 Again, once again, we want to welcome every single person that is watching us live. We want to welcome you in the presence of God and also as you are here in this place, we believe your time will not be wasted, amen. As you are already in this place, we believe that you were blessed by these testimonies and we're going to go into the Word. And in these just short minutes, I believe that God will still give you more grace to overcome the challenges that you face in your life. Amen, church. This evening I just want to speak quickly on a topic called the temptation to derail. The temptation to derail. Each one of us in life, we have two things that are in common. We have a beginning and we have a destiny. Each one of us, we have that and that cannot change. You, whatever you do, you cannot change your beginning the way you were born, the way you brought to this world, and you cannot change your destiny, the dream, the goals that God has for your life. But there's one thing that each one of us have in charge and we're in control of is that space in between your birth and your destiny. It is that place, the time that you have to get to the goal, to the destination that God has for your life. Satan cannot take away your destiny. He cannot destroy a destiny, but he can tamper of how long it takes for you to get there. Through your situation, Satan either can make you derail and can make you stagnant or he can make you abandon the destiny that God has for your life. The question I have for you tonight is how do you handle your situation? Ask your neighbor, how do you handle yours? To ask your other neighbor, how do you handle yours? We know that the graveyard is the richest place on this earth because there was many dreams, many talents, many destinies that were abandoned because Satan has succeeded through temptations, through sin, through unforgiveness to derail people from what God has called them to. If you go to the graveyard today, there's so many ideas, so many inventions, so many talents and dreams were shattered on the rock of temptation because people could not say no to sin and couldn't say yes to what God has done for their lives. If you have your Bibles, let us open to the book of Genesis, chapter 37 and we're going to read from verses 18 through 20. And it says this, Now when they saw him afar, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. Then they said to one another, look, this dreamer is coming. Come, therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit and we shall say some wild beast has devoured him. We shall see what will happen of his dreams. We have to understand that every single person that you ask in this place who wants to be great, who wants to achieve their dreams, who wants to accomplish great things for God, who wants to rewrite the history of their family, not one person will say that they do not want to do that. Every single person, they want to accomplish great things, they want to do mighty things, they want to become millionaires, they want to become great husbands, they want to become great pastors, great leaders, they want to become healthy in their body, they want to become the center of their own world, but it is that not everybody is willing to commit and pay the price to get there. Everybody is willing, but not many are willing to commit and willing to be persistent. We live in the generation today that they want to do everything like a microwave. They want to get the best job just through one interview. They want to rise on top just through one act. They want to just do these leaps of faith and not live a lifestyle of faith to accomplish what God has for their lives. Everybody is willing, but few are willing to commit and pay the price for it. Everybody wants the diamond, but nobody wants to go through the dirt to get that diamond. Everybody wants gold, but nobody wants to go through the fire in order for it to be purified and to be real gold. Everybody wants honor and praise and to be able to rise to the top, but nobody is willing to get the Ph.D. in blackmail, in backstabbing, in name calling, in slanderous remark. Nobody is willing to go through the pain in order for it to rise on top. We see many people in the Bible, many great and many champions of faith. They had to go through thick and through thin in order for them to accomplish the destiny God has for their lives. And this evening I just want to give few points, the things that we can learn from the life of Joseph and other characters in the Bible that we can take, that we can learn from them. How is it that they are able to accomplish the dreams that God had for their life? Are you ready to learn, church? I can't hear you. Are you ready to learn? Number one is no temptation can overcome you. No temptation can overcome you. In 1 Corinthians 10-13 it says that no temptation has overcome you but such that it's common to men. That even if it becomes hard, that God gives a power and grace for us to overcome it. God will never give you a situation and a thing more than you can bear. God has given us a strength and ability that everything that comes our way, we can overcome it and we can succeed. There are two types of temptations that I want to speak to you. The first one is sin and the second one is unforgiveness. Run away from sin, you can write that down underneath that. Second Timothy 222 says, flee youthful lust. We have to understand that God has never called us to fight sin but to flee from it. God has given us the weapons against Satan to withstand him but God has not empowered you to be able to... Let me go fight the temptation. Temptation is coming away. Oh, I'm going to see how maybe today I'm stronger, today I can defeat Satan. And our Bible says that flee youthful lust but pursue righteousness, faith and love. We are not called to fight lust. We're not called to fight temptations but to pursue righteousness, faith and love. We have to understand that, that we have to run away from sin. That is number one temptation that Satan brings to our lives to be able to derail us from our destiny. We have many dreams and destinies being shattered on the rock of temptation of sin. God has created and placed inside of your ability to dream, to reach high places. But many times Satan comes to you with his lucrative ways and begins to tempt you with sin. Say, you know what? You will not accomplish this. You will not get there. Just go have, you don't need to go to church. You don't need to live a holy lifestyle. You don't need to be honest with your finances. You don't need to be respecting and honoring your parents. You can just live however you want and you'll still get to wherever that you're getting. That is what Satan has come to Cain and he begins to tempt him and be given a temptation of anger. And Cain was standing and God comes to him and says, Cain, the sin is lying on your door and it's desire of you. But you should rule over it. You should overcome it. Every, each one of us were facing a temptation of sin on a daily basis. And it is a challenge from God to be able to run away from temptation of sin and to pursue peace, love, faith, and righteousness. And that is how we see happen in Joseph's lives. We see that there's two people in the Bible that were faced with temptation. We see Joseph and Samson. Joseph was faced with the temptation at the port of first house and he ran away from that temptation and it led him to prison. We see Samson in the Bible when he was faced with the temptation and he embraced that temptation and he also landed in prison. But we see the difference between Joseph and Samson being in the prison is that Joseph was graduated from the prison to the throne by Samson. He graduated from the prison with his lost sight and he went on to the throne of suicide. There's two ways you can get out of your prison. There's two times when every time we're faced with temptation, we can either run away from it or we can embrace it. We can say yes to youthful lust, to pride, to dishonesty, lying, cheating, you know, not being committed to a church, to be able to not be faithful at your workplace, not honoring your parents, or we can live a righteous life. Yes, we might encounter prison, but that prison, if you run away from sin, will either graduate you to your throne or graduate you to your suicide. To graduate to your life without God and that is life in darkness. That is life with the devil and that is a life in depression and fear and anxiety and in sickness. When you overcome temptation, every problem you face will be temporary and if you don't overcome temptation, every success you will have will be short. Every time you overcome a temptation, every time you run away from that temptation, every problem you will face will be short. But every time you embrace that temptation, you will take, you will say yes to sin, every success that you will have will be very, very short. And just like Eli said earlier today that whenever Satan offers to you with the right hand that looks like blessing, with his left hand he will take away that which your life depends on. And we see that happening in the Bible. We see even the perfect, you have to understand Satan is so clever. And he was able to take such a perfect life Adam and Eve had. I mean there's no, nobody can ever even imagine the life Adam and Eve had. And he was able to trick them and to lie to them and make them say yes to sin and no to God and he ruined their life forever. Satan is so clever to be able to bring to you something that looks like blessing even in the Garden of Eden where situation was at its perfect state. It is life as you could dream of. Satan was clever enough to bring something to Eve and Adam that looked like blessing. But with his left hand he took away that from them which life depended on. This evening I want to challenge you that you can overcome your temptation, you can run away from that temptation and to pursue righteousness, pursue faith, pursue love, pursue God. Begin to have and strive to that relationship with God. Yes, at this time it might seem painful. Yes, coming to church and committing to church it might seem like my friends are having so much fun. My friends are pursuing careers and dreams and goals and I'm here always at church, always serving God, giving my title. But you have to understand when you follow God, every success that God will bring to you will last forever. But everybody who's without God, their success is very short because whenever God, Satan gives them to them with his right hand, something that looks like blessing with his left hand, he takes away that which the life depends on. Amen, church? And second offense is unforgiveness, overcome offenses. We see in the Bible that we see that forgiveness strikes the root of all pain. Forgiveness means that we let go of that fence, hurt, regret or anger. We so desperately think that belongs to us. We see in the Bible, Joseph, when he was faced with the temptation where his brothers betrayed him. His brothers, you know, just plotted to kill him and then after that they were like, okay, let's sell him into slavery. He had a temptation not to forgive his brothers. He had a temptation, he had a hurt in his life to say, you know, they've done to me this. I don't deserve it. You know, I didn't do nothing wrong against them. He was faced with the same temptation of unforgiveness, but he chose to forgive and that led him to his throne. If Joseph did not forgive his brothers, he would never encounter his throne. We see the same thing happen in the life of Jesus. Before Jesus was about to, when he was about to die on the cross, before that point in the most painful part of his life, he said, Jesus forgive them for they don't know what they do. He was also faced with the temptation where his own brothers begin to betray him, but he had to overcome the temptation of unforgiveness. I was saying, you know what? Yes, they hurt me. Yes, they did wrong, but God, they do not know what they do. We have many offenses in our lives that may be caused by parents, that may be caused by loved ones, but maybe by husband or wife, by our peers, but those who are close to us and that Satan will bring that anger, that temptation and say, look what they've done to you. You know, look what they've did to you. They've treated you. They misused you. They abused you. They said so many words of you. They blackmailed you. You know, you just, you can't forgive them. And that is the temptation that Satan brings you to derail you from the destiny that God has for your life. We see King David and as he's been, you know, he's been serving King Saul faithfully and he was just serving his life and just give his life for King Saul to protect him, but Saul begins to pursue and wants to kill him. And if David did not chose to forgive, he would never become a man after God's own heart. He would never arrive to the destiny of being the greatest king that Israel ever had. And this is the temptation that Satan brings to you tonight. Overcome the temptation of offenses, of a forgiveness. It's maybe to your pastor. It may be to your leaders. It may be to your friends, maybe to your parents who ever has hurt you. You need to choose to forgive them so God can set you free. And then you can remain on this road and to achieve the dreams and the goals that God has for your life. Amen, church. And number two, and then the second thing that we can learn from the life of Joseph is hard work. Joseph was a man of perfection. He was the man of, he given his all. We have to understand when, when Joseph was given bread to take to his brothers. When Joseph at his Potiphar's house, when Joseph was in the jail cell, he became best. He worked hard. You cannot be in charge of a Potiphar's house if you are a lazy man. You have to understand that. Potiphar, who did not know God, who wasn't Christian, was able to entrust everything to Joseph's hand except his wife. Because Joseph was not a lazy man. Yes, there was a favor of God upon Joseph's life, you understand that. But the Bible says that God blesses the work of our hands. The only thing that your hand does is scratches your belly because you ate good, then that belly would grow. God will bless it. But Joseph was a hard man. Joseph knew the work ethic. He knew that, no, you have to work. You have to give your best. You have to, you have to be honest. You can't lie. You can't cheat. You can't just cut corners. You have to make shortcuts. He knew how to work hard. And that is something that we learned from that. In order for you to achieve the greatness, the dreams that God has for your life, you cannot be a lazy man. You have to work. You have to learn commitment. You have to learn consistency. Just like I said, in Potiphar's house, Joseph became the best. Joseph knew how to work hard. He knew that, you know, you cannot rise to the top if you're lazy. You have to work at it. You have to be honest. You have to go an extra mile. You have to begin to sweat in your eyebrow in order for you to get on the top. Because if you are lazy, nobody will entrust you with anything. In Proverbs 10 verse 4, it says that lazy people are soon poor. Hard workers get rich. And if you can, there's a quote from the Prophet to be Joshua says that, Everything depends on us and pray as if everything depends on God. Work as hard as you can because as if everything would depend on you and pray as if everything depends on God. We have to understand God cannot do your part. The same manner that we cannot do what God has to do. You cannot take God's job and God cannot take your job. It's a 50-50 thing that you have to come halfway and God meets you halfway. You have to work as if everything depends on you and you have to pray and trust God as if everything depends on God. You have to see another thing from the story of Joseph that Joseph began to fulfill other people's dreams. We see when he was in part of his house, he became to do everything. He was successful at everything that he did. When he landed in the jail, he began to serve in the jail that the jail man began to put him as a head of among all jail. When the people came, they began to serve them to fulfill their dreams, to fulfill their destiny, to be able to interpret people's dreams. He was not a lazy man. And this is called us to be able to serve people. Joseph was a man who served, who knew how to give to others. He was not a selfish man. He knew that in order for me to get to my throne, in order for me to achieve my destiny, I need to know how to serve. I need to know how to give. And that comes just like Jordan was talking today and challenged every single person that we need to start a home group. We need to learn how to give to others because God has blessed us. We need to learn how to begin to pick people up from their pain, to be able to pick people up out of their bondages, out of their sickness, begin to pray for people, begin to love on people and to begin to serve them. And that's one thing that we can learn from Joseph's life is that he fulfilled people's dreams. And what is the best way to fulfill people's dreams? It's through home group. It's when you get involved in your local church and you begin to serve people. You begin to pick them up out of when they were in drug addiction. You begin to pray for them that God sets them free. God raised them up. They get a job. They begin to have a family. They begin to have a marriage. They begin to rise up. They rewrite the history of their family. And that is the way you serve is through your local church, through your local home groups. To be able to give to those who are in need. To be able to give love to those who are in love. To be the father to the fatherless. To be able to give that care and attention to those that do not have a man church. Also in Proverbs 18 verse 9 says that he also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys. He who slacks in his work is a brother to him who destroys. And this is, we have to understand one thing is that there are many talented people. There's many gifted people and people that God has given them gifts. But hard work always outruns talent. Hard work always and always outruns talent. We're talking about being punctual in your workplace. We're talking about being committed to your church. We're talking about that you do not begin to lie and cheat on your hours at work. That you know everything that you're asked to do that you begin to do. You begin to serve and you begin to put hard work at home. When your parents ask you to do something that you just don't take everything you put it under the rug and I cleaned. Or when your pastor asks you to do something that you begin to put it off to put it off. That if our hands is lazy God cannot bless your hand. If you are praying that God everything I touch let it prosper. But your hand is lazy. You're basically praying a unfruitful prayer. You're praying a prayer that will not be answered. And in Proverbs 20 verse 4 it says sluggards do not plow in season. So at harvest time they look but they find nothing. And in Proverbs 6 verse 6 says take a lesson from the ants you lazy bones. That's you saying man. Learn from their ways and become wise. Take a lesson from these ants you lazy bones. Learn from their ways and become wise. If you can put up a picture of Thomas Edison and something that really touched me when he said that. How many people credit him as him being a genius and he said that I was a genius is only 1% inspiration. But 99% is perspiration. It means sweat and hard work. Genius is only 1% but 99% is hard work and it's sweat. And something that he said is that if you think these insane work ethic were only invented today think again. Thomas Edison has over 1,900 US patents under his name. Everyone thinks that he's a genius who was born to invent, innovate and change the world. But Edison does not credit his genetics for his many accomplishments. He said that I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident. Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard work. That is that. He knew that being a genius is only 1% but hard work is 99%. And that is something that we see in the life of Joseph. That every place that he was placed at he became the best at. He was placed in the part of his house. He became the best. He was placed in the prison cell where dreams were shattered. You think that it is the end but in the prison cell at his worst and the darkest place. He begins to rise on the top because he understood the principle of hard work. He understood if you're diligent, if you're honest, if you put in sweat, God sooner or later will begin to bless everything that your hand touches. Because God cannot bless a lazy hand. Amen. And the last point I want to challenge you with is live in the future state as if it were already here as if it were already true. This is talking about living a life of faith. And this is, we see clearly and clearly from the story of Joseph. They call him, hey look, this dreamer is coming. When God has showed him the picture of his dreams and his future, he was from that point. He was known as a dreamer because he lived a life of faith. He lived a life in the future state as if that future is already at this place. As if that future is already at this place. As if that future is already at this place. As if that future is already accomplished and it was already true. He knew that one day he would come to that place and he would begin to walk by it. He began to say, look, I am a destiny king. I am a chosen race. God has chosen me for the high places. And if you need to accomplish your dreams and your destiny, you need to live in your future state. Where is God calling you to be today? Maybe you are sick in your body. And God, you know God has placed the promise upon your heart that you will be healed. You need to walk as if it was already true, as if it was already here. That by his stripes I am healed. When everybody, somebody asks you, how are you feeling? I am healed. I am blessed. I have more than enough. You begin to work at your workplace. Like you are already, you have more than enough that you are a prosperous person. That you're no longer poor. You're no longer bound by you already. Everything that your hand touches is blessed. You need to live in the future state. Joseph knew that whenever he was placed in the part of his house, he never lost track of his dream because when the temptation presented itself, he said, no, this is not where it belongs. So he ran away from that temptation. Every time David was persecuted by King Saul and he was beginning to have the temptation of killing Saul. He knew that one thing. I am a destined king. I know where I belong and it's not here. It is not as a murder. It is not a one that goes against the anointed one. He lived in the future state. He knew I am a man after God's own heart. I am a king deep down inside. I know I am a chosen. I know I am a holy person. I know I am a righteousness of Christ Jesus. I know I already have my, me and my house already served the Lord even though maybe your kids are not serving God. But you proclaim and you stand on the promise of God that me and my house will serve God. Maybe at this point you are living from paycheck to paycheck and you have no money in your bank account. But you begin to proclaim that Philippians 419 that my God will give me according to his riches and according to his glory. So you begin to walk and you begin to talk like you're a prosperous person. You begin to talk as if you already had more than enough. When God says that he'll put you ahead and not to tail. You begin to serve other people. You begin to become a leader and you begin to open your own home group and you begin to be influenced other people. You begin to become a mentor to others to raise people because God has already placed you on top. If everything, maybe your marriage is not working out. Things are not, not, not working and just in a fight and anger. You begin to walk in the future state that God has joined us and nothing will separate. There will be unity, there will be love and there will be harmony. I challenge you tonight and what we can learn from the story of Joseph. Not to derail from your destiny, not to begin to derail from the dream that God has placed in your heart. Begin to run away from sin. Every time sin begins to present itself, remind yourself where I'm going. Every time people hurt you, backstab you, blackmail you, call you with names. Begin to betray you, begin to forgive them, begin to bless them, begin to pray for them. Have hard work ethics. Be, be honest at your workplace. Be honest with your parents, with your spouse and your family. Don't cheat, don't lie corners because God will bless your work. And the last of all is live, live in faith. Live in faith and many of you maybe will face a situation tonight. Maybe some things are unbearable but no one thing that trials are the soil in which a man of faith flourishes. Whatever situation is, if you are the man of faith, if you walk by faith standing on the promises of God, know that one thing, that trial is the soil in which you will flourish and you will be on top. In Jesus' name, amen, church.