5 Decisions You Must Make To Excel - Genesis 39 Series

…of these Bible stories and how important they are for their lives right now. They're not just things so that we could decorate our walls and have nursery rhymes before we go to bed. These stories are powerful in the lives of our children, you need to know. You need to know, son, that someday, maybe when you're in junior high, someone's going to tell you that you can't pray. You can't pray before a meal or they're going to laugh at you when you do. What are you going to do in that moment? Are you going to be like a Daniel? We need more Daniels in our lives in our world today. Why don't we tell the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who were told they had to bow down to the image because that's what the governing authorities were telling them he had to do. Are you going to just bow the knee? I mean, we're living in an age where there are situations that our young people find themselves in.

I want to tell you, if you're a young person, a high schooler going to a secular public school, you're going to face a challenge when there's going to be a gay pride day or gay pride week. And during that day or week, what they're going to do is everybody's going to wear tape on their mouth, or they're going to not speak during that time, or they're going to wear something that demonstrates that they are in support or supporting that lifestyle. What are you going to do? Because if you decide you're not going to participate in that, you will be scorned. We need more people like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that says I'm not going to bow to the current authorities or the current things are going on or to the culture. I'm going to take a stand for the Lord. How are we going to do that?

It's very important for children to understand the power of God's word. When we tell children the story of Noah, it's not just so we can put pictures up on the wall of animals and an ark. It's so that they can learn that here was a man who was laughed at because he was following the Lord. He was considered crazy.

I want you to know, children, when you go to college in a secular university there is a belief there that Christians are less intelligent than humanists. And when you face that the people will laugh, they'll think you're crazy to be a Christian. It's very important that we understand that things we're learning right now as we're going through God's word will help us as we deal with a war in a world that's becoming more and more anti-Christian, more and more hostile to Christianity.

We're studying the life of Joseph. Here's a guy who refuses the sexual advances from Potiphar's wife. He was able to say no. See, the question for our children and young people today isn't if they're going to see pornography. The question is when? And when they experience that, when they see it, what are they going to do? Are they going to be able to say no? That's the question. So as we study God's word, it's very practical. We must help children and young people ask the question, why is this passage here? How can I apply this to my life? How is it going to change me now and in the future? Because I'll just tell you, young people, you're going to have to make some tough decisions in your life. Having a foundation of God's word will help you and empower you to do that.

Now today as we look at the life of Joseph, we're going to see that Joseph is going to excel. He's going to be prosperous. He's going to rise to a place of fame and fortune, wealth. He's going to be right up there with his power at the top of the ladder, so to speak. Some of you will be in those kinds of positions. But today as we look at the story of Joseph in Genesis, 39, we're going to look at five decisions that you must make to excel. If you want to excel (and I think we all want to excel and move forward in our lives), there are five decisions that you need to make. We're going to look at those five decisions today as we open God's word in Genesis 39. Let's look at it and get started. I'll take the principles right out of the text so you can see where we're getting those and understand this is God's word that is presenting these ideas to us.

If you look at Genesis 39:1 it says – Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. If you remember the story, his brothers out of jealousy and hatred sold him into slavery and the Israelites took him from Israel down to Egypt.