Joseph; An Undying Faith Series

Letting Your Faith do the Walking Part IX

Joseph’s Faith; An Undying Faith

Pm service August 10th 2008

Hebrews 11:22

Introduction

We have come to part nine in our series “letting your faith do the walking”, and we are walking through the eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews. Tonight we will be focusing our attention at the life of Joseph.

While Joseph was gathered with his children and grandchildren, he began speaking about the divine plan of God for him, his family and for his nation. He said to his family, in Genesis 50:24-25 “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you, and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel saying , God will surely visit you, and you shall carry my bones from this place.” When he spoke about his bones, he became qualified to join ranks those in the Hall of Faith.

What is amazing is that twenty-five percent of Genesis is devoted to the life of Joseph, but the Book of Hebrews records nothing of his pit, prison or palace experiences. Only Hebrews 11:22 mentions Joseph commenting about the Exodus and his command concerning his bones. By faith Joseph spoke concerning his bones.

In Hebrews 11:6, we read, “It is impossible to please God without faith.” If you please God, it does not really matter who you displease, but if you displease God, it does not really matter who you please. Some of the greatest lessons regarding living a Spirit-filled life of faith are found in the life and legacy of Joseph.

Tonight we are going to be looking back at the life of Joseph, and his unshakable faith.

Read Scriptures: Hebrews 11:22

I. Joseph’s Faith was a faith that believed God despite Circumstances.

Vs. 22 “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.”

If ever a person had an excuse to lose faith it was Joseph.

As a young man, he had been sold as a slave into Egypt, and remember it was his brothers that sold him.

While a slave, he was falsely accused by his master’s wife of trying to seduce her. He had rejected her advances, choosing to follow God in living righteously rather than enjoy the passing pleasure of sin.

He suffered imprisonment because the wife falsely charged him with assault. He suffered a long imprisonment for living according to God’s standards. (That should blow a hole in the boat of the prosperity gospel preachers)

He lived righteously and ministered to people in prison even when they ignored, neglected, and forgot all about him.

The point is this: Joseph never lost faith in the promises of God. He believed God and followed Him no matter the circumstances and no matter what the personal cost was to him. He is the perfect example of a MAN of GOD. Living far away from home in a pagan nation, he was a true man of integrity, he was a Man of God even when no one else was looking, even when circumstances could have pushed against God, he believed God in a foreign land, he was a man who demonstrated an undying faith.

What are you allowing the circumstances of life to do to you and your walk with Jesus Christ? Joseph was a man who believed God despite the circumstances.

II. Joseph’s Faith was a faith that acted despite the impossible

Vs. 22 “By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.”

This was Joseph’s great act of faith. After so many years in a foreign land, he still proclaimed the great promise of God: he believed beyond question that God was still on His Throne, and that He could and would fulfill His promise.

So often as we live out our Christian faith, years go by and circumstance after circumstance happens in our lives. Tragedy after tragedy occurs, problem and problem, sickness after sickness, and over time it tends to take a toll on us, and we begin to question what it is that we truly believe in.

I love to see a true older believer who has been through the fire, been through the circumstances, been through the tragedies of life, been through the sickness and pain, and they like Joseph still proclaim the promises of God.

Joseph believed that God had chosen his family to be the promised seed.

Joseph believed that God was going to give the promise land to his family.

Joseph was dying in a foreign land with his family settled and rooted in the land of Goshen, Egypt. Yet he believed the impossible: that God would someday move his family back to the land of Canaan and eventually give them that land.