Prosper: Principles Of Prosperity

Welcome to 2026. Who's glad that 2025 is over? I rarely ever hear somebody say, I wish I could go back to last year. Even, why is that?

Did anybody have something good happen last year? Of course, right? But this year will be better. There's always that hope in the new year.

It's gonna be a better year. It's gonna be a greater year. The future's brighter. That God has plans and big plans for us.

It's gonna fulfill the things you've been leaving for that he'll bring them to pass. So it's a great season. I love to start a new year to kind of just kind of reset and restart things. So looking forward to that.

We're gonna pick up on Pastor Sasse's message from last week. But before we do that, just have a few announcements. And first of all, let me ask, Happy New Year, anybody for a first time today? Any guests with us for the first time?

I met you. Welcome. Glad to have you with us. Amen.

Anybody else? So one. All right, well great. Okay, so today, right after service, we're having a very brief meeting for anyone that leads a ministry, anyone that volunteers in a ministry.

So if you help in any capacity, you volunteer in any capacity, or you would like to volunteer, I think I covered everybody. So the only people that won't be here, the ones that want nothing to do with this ministry. So we just invite you to stay for a short time. Pastor Sasse wanna talk to everybody.

And then this Thursday night, so on a normal Thursday, Thursday, we're gonna do some new things this year. The first Thursday of every month will be Vision Thursday. And Pastor Sasse and I will be kind of teaching together. And we're gonna launch this Thursday with really the vision for what we see God's calling us to, not only into this year, but into the subsequent years that they'll follow.

So that we just wanna kind of start talking about what our vision is, our mission. How do we accomplish it, what God's called us to do? How you fit into that? So short meeting today, after church, Thursday night we'll just kick off our first Thursday of the month, first Thursday of the year with Vision.

Really Vision Thursday. We got some exciting things. We're gonna have every third, I think third Thursday of the month, we're gonna have a pizza night or food night. So we've got some fun stuff we're gonna do this year, change up a little bit.

So please come out. Funny story. This is a terrible, not I guess, I shouldn't say it's a terrible verse, but you ever hear the verse in the Old Testament and it says, and be sure your sin will find you out. So there's certain things you can do and you keep them secret, but eventually something's gonna come to the surface and it's gonna be exposed.

So the last night, Kristen and I came home, we went to visit my parents for a little bit. My mom, 78 years old this morning, shout out to my mother. Happy birthday, mom. Favorite, blessed woman of God I am, what I am today, a lot of because of the prayers of my mother from all life.

But whenever I get my mom a birthday gift last night and when we get home to our house, on the floor, now we have two dogs and we never know which dog is the bad dog. See, I tend, Kristen has a favorite and her favorite's name is Willow and in her mind, Willow never does any wrong. This dog can do no wrong. And my dog's name is Grayson and he gets blamed for everything.

So on the floor in the living room is a box of chocolates that I was given for Christmas and the box is shredded and the only thing left of course dogs shouldn't eat chocolate, but they got in, got up on the counter, grabbed his box of chocolate and devoured him. And they were the ones that are like the individually wrapped, think they're Lindor or something like that. They're like the wrappers on them. Everything's gone.

Of course, who do you think Kristen blames? Graham's Blaine's Grayson. Blaine's Grayson. Well, we get up this morning and don't you know your sin will find you out.

Because it wasn't the one that she blamed, it was Willow because Willow vomited up the evidence. And up come all the chocolate wrappers that she not only devoured the chocolate, but ate the wrappers too. And I was like, oh, see here's, Kristen said, Grayson ate the chocolate, Willow ate the wrappers. Sure.

However you want to spin it, but funny. And I did get a little, I feel like a prophetic word for today. So it comes from Psalm 147 and it's in verse nine. You guys know that tonight, last week, the Steelers game was thrown last week.

So that this week, the Steelers are playing who? The Ravens, right? The Steelers play the Ravens big at 8.20 tonight, right? So in Psalm 147, I just want to speak this out for the Ravens.

147, nine says, he gives to the beast its food and to the young Ravens that cry. So even when the Ravens go home tonight full of tears, there's hope that God will still even take care of them amidst their loss. So we just want to release that today, say God bless the Steelers as they move one game closer to the Super Bowl. Is there any, can I, no, Amen's there?

I got no, Amen's on that one. You guys need to know when we talk about the history of city reach, this is a Steelers church. You just need to know that. So we've been a Steelers church since we launched in 2015.

If you didn't know that, I'm just letting you know, maybe you didn't know what you were getting into. And Pastor Seth can cover that a little bit more on Vision Night and we'll talk about how that fits in. Now I'm just kidding. Well, we're Pastor Seth really launched.

We have two words that he's given us for this year, one being the word behold. And the other the word prosper. And last week he kind of kicked off, or not con, he did. He did a great job kicked off the theme of the word prosper.

And it's a word that God's releasing and has released to our church for this season, for this year. We want to bring understanding to this word. I want you to get this word down in your spirit because God has a lot of things that he wants to teach us, to show us and ultimately do through us as we begin to meditate and understand this word to a little bit deeper level. So last week, Pastor Seth kicked off the title of my message today is principles of prosperity.

Principles of prosperity. So we're gonna look at a few principles. We're gonna look at the story of Joseph and just a short passage of Joseph, or Genesis chapter 39. And we're gonna be reading verses one through six when we get there.

So Genesis 39, one through six. And last week, Pastor Seth talked from the book of Joshua chapter one, great passage. And he talked about how the word prosper means to advance, how that prosper means to go forward and to make progress. And from Joshua one eight, and I'm not gonna resummarize his message, but it says, Joshua says to the people, it says that this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but in it you shall meditate day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it.

And then you shall make your way, say it, prosperous, or you guys awake. I'm wondering if it's not even up there. And then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. So that as he taught us that there's principles within the Bible and as we meditate on them, and as we understand them, and as we observe and obey them, there is then the potential that we make our way prosperous, and then we have experience and have good success.

And the word, I just wanna put it up there, the word prosperous, now there's two words prosperous in that passage, but this is the one I wanna focus on today because it's the same one that's used in the story of Joseph. It means to advance, as Master Seth said, to advance, to prosper, to make progress, to succeed or to be profitable, to make prosperous, cause to prosper, be successful, or experience prosperity. And a little bit later, we're gonna look at why we tend to, a lot of times when we hear the word prosper, prosperity, it might make you feel a certain way, you maybe have had bad teaching about it. I wanna look a little bit later in the message at how the dictionary defines prosperity, because I think that is where we get the wrong perspective, and then how the Bible defines prosperity, cause they're really two different things.

I just wanna tell you this, that finances never define prosperity, that the amount of wealth or finance that someone or possession somebody accumulates, it doesn't define prosperity. It's a component of it, but it's not the definition of it. And we're gonna look at how God, or God's word defines prosperity today. I want you to know this before we get started, because a lot of people are like, well, God doesn't, you know, does God really concerned about prosperity?

I want you to know that to not prosper is part of the curse. So if you remember, when Moses is launching the people, he's turning them over to Joshua, he talks in Deuteronomy before they go into the promise lane, he kind of recounts everything that God said to them up to those 40 years. And in Deuteronomy chapter 28, the first 15 verses of that chapter have to deal, maybe 14, have to deal with the blessings due to obedience. And then verses 15 through about 60 something, the whole rest of the chapter have to do with the curse that comes as a part of disobedience.

Now, we don't live under the law today, but I want you to see this. It says in Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 29, it says, you shall grope. Now, grope, it doesn't mean like we might think of groping a person. It's talking about groping around as a blind person.

Imagine a blind person that can't find something, and they're looking around grasping for it. It says, you shall grope at Nune Day as a blind man in groves and darkness, you shall not prosper. Same word, it's the identical, same word. So part of the curse of the law was that the people of Israel would not prosper.

He says, you will not prosper in your ways, you shall be only oppressed, which means to have injustice done to you, and you shall be plundered, which means you're gonna be robbed and stolen from continually, and no one will be able to save you. That's part of the curse of the law. So too, not prosper as part of the curse, but the good news is this. What has Jesus redeemed us from?

The curse of the law. So to not prosper is part of the curse of the law, but under the new covenant, Jesus, by the payment of his blood and his perfect obedience, has redeemed or made the payment for or purchased us from the curse of the law. It says in Galatians chapter three, verses 13 to 14, it says that Christ has redeemed us from what? The curse of the law.

And what did I just tell you? Part of the curse of the law was not prospering. So Jesus' payment at the cross redeemed us, bought us out of the place of not prospering. And he's brought us from a place of not prospering to a place of prospering.

It's part of being a new covenant believer. It says he's redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. He's talking about Jesus' payment.

That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through faith that they might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. So I don't want to get into teaching on the blessing of Abraham and all that, but it's just that I want you to know that not prospering part of the curse of the law, the payment of Jesus has redeemed us from that. And because he's redeemed us from that, now the blessing of Abraham, the blessings that God has for us, he's made it so that we can now be prosperous based on what he did and not based on what we do. So prosperity is always based on what Jesus did, just as blessing is, we're blessed because of what he did.

It says in third John chapter one verse two, I don't think I have the verse up there, but it says, it says, be loved, be loved. You speaking, some people say that the apostle John is speaking only to Gaius who he wrote third John two. I believe when I read the Bible, I read it as a letter from God to me, right? God's word is inspired by God.

It's God breathed. And it was written by men that he breathed his words into. And so when I read beloved, that's for me, he said, beloved in third John one too, it says beloved, I wish that you may prosper in all things. He says, I want you to prosper in everything and be healthy, be in health, even as your soul prospers.

I'm gonna touch on that later today, but it's the desire, I want you to know this, it's your new covenant right, it's one of your new covenant benefits to prosper, to be prosperous, to experience prosperity is a new covenant benefit of anybody that's put their faith in Jesus. So how many have put their faith in Jesus? Say it is my new covenant right, to prosper, prosper. You need to get that inside, you need to realize that part of what Jesus paid for, a piece of the atonement is that you would no longer not prosper, but that you would prosper.

They did it for you, it's part of your new covenant benefit. All right, so I wanna look at Genesis chapter 39, we're gonna read verses one through six today, and then we're gonna look at three things, three principles of prosperity as we look at that. So Genesis 39, how many know the story of Joseph? Anybody familiar with the story, Joseph?

I see you a couple hands. So just quick, quick, quick back story, because Joseph starts in chapter 37, skips chapter 38, then Joseph is from 39 all the way really to chapter 50. So he takes up a large portion of the book of Genesis, but basically of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob has 12 sons, Joseph is the 11th of those 12 sons, his brothers hated them because he had dreams, he had this, God gives him these prophetic dreams about how he's gonna rule one day, and for whatever reason he tells his brother, they hate his guts, they throw him in a pit, they strip him from all his clothes, they tell his brother that he died and got eaten by an animal, and then they sell him to Ishmael like traitors, those traitors sell him to Potiphar, he works in Potiphar's house, Potiphar's wife accuses him of adultery, Potiphar throws him into prison, he runs into a baker and a butler there, and they have a dream, and he interprets it, and then on and on, and then he, and they remember two years later, and then he interprets the dream for Pharaoh, and then long story short, all that, he ends up being the second most prominent person, really the prime minister in all of Egypt. So there's this whole story of really ups and downs, and forward and backward, and God working on him and through him, but we're just looking at a small portion of that today.

And so I just wanna bring out a few things about prosperity today. So Genesis chapter 39, and it says in verse, I encourage you to go back and read that, it's a great story, there's so many things in the story of Joseph. It says, now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, and Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. His brothers sell him to these Ishmaelite traitors, these guys that they buy and sell people.

If you go back into the prior chapter, they bought him for 20 pieces of silver. And then when they get to Egypt, Pharaoh has a guy who's the captain of the guard named Potiphar, Potiphar then buys Joseph from them. So it's the second time he's been sold as a slave. And verse two says, the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his master of the Egyptian.

That word successful is our same word, prosper, or prosperous, same word. And the master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him, and then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority. So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house, and all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptians' house for Joseph's sake, and the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field.

And then he left all that he had in Joseph's hand, and he did not know what he had, except for the bread which he ate, at speaking in Potiphar. Now Joseph was a handsome, was handsome in form and appearance. I like that part. A lot of translations say he was well-built and good-looking.

I'm not sure why they put that at the end of verse six. It really should go with verse seven, because then it talks about how Potiphar's wife was attracted to him. So here we have this story of Joseph, who's not only betrayed by his brothers, hated by his brothers, lied about by his brothers, but now stripped of everything he has, when you would sell a slave at that time, of course they stripped him when they threw him in the pit, but when you'd sell someone in the slavery, you were sold completely naked. You were sold naked so that you could be inspected.

Looked at, they wanna inspect the person that they're purchasing. And so this is not just the first time that this has happened, but now the second time this has happened, and he ends up in this guy's house, and he begins to do well in this person's house. But I wanna just point out a couple things, because a lot of times when we hear the word prosperity, or to prosper, what do we think of? One word, money, right?

We think of money. And here's why I think that, look at how our dictionaries define prosperity. The Oxford dictionary, successful in material terms, flourishing financially. Miriam Webster, marked by success or economic well-being, or dictionary.com, which is a newer one, having financial success or good fortune.

So when we read that, when we hear the word prosperity, if we have any understanding of the English language, our mind instantly goes to one thing. Money, we think of money, we think of possessions, we think to be well-off financially, but that's not how the Bible defines prosperity. What I like to do is not just look at the definition of the word that we looked at, which means to advance, it means to progress to go forward, but I like to let the Bible interpret itself, right? So if we look at how does the Bible, the Bible defines prosperity.

Verse two says this, the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man. The amplified version says the Lord was with Joseph, and he, though a slave, was a successful and prosperous man. Think about that. The Bible defines Joseph as being prosperous when he was a slave.

He was stripped of everything. He had no money, he had no possessions, he had no position, he was the most menial person and position that you could imagine. He had nothing, he'd been stripped of everything, but the Bible says that he was successful, the Bible says that he was prosperous because of one thing. He had nothing that we would think of in terms of being prosperous, but he had the one thing that mattered.

The Bible says that the Lord was with him, and he was prosperous. The young's literal translation, the wild, he says, and Jehovah, it puts it in a little different tense. It says Jehovah is with Joseph, and he is a prosperous man. I think it's interesting, I love that they translate that, Jehovah, so the word Lord there, LORD is the word Jehovah.

I found it interesting this week that the name Joseph means this, Jehovah has added. Joseph means, you guys wanna learn Hebrew word, we're gonna make it, we're gonna English-ize it. When somebody slides into home plate and they don't get taken, yo safe, yo safe. Right, so that's how you say it, yo safe.

So you can remember that. Little baseball for you today, but Joseph means Jehovah has added. It comes from the word you sapp which means to add, to increase, to do more, or to do it again. I want you to get this in your spirit today.

Jehovah is a God of increase. Jehovah adds, he doesn't take away. Jehovah increases, he doesn't decrease. It says in the Bible, it says that unto you, a child is born, unto you, a son is given, the government shall be on his shoulders.

He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father, and of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end, which means that his peace is actually, it's always increasing, his rule, there's no end to the increase of it, he's continually increasing. So that he's a God that increases, not decreases. He's a God that adds, not takes away. He's a God that doesn't just do it one time, but he does it again, to do again.

He doesn't just do a little, but he does more. We sang earlier, we were made for more, but we'd expect God to do less. If we sit here and sing, I was made for more, I was made for more, I was made for more. Wouldn't we expect God to do more?

If we're made for more, we serve a God that does more. He's got more for us. He never, like he never runs out. He never runs out, he never depletes.

You can't draw enough from him to ever take him into the negative, or even take him into a decrease. He is eternally full. God, Jehovah will increase, he'll do it again. So I want you to know this, I want you to think of this.

Person, not possessions. Person, not possessions. True biblical prosperity is the presence of someone with a capital S, not the possession of something. It's not what we have, it's who we have.

It's not what we have. It's who we have. See, if Joseph lived under the old covenant, under the old covenant, the Holy Spirit could only come upon people, right? He couldn't actually live inside of people because Jesus hadn't died yet.

He hadn't gone to the great. We couldn't be new creations under the old covenant, but the Holy Spirit could be with people. He could come upon people. We know, we just celebrated Christmas.

In Matthew 1, 23, it says, and the virgin shall conceive, and you shall call his name what? Emmanuel, which being translated is God with us. Jesus said, I will pray the Father, that He will send you another helper, another comforter, that He may dwell with you forever. The Spirit of Truth in the world cannot receive because they can neither see Him nor know Him, but you know Him because He is with you and He shall be in you.

So think about this, if Joseph was prosperous because of God's presence with Him, how much more should we be prosperous because of His presence, not just with us, but in us. He's not just with me. He's in me. I have Jehovah that adds in me.

And like a lot of times we don't want to say we're prosperous because it sounds like we're bragging, but I am blessed because Jesus is in me. I am prosperous because Jesus is in me. You are prosperous if Jesus is in you. Period.

Not defined by stuff, not defined by influence, access, position, none of it, but by Jesus and Jesus alone. And that's where it starts. See, if you get that one piece wrong, everything else is out of place. That's the foundation of prosperity.

That prosperity defined by the Bible is the presence of God, not just with me, but in me. What did Jesus say when He left His disciples? He says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them all things, whatsoever I have taught you. And then He finishes with, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Which means in that context, when they would go become disciple makers, they're gonna prosper at being disciple makers because of the presence of Jesus with them. Whenever He's with me, I can't help but to prosper because that's who He is. I can't help to advance, I can't help to go forward, I can't help to succeed because He's in me. When He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

What's my expectation? Like not just, it's just not a statement that I'm secure in my salvation. It's a prophetic declaration of my destiny while I'm here. It's not gonna just gonna get me to heaven.

It's gonna make me successful here. I'm gonna prosper here. I'm gonna see things work out for good here because He's in me. And if He's in you, same for you.

It's not, there's no difference. So three principles that I wanna talk to you about today from the story of Joseph, this, we're gonna start with the practice of prosperity. What do you mean by practice? The practice of prosperity.

Number two is gonna be the posture. The posture of prosperity. And number three, the purpose. I had about, this is another one.

I think I had eight things this week. And I thought I can't preach an eight point message. Only Seth can do that. So I'll leave that to Pastor Seth.

I just tried to ask the Lord, okay, what three do you want me to share this week? And there's so many more in just in these six verses. But I really felt that these three, the practice of prosperity, the posture of prosperity and the purpose of prosperity is really what God wants to speak to us today. I really, and I really want you to leave here thinking, understanding, knowing that you are prosperous.

You are successful because we look, because when we begin to define that by the world standard, like all it does is depress you, right? It doesn't matter how much, unless you're Elon Musk, there's always somebody that has more. There's always somebody that's got less. But when we define it the way the Bible does, we all got the same.

I don't have any more Jesus than you do. We got the same. We have the same level of prosperity if you've accepted Jesus as your Savior. There's no comparison, same.

So we have the practice. Think about, here's, I'm not talking about practice like the football team does out in practices. This isn't like practice makes perfect. The practice I'm talking about is this, to put something into practice.

To put something into practice is to turn an idea. It's to turn a theory. It's to turn a plan. It means to turn some sort of knowledge into action.

I'm turning knowledge into action. I'm turning a theory into action. I'm turning some plan or something into action. And in this case, what I'm doing, I'm turning doctrine.

It's not a theory. It's not just some pie in the sky theory. This is biblical truth. This is God's word.

And I'm taking what's God's word, which is truth. And I'm turning that truth into action. I'm doing something with it. Do you remember when Pastor Seth talked from Joshua 1, 8, it says that you shall meditate in the book of the law day and night, that you may observe to do.

You gotta do something. You're not meditating on God's word, just to get smart. We're meditating on God's word so that it gets in us. And when it gets in us, it becomes part of us.

And when it becomes part of us, it actually moves me into action. And when I move, as I'm moving, that's when prosperity begins to become visible. So you might look around the room and everybody has the same is defined that you are prosperous, but not everybody experiences the same expression of that. Because there's something that you have to do with what you now know.

Like a lot of people are like, that's great truth. I received that. And I'm just going to go to bed and sleep on it. But you're going to see that wasn't Joseph's MO here.

He did something a little bit different. So verse 3 says this. It says, his master saw. And think about this.

This guy's in Egyptian. They worshiped the stars and the moon and all kinds of other gods with the little G. They were heathens. A heathen could recognize the presence of God on a man of God.

That's something to me. Like we might look around and we might recognize other believers because we're a believer. But your life should be such a demonstration of what God's done in you that even a non-believer should stand up and take notice. It says pot of her, the Egyptian.

A heathen. A demon God worshiping person saw it. It said that he saw God was with him and that the Lord made, look at this, all. It didn't say that some of the stuff that he did.

Do you remember the verse in 3 John 1, 2? It says, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things. So it's possible. It's possible.

See, a lot of times we look at our experience or we look at the experience of others and say, well, they failed. It didn't work for them. Well, that's where we fall. When we bring scripture down to the level of experience, we just water it down.

What we need to do is when we see a gap between experience and truth, OK, here's what God's word says, what am I missing? Because this is the standard. My experience is never the standard. The Bible said Joseph under an old covenant that had God with him, but not in him, prospered in all things.

It says the Lord made all that he, what? Here's where we don't like. I don't even, it's like quiet, it's a church mouse in here. Everybody wants to say prosper, but nobody wants to say work.

See, it says that the Lord made everything all that he did to prosper where? In his hand, he had to do something. See, we don't earn God's favor. We don't earn God's blessing by what we do.

But once it's been given to us as a steward, I now have a responsibility to do something. If you think about the parable of the talents, right, one guy gets five, one guy gets two, and one guy gets one. The guy that got five, Matthew chapter 25, verses 16 through 18 says, the guy that got two, and the guy that got five, they went out and traded with them. The word traded is the word work.

They put them to work. They did something with them. The guy that got one, he went out and did something also. What did he do?

He buried it. The two that did something, the two that took what they had and worked with it, the master, when he was back, he says, well done, good and faithful servant. The guy that buried it, he says, you're a wicked and lazy servant. So when God gives you something, it's one thing to say, well, I'm prosperous, great.

What are you doing with it? What are you doing with what God's entrusted you? See, he says that he prospered all that he did in his hands. This was Joseph's, this wasn't just a one time event.

If you look at the next chapter, look at the, okay, so think about this. His, his, Potiphar's wife accuses him of trying to, to rape her. Potiphar throws Joseph into prison, but Joseph does, he has the same experience in prison that he had in Potiphar's house. So he's in prison, later in the chapter, says the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand, all the prisoners who were in the prison, whatever they did there, it was his doing.

The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under, think about this. What a blessing you could be to your employer or your manager if you did such a good job that they never had to inspect it. That was always taught, inspect what you expect. That was, that was my role.

Like, inspect what you expect. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna do your job, but I'm gonna check, I'm gonna check it. I'm gonna double check it. Joseph did such a good job with what he did that the keeper of the prison didn't ever even need to double check it.

What a blessing he was to that guy. It says he didn't look into anything under Joseph's authority because the Lord was, here it is, the Lord was what? With him. With him defined his prosperity, but he didn't sit on his rear end being prosperous.

It says, and whatever, and the Lord was with him and whatever he did, what? The Lord made it to prosper. I'm encouraging you today that you need to, you need to do something. You need to put your hand to something.

You need to get your hand engaged in doing something. When, now, now, granted we're not under the curse of the old covenant, but part of the blessing of the old covenant, it says in Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 8, and also verse 12, it says this, next slide. I think it's the next slide. It's it, no, that's not it.

We're way ahead there. Go back. There we go. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and what?

How will you set your hand? So God's going to bless you, but when the blessing is on you, see what you do activates and releases what's in you. See, you're prosperous because he's in you. You're prosperous because he's with you.

That's your identity. You're prosperous because he's with you. That's identity. But it's your activity that releases and manifests that into your life and ultimately as we're going to see into the life of other people.

You got to do something with it. He blesses the work of your hand. He blesses the work of your hand. It doesn't matter what you have.

What Joseph started with nothing, right? You don't have anything. All he had was he had the presence of God with him and he obeyed what he was told to do. That's it.

Ain't nothing. Ain't he money to start with? He didn't have any position and influence. Nothing.

He had God. He had God. That's it. Look where he went with God.

I mean, where could we go if we launched into Cumberland with that mindset that when I walk out those doors, when I walk into my home, when I walk into my neighborhood, when I walk into the grocery store, when I walk into my job, I'm walking with God. And whatever I put in my hand to, he's going to prosper. See, it's not even me prospering it. It's me putting my hand to it.

He's still the one doing the miraculous. But I hate to say it. I got to give God something to work with. You got to give the guy something to work with.

Joseph's grandfather, Isaac, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joseph's grandfather, Isaac, Genesis 26. There's a famine in the land. There's nothing. Isaac, it says, I think in Genesis 26.12, it says Isaac sowed in the land that year and that year he reaped a hundred fold in a famine.

Do you realize he couldn't have reaped a hundred fold if he didn't sow? God could have been up there going, favor, favor, favor, blessing, blessing, blessing. But a hundred times zero is still zero. See, we stand here like this.

Like we're holding a big zero. And we want God to do something with nothing. God can always create out nothing. He created the world, but that's not the principle through which he works.

See when he entrusts something to us, we have it and then we start to do something with it. And then as we begin to move and do something with it, then he multiplies it. The bread that the little boy brought to Jesus, the five loaves and the two fish, they multiplied as Jesus blessed them, put them into disciples' hands. And as the disciples broke them, they multiplied.

If the disciples never broke them, guess what they wouldn't have done? They had to put their hand to something. And so there he take five loaves and two fish under the blessing of Jesus. If the disciples just stood there, there still would have been five and two.

But in those five and two was the potential to feed five thousand. But it didn't happen until they began to break them. And so God wants you. The principle, the first principle is that we have to take something that's doctrine and we're putting it into practice.

We're moving from theory to action. We're moving from doctrine to activity. We start from identity, but then we move into activity. We start to do something with what God's given us to do.

Part two is this. And you could probably make an argument, this was probably should go before the other one, but I'm just taking an order that they're written here, the posture, the posture of prosperity. What happens, a lot of times when people either rise in fame, rise in fortune, rise in possessions, what happens if they're, they get a big what? Get a big head, get a big ego, they become arrogant, they become cocky, better than all of a sudden they forget where they came from, all those things.

But I want you to see the posture of prosperity. The Joseph served, the practice of prosperity was his hands, but the posture of prosperity had to do with his heart. This is the heart of prosperity. This is the posture of prosperity.

I didn't put it in here, but one of my favorite pastors, the US Bill Johnson, I love one of his quotes that says that you rule with the heart of a servant and you serve with the heart of a king. That when you understand your identity in Christ that we're sons and daughters of the king, it actually changes the way you see situations and you're able to go low and serve people. And as you serve people, God begins to elevate you. It says, humble yourself in the sight of God.

Humble yourself. And he does what? See, we worry about getting raised up. He raises us up.

We, our job is to go low. Our job is to serve. It says in this, it says in verse 2, verse 4 says, Joseph found favorites, it's like, I served him. Speaking of serfs master, you might say this.

You're like, well, of course he served his master, right? He had to. Someone should catch us from that. That word serve.

I didn't put it up there. But it means to, it means to minister to. It's the identical same word all through the book of Exodus numbers that talks about the Aaronic priesthood, that the high priest Aaron, he ministered unto the Lord, how the priest ministered in their daily service. So it has to do with ministry, actually more than it has to do with serving in this context.

It means to wait upon, to wait on. Like we have a server, you get a restaurant. That server waits on you. But it also means this to contribute.

And when it comes, think about this, in context of your job, are you a contributor? Are you actually bringing something to the table? Are you actually bringing something where you're bringing value to that business? Are you bringing value to the ministry that you work in?

Whatever your ministry that you're volunteering in. Are you bringing value or are you just showing up? I like there was the guy John Maxwell, he's really old now, but anybody here at John Maxwell? He'd call people, he said, you're either a lifter or a leaner.

You can be a lifter, you can be somebody that comes in and you pick people up, or you can be that guy that drags everybody down. You're one or the other. You're either showing up to contribute to bring value to serve and do it with excellence, or you're just showing up to stand around. And he said that Joseph, I keep saying that Joseph served his master.

And like I said, you might say, well, he had to because he was a slave and this was his master, right? But this was his heart. And here's why. When he gets put into prison, flip over to the next slide, I think it's the next chapter, Genesis chapter 40, we're going to read verses one through four.

He gets put into prison because of a false accusation. In prison, it says it came to pass after these things, the butler in the baker, the king of Egypt, defended their lord and the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. So these guys, they offended Pharaoh, he puts them into prison.

And it says when he, and he puts them in the same place Joseph was. Verse three says, so he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard. That's Potiphar. He puts them in the house of Potiphar in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined, and the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, the butler and the baker, and he, Joseph, served them, the butler and the baker.

So they were in custody for a while. Imagine this. You might say, well, Joseph had to serve his master because he was a slave. But I want to propose to you that his hard attitude was a hard of service because when he's put in prison, he gets elevated to the top guy in prison, and even the people that were put underneath of him, he served them.

He served his superiors, but he also served his subordinates. That's the heart of service. That's the posture of prosperity. I'm not just serving somebody because I'm told to.

I'm not serving because I have to. I'm actually serving people that are under my authority. Who does that sound like? You guys aren't sure.

Who does it sound like in the New Testament? The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. It says in Mark chapter 10. See when the disciples are saying, hey, when you come into your kingdom, I think it's James and John, they can one of us sit on your right and one sit on your left and Jesus said that's not mine to give and the other disciples get real angry.

Jesus never. He never scolds them for aspiring to greatness. He never says, you know what? That's a wrong desire.

He doesn't scold them for the desire, but he scolds them and rebukes them on the way to get there. He said the desire is not wrong, but the way you get there, the way you're trying to get there is what's wrong. He says that if you're going to be first, you start by being last. If you're going to be the master of all, you become the servant of everyone.

He said, even the son of man did not come to serve but to be served, he gave his life a ransom for many. He says, if you want to go high, you start by going low. You start low. You serve your way up.

See, when I come into a situation understanding who I am in Christ, like if I come in and I know that I am prosperous because God is in me, I can clean toilets and do it with excellence. I can scrub the floor and do it with excellence. I can serve anybody and do it with excellence because my prosperity is not defined by what I do, but it's defined by who's in me. It changes the way I serve people.

See, Paul said this about Jesus Christ in Philippians 2. He says, let this mind. Let this mind. He says, I want you to have, like we know we have the mind of Christ, right?

We do, but we have to allow it to permeate our thinking. He said, have this mindset. Think this way. See, if we think poverty, we're going to be and do poverty.

We have to think from the standpoint of my position in Christ seated at the right hand of the Father. That's where I think from. But it says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but took upon him, but was made up, but made himself a no reputation taking upon the form of a bond-servant or servant made in the likeness of man that Jesus laid aside everything. See, Jesus didn't quit being God.

He never stopped being God. But he laid that aside so that he could come like us, humble himself, and serve us. He served people that were his subjects. And that's what we do when we understand that we're prosperous because God's in us, I can serve anybody with a smile.

I can serve anybody. I can love anybody. He loved me. I love them.

He served me. Like he said the ultimate example. It's not hard. But it comes from understanding identity and then having the right heart attitude, putting that into action, not just from theory, but taking from doctrine now to activity and doing it with the right attitude.

And all of a sudden, things will start to explode. God's favor is on that. The final thing is this, the purpose, the purpose of prosperity. That's all well and good.

God's not opposed to you having things. God wants you to be blessed. God wants you to be to experience all the good things in life. But that's not his best.

The purpose, the ultimate purpose of God's prosperity, not just in you, but through you, what you put your hand to is so that you can release that into somebody else. Like it's not for you. It's not for you. See, when we go about trying to get prosperous, first of all, we have the wrong mindset, but too, we're going about it for the wrong reason.

Like I want to succeed so I can help more people. There's nothing better than that. I want to be prosperous so I can give back more. I want God to, God's blessing in my life so I can meet more needs.

God will meet your needs. He supplies everything. But he's a God that brings abundant life. It's more than enough.

The more than enough is for somebody else. And God actually can flow through you in such a way that, look at this, it says, so it was in verse 5 from the time he made him overseer, all that he had that the Lord blessed. The Egyptian. God blessed the devil-worshipping Egyptian, he then, for what?

Because of Joseph's sake. The word Egypt means double straits. It means double straits. It's like double trouble, right?

God blessed double trouble because of Joseph. God had, Jehovah will add. It doesn't matter how bad the situation. It doesn't matter if it's a double strait, double trouble.

It doesn't matter how bad it is. When you begin to walk into that and begin to put your hand to something, all of a sudden the blessing of God begins to flow through you. And because of you, God's blessing is coming on somebody that doesn't even deserve it. None of us deserve it, right?

None of us deserve it. But guess what happens when your job that you work at begins to prosper because God's favor is on you and all of a sudden the person that guy or woman that you work for that are not even saved, that God's favor touches them because of you, guess what you're going to have an opportunity to do? They're going to be open to the gospel. They're going to be open to the gospel.

See, too often, you know, really at the heart of it to bless somebody is to speak positively of them. If you go back to Genesis 1 and says, and God blessed them and said, we blessed by staying. Most of us, I don't know why I'm saying this right now, but some of you just need to get your mouth in order first. We want our community to be prosperous.

We want our community to be blessed, but we down the people that run it. We down the people that are working for the city or for the county or for the state or for our nation or whoever. We want our country to be blessed. We want our state to be blessed.

We want Cumberland to be blessed. But we're starting off by releasing curses instead of blessing. Somebody needs to hear that today. Someone, you need to get your mouth in check.

It says that, go back to the slide, would you? Keep going back. It says, the Lord blessed the Egyptians house for Joseph's sake. I pray that God blesses somebody else in your life for your sake.

I pray that God's favor is on you so strongly that unsafe friends, unsafe coworkers, unsafe managers, business owners, politicians, government officials, people in education, in every spectrum of our life that the blessing of God's release through you so much so that it impacts their life and it gives you an opportunity to talk about your Savior. So that's part of being a witness. How can I give testimony to the one that Jehovah that adds when I'm always speaking negative? I'm releasing decrease with my mouth but talking about how great God is over here.

Talk about your mouth and you're talking, you're walking, not lining up. Start right there. They got to agree. Is that a trash in your boss?

How about serving your boss? How about blessing them for once? Find one good thing they do. They might be horrible.

Imagine Joseph is a slave with nothing. He's been betrayed by his family. He's been lied about. He's been sold.

He's been forgotten in prison but he doesn't forget who he is. He always goes back to the foundation that I'm prosperous because God's with me. You can take everything I have but you can't take that. You can't take that from me.

Take the money. Take the buildings. Take the church. You can't take everything.

You can't take God from me. I will never leave you nor forsake you. God says to Joseph's great-grandfather Abraham. He says, I will bless you and make your name great.

And you will what? Be Genesis 12-2. You will be a blessing. I want you to be a blessing this year.

I want you to be a blessing. I want you to pray for God's favor to be activated in your life in such a way that you actually change not just the atmosphere but the direction and the bottom line and the prosperity, the place you work. Like I've told you for years. I want the people that attend here to be the best.

I'm the best of the best. You know, for ten years we've been known as the drug church. I'm not living in that grave. I'm not living in that identity.

Ten years from today they're going to call this the doctor church. Things are changing. You are prosperous. God's going to flow through you.

God's going to touch this city through you. Opening doors through you. Here's what I want to leave you with. I talked about Abraham.

God said, I'll bless you. You'll be a blessing. We talked about Isaac said he's so done a famine. God blessed him a hundredfolded in that same year.

How about Jacob who became Israel? This is Joseph's dad. Let me go back one slide. Let's say, ultimate purpose for your prosperity is for you to be a channel through which God can bless others through you.

That's it. That's it. It's not so you can have a bigger bank account so that we learn to become this funnel. Like God pours it in and it flows right out.

That we become this channel. I see like we're connected to heaven and earth and God is just releasing blessing through us into the city. The city reaches a channel. You're a channel.

You're part of something bigger than any one of us. But God's releasing this into the city through you. But on an individual basis, I want to give you this verse and you guys can take this with you. Maybe make this your verse of the year.

Unless you work for me. Then you don't. I'm just kidding. Don't go there yet.

Go back. Go back. Let me set it up. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

So Jacob goes to work for his uncle, Laban. Laban's a bad dude. He keeps changing Jacob's pay and won't let him leave. And remember, he works, I think, seven years to marry the pretty daughter and then he switches him at the last minute and he sneaks in the ugly daughter and he marries the ugly daughter and he doesn't realize until that night.

He pulls the veil off and then he works in another seven years to get the pretty daughter. This guy just does him wrong all the time. But what happens through all of that, because the favor of God is in that lineage, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Do you realize it's on you too?

That because of Christ that we tap into the blessing of Abraham, that that blessing didn't stop Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Put your name at the end of there. Because through Jesus it's on you too. But so he continues to work for his uncle, Laban.

And finally he says, you know what, I've had enough. I'm taking my kids. I'm out of here. I'm leaving.

And here's what Laban says to him. Next, it says, please stay. I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake. Then Laban said, name your wages and I will give it.

I pray this year for 2026 that you are so effective in walking out the fact that you're prosperous, that when you do such a good job in your profession, you do such a good job with your family, wherever your sphere of influence is, that they will beg you to stay. They'll beg you to stay. They'll say, name your price. Another thing John Maxwell used to say is that people don't pay for average.

People don't pay for average. If you're a five out of ten, playing the violin, no one's going to pay to come see that. You're going to have an empty theater. So you can't expect here when you're delivering here.

And so I encourage you, be excellent. Be faithful. Be the best. I mean, God, you have Jehovah that adds in you.

Let's pray.