Joseph-Loyalty Above Lust

Title: Joseph-Loyalty Above Lust

Date: 11/19/17

Place: BLCC

Text: Genesis 39.1-19

CT: We must maintain our loyalty to God.

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Sheila Walsh said our paradigm of what a Christian life is supposed to be hugely affects whether we become bitter or not. So many of the people I work with are dealing with disappointment. Disappointment with themselves and I sure understand that disappointment with other people, and disappointment with God because he doesn't do what we think he's going to do.

I got one of the most interesting letters at the 700 Club from a young woman in her mid-twenties who had cancer and MS. She said, "Sometimes I watch your program and I'm helped, and sometimes I want to take my shoe off and throw it through the screen."

I was so fascinated by her honesty, I called her. We became friends. One day she said, "One of the things I hate about what you do is you always present people whose marriages get better in 10 minutes, people who get healed, people who have the nice, packaged answers."

She said, "What about people like me who are dying and still love God? What about people who take very few steps, but every step leaves a big impression in the snow because it costs every ounce of strength they have left?"

She changed my perspective. Christianity is not this nice "everything's going to work out okay" attitude. When you think of Christ at the tomb of Lazarus, he wept because it wasn't supposed to be like this. He had spoken this beautiful world into existence and it was so broken, so messed up. I think one of the greatest gifts we can give is just a dose of reality that life down here is disappointing, that God doesn't always give us answers, but he does always give us himself.

Sheila Walsh, singer and author, a former co-host of the 700 Club, and now a speaker with Women of Faith, "Staying Alive," Leadership Journal (Summer 2002)

LS: Isn’t it great that God is always there with us. But it is true that things aren’t always going in our favor. There will be disappointments and painful moments in our lives. Yet if we follow Him and abide with him we will be guaranteed a positive outcome.

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Starting a new series today. Joseph. For the next few weeks we will be looking at the life of Joseph and how his life is such a powerful look at how we should react to God.

Joseph was the son of Jacob. He was the 11th son out of the 12 that would have the tribes of Israel named after them. The big problem for Joseph was his older brothers despised him.

Here’s why. Their father pampered Joseph like a prized calf. Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, but one love, Rachel. When Rachel died, Jacob kept her memory alive by fawning over their first son. The brothers worked all day. Joseph played all day. They wore clothes from a secondhand store. Jacob gave Joseph a hand-stitched, multicolored cloak with embroidered sleeves. They slept in the bunkhouse. He had a queen-sized bed in his own room. While they ran the family herd, Joseph, Daddy’s little darling, stayed home. Jacob treated the eleventh-born like a firstborn. The brothers spat at the sight of Joseph. To say the family was in crisis would be like saying a grass hut might be unstable in a hurricane.

Joseph had some dreams that made him look so much better than his brothers. They bowed to him in his dream. The dumb thing is he told them about it. They were not happy.

They got him away from his dad and threw him in a cistern and sold him to some Midianite merchants. He ended up in Egypt sold to Potiphar. Potiphar was one of the Pharaoh’s officials and we read how Potiphar felt about Joseph. [Screen 3]

Genesis 39. 1-6, 1 Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.