping for two hours. The greatest testimony of a Christian is his or her ability to forgive. 
• In Matthew 6, Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray. Your forgiveness is linked to God’s forgiveness over your life. 

Psalm 86:5- For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You. 

• God is abundant in mercy towards all who call upon Him. 

Psalm 130:4- But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared. 

• Learn to forgive. Joseph after all the rejections from his brothers, still forgave them all. Jesus on the Cross cried out and said Father forgive them for they know not what they do. 

Your deliverance begins to take place the moment you begin to forgive. 

4. God created for Joseph what never existed

• The ‘Prime Minister’ position never existed in Egypt. There was only the King and his ministers. Joseph was in prison the previous night and the next day he was made the Prime Minister! Daniel was in the lion’s den the previous night and the next day he was with the king. 

There is only that much speed that God needs to step into your circumstances and change it forever! 

• It doesn’t matter where you are. God is creating something that you never had. Did Joseph have the qualification to become prime minister? No! Then what did he have? He had the presence of God. 
• Even the magicians of that place called out and said that in Joseph is the spirit of the gods. May the Lord grant his church such honours. A position will be created for you.
• You will get an extra seat in a college where there is no admission left. Even in the place where the visa quote is over, one more visa opportunity will be opened just for you. Vacancy will be created where there is no vacancy. 
• There are doors that will be kept open only for you. When you show up the doors will be opened. There is nothing impossible for God. 

Worship Him in spirit and in truth, God will open certain things that don’t exist. Don’t conclude your life because of rejection. 

Brothers, Potiphar rejected Joseph. But that rejection was not the conclusion of Joseph’s life. Because God had already written up a testimony for Joseph before anything ever happened. 

Isaiah 53:3- He is despised and [a]rejected by men,

A Man of [b]sorrows and acquainted with [c]grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

• Jesu took my rejection. Your own family may have rejected you but the Lord Jesus will never reject you. You just need to take care that Jesus doesn’t reject you.

1 Samuel 15:23-For rebellion is as the sin of [a]witchcraft,

And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,

He also has rejected you from being king.”

• Don’t reject the word of God.

Hosea 4:6- My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Because you have rejected knowledge,

I also will reject you from being priest for Me;

Because you have forgotten the law of your God,

I also will forget your children.

• Because you rejected knowledge, I also reject you, says the Lord, in the scripture above.

1 Samuel 16:1- 16 Now the LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I haverejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jessethe Bethlehemite. For I have [a]provided Myself a king among his sons.”

DO NOT REJECT THE WORD

DO NOT REJECT THE WISDOM OF GOD

DO NOT REJECT THE PROPHETS THAT GOD SENDS TO YOU.

Whatever situation you are in, Jesus will come to you and if He comes, the Father also comes. DO not reject HIS word and then you will tangibly experience the Presence of God.

I will walk with Jesus, I will read The Word, I will worship and I will see my testimony. My name is Joseph.