Survivor – reality T.V. show. Contestants are dropped in a jungle zone where two teams compete for money and prizes. Teams vote on the performance of other tribe members and through the process eliminates other contestants. It finally comes down to one person who wins the prize and stakes claim to being the Sole Survivor.
Life is not as kind. Broken friendships, broken marriages, broken dreams, broken-down car; new schools, new jobs, no jobs; starting over, no where to start to pick up the pieces; abused, ostracized, isolated, lonely, desperate; tired. While I’m trying to encourage you to be aware of God here, now, your life might be in a tail-spin as you head for a crash of one sort or another.
Life is a jungle and you’re up to your throat in quicksand and would gladly grab a stick of hope but can’t seem to find one.
Let me offer you a stick. Grab hold of it and in the next few minutes, let’s get out of the mud together.
Before we can get on solid ground, we need to face the things that are pulling us under. While specifics are different, the outcomes generally have the same effect.
Looking to our role model, we consider a young man named Joseph and see him faced with
1. Wrecked relationships
a. Joseph was ostracized (Genesis 29:15-28)
- Jacob worked seven years for his uncle, to marry his cousin Rachel.
- Uncle Laban tricked Jacob and gave him his first-born daughter, Leah.
- Jacob worked another seven years and finally got Rachel but now had two wives, one he loved and the other he put up with.
- Rachel’s two sons by Jacob were yours truly, Joseph and his brother, Benjamin
- Joseph was favored by his father more than his half brothers born to his step-mother, Leah. His brothers hated him for it (Genesis 37:4)
There is nothing more exhausting and upsetting that creates anxiety and pain than ruptured relationships. The relationships that are most strained and damaged are those right at home – spouses, children and extended families, obviously so because these are the people closest to us. The only variation on this theme is the extent of the damage of the relationships. While some families only squabble about small stuff, kiss and make up, others are not even talking to each other or if they do speak it’s to inflict more pain and completely strip you of your value and self-worth.
Joseph has some answers for you in a moment. For now, hold on to the stick.
b. Joseph was isolated (Genesis 37:1-9)
- Joseph often reported his half-brothers’ questionable business practices to their father Jacob. That certainly made him popular at the Well during coffee break.
- He had strange dreams that painted him as superior to his half-brothers. They would one day bow to him and he’d be calling the shots
- Integrity and truth isolates.
If many people here open their deepest self, we would likely see a lot of loneliness, aloneness and isolation.
Church Board meeting – conversation about our desperate need for small groups because so many people feel disconnected. One person’s eyes were brimming and would break with tears as she said, “I don’t have a connection here.” She represents many people who are just like her.
Joseph knows how you feel. He’s written the book on it!
c. Joseph was mistreated (Genesis 37:12-36)
- Jacob sent Joseph to Shechem to check in on his brothers who were tending their father’s flock of sheep. (Genesis 37:13)
- The brothers’ schemes went from deciding against killing him to selling him as a slave to a traveling caravan and finally lying about it as they took Joseph’s coat that was a gift from his father, dipped it in lamb’s blood and conjured up a story that wild animals killed and ate him. (How cruel, to not only lie that he was dead but to dream up a story that would tear the heart out of their old dad)
We could write a book on the stories in our church of school bullying, the person overlooked for a promotion because the boss “had a favorite” or another being hired for a new job and then laid off weeks later; people who for the first time in their lives don’t have enough resources to feed the families and paid their bills. “It’s just not fair.” You’re absolutely right it isn’t fair. Joseph wrote the book on that too. He’ll speak to it in a moment.
Joseph was not only a recipient of wrecked relationships but was well acquainted with
2. Social Injustice
Joseph’s first job as a slave was to attend to the property affairs for a man named Potiphar, Captain of the King’s guards. His bosses’ wife accused him of trying to rape her (all because he wouldn’t have anything to do with her), Potiphar threw him in prison, and Joseph spent 13 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Genesis 39 has the whole story.
There are many forms of social injustice. Poverty, employment discrimination, sex trafficking, disease and failing judicial systems to name a few. The bottom line of Joseph’s story represents a picture of a bigger problem. Joseph shows us that in varying forms, many people get what they don’t deserve. They work hard, pay their taxes, go to church and support its ministries, are kind to strangers and help their neighbours. Yet, life seems to have a choke-hold on joy and peace. Doing good is not a ticket to favourable experiences.
So what’s the answer Joseph? Which way do we turn with wrecked relationships or feelings of being ostracized, isolated, or mistreated? What do I do when people treat me unjustly? The answer is this:
3. God is in Your Jungle!
To make a very long story short, Joseph continued to be an outstanding young man even with all the odds stacked against him.
The great Pharaoh (a.k.a. President or Prime Minister) had strange dreams which led to a servant remembering Joseph, still in prison, who had the power, given by God, to interpret dreams. The Pharaoh called Joseph to the throne and Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams which spoke of an impending famine that would last for seven years. Seeing the power of God in Joseph, (though Pharaoh didn’t know Joseph’s God), he made Joseph the Vice-President and he was second in power only to Pharaoh. Joseph implemented a plan that would get the nation through the years of famine.
As a result, back in Canaan, dear old Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy food to keep the family alive. The half-brothers didn’t recognize Joseph with his manly features. Last time they saw him he was 17 and a grain of sand in the ointment of life. His amazing robes and head-piece added to the guise.
But Joseph recognized them. It’s odd how some things never seem to change.
Through a series of meetings, meals and mix-ups (intentional), Jacob came to Egypt to be face to face with his long-lost son Joseph. (Genesis 41 - 46:30)
Joseph’s jungle was a lifetime of family feuds, isolation, betrayal, threats and injustice. His brothers sold him as a slave when he was only 17 and he became Pharaoh’s right-hand man when he was 30 (Genesis 41:46).
Here’s how Joseph survived. He shares his faith journey in Genesis 45:1-15:
a. Joseph believed his journey was God’s design
- V 5 – “God did it.
- V 7 – “God has sent me here.
- V 8 – “Yes, it was God who sent me here, not you!
- Not comforting – still the experiences of…
- God’s design is not about comfort and favourable circumstances. It’s about the ability to endure because you know God is in it. (E.g. Joseph survived the injustice of prison because he knew God had a plan that was bigger than anything he could understand. Therefore he could endure).
Did God tell Joseph’s brothers to treat him so cruelly and sell him as a slave so he could pull this amazing stunt? Not at all. Joseph recognized that what his brothers intended as an evil act God used to his advantage to accomplish his purposes.
When we realize God teaches, equips and uses every situation we face, nothing is ever a wasted experience.
b. Joseph knew his purpose was God’s plan
- V 5 – “God did it. He sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives
- V 7 – “God has sent me here to keep you and your families alive so that you will become a great nation.
Joni Eareckson Tada – household name.
“One hot July afternoon in 1967, I dove into a shallow lake and my life changed forever. I suffered a spinal cord fracture that left me paralyzed from the neck down, without use of my hands and legs. Lying in my hospital bed, I tried desperately to make sense of the horrible turn of events. I begged friends to assist me in suicide.
Struggling with the question if paralysis was God’s plan she said, “I believe that God’s purpose in my accident was to turn a stubborn kid into a woman who would reflect patience, endurance and a lively, optimistic hope of the heavenly glories above.” Was the diving accident God’s means to teach the lessons and shape a life? Does it matter or is that the right question? Maybe the questions are not so important when we can learn the value in every experience that comes to us.
WRAP
- What’s your story?
- More important than questions is the discovery of God in the situations we face.
- Life’s not fair, bad things happen to good people but God can take all that and make something beautiful of it.
- Finding God in the jungle makes the heat, disease, and dense experiences manageable.
- Jesus in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
- Hebrews 13:5 (NASB), “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”
