Check Your Attitude - Genesis 40-41 Series

Now, Joseph, as he saying this is thinking about himself. Here's a guy going back into Pharaoh’s service. Well maybe someone could get me out of this place where I'm in. Let's go on. Verse 14 says – Only remember me, when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. Notice he calls it a house at this point. And so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.” Don't you feel like life is a pit sometimes? I think that's what Joseph is feeling to a certain extent. Maybe he's referring to the pit that his brothers threw him into before he was sold into slavery. But maybe he's referring to this house that he lives in as the pit because he doesn't want to be there. And sometimes our lives are in the pit.

Joseph, even though his life is in the pit, has an attitude about life, has these beliefs about God, that his emotions trail the beliefs. They don't go in front of the beliefs. They trail the beliefs. You see, if we allow our emotions to go in front, then we go all over the place. The arrow can't fly straight. But if the beliefs are the center part of the arrow, then that arrow can fly straight and the emotions follow. Emotions are good, they're not bad. They just can't lead us. If we're led by emotions, we find ourselves all over the place and we really get to be unstable. So it's this belief, trailed by emotions with action on the front, and Joseph is right there.

But he's saying, “Would you please help me? Maybe I can get out of this pit that I'm in.”

Verse 16 – When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was favorable, he said to Joseph, “I also had a dream.” Take my problem, put it into your worldview. What do you come up with? And so he says – “I had a dream; there were three cake baskets on my head, and in the uppermost basket there were all sorts of baked food for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating it out of the basket on my head.” And Joseph answered and said, “This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days. In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you.” Not so good.

I just want to point out that sometimes when you take your life and you put it into a biblical worldview, you see you got a lot of problems. Things are not going so well for you when the light is shone into your life. What a motivation for us to see I got a problem here. I need to do something about this.

I don't want you to think that we as a church or the Bible portrays just have a positive attitude. Have a positive attitude about life and everything's going to be fine. No. The attitudes are based on specific beliefs that we see in scripture that drive us forward.

Let's go on. On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he made a feast for all his servants and lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker among his servants. He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, and he placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand. But he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him. Oh those are sad words. Here's a guy who had some hope probably, that maybe he would get a good word, and maybe he could advance out of this prison that he's in, out of the pit of his life. But nope. It's not going to happen. Joseph needs to stay straight. The beliefs that he has are going to guide him through the challenges of life, and he's going to move forward in his life.