Overcomers Sermon Iii: Overcome Being Forgotten Series

Overcome Being Forgotten

“Gone, but not forgotten” is a phrase often used to express one’s sentiments on the anniversary of a loved one’s death; also, you may have seen it engraved on a grave marker in a cemetery. To be gone but not forgotten is one thing but to still be here and be forgotten is quite another!

It is commonly agreed among those of us who have spent years making “house calls”, or visiting folks in various types of home-away-from-home situations, that loneliness is the number one complaint we most often hear. There are, of course, times when any one of us might prefer to be alone and “away from it all” - as was the case every now and then during the ministry of Jesus. He advised His followers to do likewise if, for no other reason, to simply “rest awhile”. Time alone for meditation and prayer is indeed a good thing!

Yet, to go “day in and day out” with no familiar voices heard, no family faces seen, is to wonder if those who promised to “keep in touch” have forgotten - not a good feeling at all! We wait, and we wait, and we wait for them to keep their promise.

Waiting is probably the most difficult discipline in the Christian life. Most of us hate to wait! I know I do. Yet, all of us are waiting for something. We might as well get used to it. The question is, “What do we do while we wait”?

In this segment of Joseph’s story – chapter 40 - Joseph is waiting because there is nothing else he can do!

He can’t get out of prison. He can’t appeal his sentence. He certainly can’t escape. He’s stuck in an Egyptian prison, far from home where they think he’s dead. He is there because he has been falsely accused. Joseph waits to see what’s going to happen next . . . .

Listen to what Warren Wiersbe says about Joseph’s time in prison: “God permitted Joseph to be treated unjustly and put in prison to help build his character and prepare him for the tasks that lay ahead. The prison would be a school where Joseph would learn to wait on the Lord . . . He would learn that God’s delays are not God’s denials”.

So, what do we do while we wait - on the Lord’s next move . . . to see what happens next . . . to receive God’s instructions? Do what Joseph did:

Joseph attended to the needs of his fellow inmates – Genesis 40:1-4 . . .

Oftentimes, when we least expect it, we cross paths with someone sent our way providentially. An awareness that “this is of the Lord” consumes us, and we take on the person(s) as a “special project” inasmuch as we sense the Spirit of God working in and through this particular connection to bring about that which is in everyone’s best interests.

Joseph had no way of knowing what the final outcome would be, but he did know that God brought these two people into his presence for a reason, and that his response should be to attend them as best he could under the circumstances.

When such “opportunities” or “assignments” presented themselves to me during my ministry and it became clear to me that “this is of God”, my modus operandi has been, and still is, “Do whatever needs to be done whenever it needs to be done for as long as it needs to be done.”

In this regard, I have often quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. He put it this way: “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who did his job well.’”

Because God’s hand was upon him, Joseph was promoted by the captain of the prison to be in charge of all the other prisoners. He did whatever fell his lot as best he could. Little did he know that by taking care of them, he was advancing the cause of his own freedom! Attend the folks within your own “community” as well. You will be glad you did!

Joseph intended to do good not harm - Genesis 40:5-8 . . .

Intentionally Joseph responded to his fellow “inmates” by observing their emotional state and expressing concern, whereupon he lent them his listening ear, but did not make the mistake of presenting himself as an all-knowing one. Instead, he did what spiritually mature responders do: He pointed them to God to whom he would earnestly plead on their behalf! That is precisely what our Lord does for all we who like sheep have gone astray and turned to our own way.